The Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences has just released its January 2010 issue online. Included in this issue is an article by Fulbright scholar Lawrence B. Goodheart. In “From Cure to Custodianship of the Insane Poor in Nineteenth-Century Connecticut” Goodheart provides an account of life at the Hospital for the insane at Middletown, Connecticut (pictured above). Connecticut, Goodheart argues, was the exception among Northeastern states in that it did not open a public institution for the insane until the latter half of the nineteenth century. In documenting the institution’s history Goodheart, examines how initiatives meant to cure individuals and return them to society in a timely manner failed. Rather, custodianship became the norm. The abstract to this article reads:

Connecticut was the exception among the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic states in not founding a public institution for the insane until after the Civil War when it opened the Hospital for the Insane at Middletown in 1868, a facility previously neglected by scholars. The state had relied on the expedient of subsidizing the impoverished at the private Hartford Retreat for the Insane that overtaxed that institution and left hundreds untreated. Despite abundant evidence to the contrary, well meaning officials oversold the idea that the Middletown site would promote cures and be cost effective. Continue reading “From Cure to Custodianship” →