OU - Theses

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Browsing OU - Theses by Degree Discipline "Master of Arts in History of Science, Technology, and Medicine"

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    Local Lunacy: A Legal, Political, and Spatial History of the Early British Psychiatric System and the Causes for the Lunacy and County Asylums Acts of 1845
    (2022-05-14) Coffman, Rivers; Crowther, Kathleen; Hale, Piers; Loraamm, Rebecca
    Between 1774 and 1845, British social outlook towards mental health changed drastically and a new wave of prominent medical people revolutionized the field. Quaker beliefs and Enlightenment philosophy influenced ideas of madness, treatment methods used to combat the affliction, and technologies implemented within mental healing spaces. These new techniques and philosophies eventually became the preeminent orthodoxy of the Victorian Age in Britain known as the “non-restraint” movement. These new ideas simultaneously occurred when British society shifted from mental healing in the home and local spaces to specialized institutions designed to care for Britons suffering from mental afflictions. Controversy and scandal followed in its wake, and many Britons petitioned Parliament to create a legal framework for patient protections, mental health institution oversight, and the creation of new institutions to treat pauper patients. Through observation and empirical data, Parliament conducted a three-year inquiry into the full state of insanity in Britain to find a solution to reform the struggling system. Parliament used three institutions and their techniques as a template for the new psychiatric system with standardized treatments and records overseen by the Lunacy Commission, a group of physicians, barristers, and layfolk. The Lunacy Commission and all the standards that Parliament created would coalesce into the Lunacy Act of 1845. However, another problem remained unresolved: the need for more facilities. Through demographic and geospatial analysis of one institution’s admissions, death, and discharge register, this paper reveals that the main causes for County Asylums Act of 1845 were spatial.
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    Nosology, Urban Infrastructure, and Public Health Discourse in 18th-century Philadelphia: An In-Depth Look at Fever Debates During the 1793 Yellow Fever Epidemic
    (2022-05) Root, Elizabeth; Crowther, Kathleen; Soppelsa, Peter; Nair, Aparna
    By the 1790s, Philadelphia was a thriving port city that saw numerous ships arriving daily from foreign ports throughout the Atlantic world. In 1793, many of these in-bound ships were not carrying the typical goods to be sold in the local market, but were instead carrying displaced Saint Domingans fleeing the bloody turmoil of the Haitian Revolution. Their arrival set off one of the biggest outbreaks of yellow fever Philadelphia had seen in over three decades. What resulted from this outbreak was a high number of victims and a fearful public demanding answers from their medical community. This paper takes an in-depth look at the state of Philadelphia just prior to the outbreak, the arguments of the nature of fever coming from prominent members of the medical community while they struggled to treat their patients, and the attempts made to slow the transmission of yellow fever both during and after the 1793 epidemic. The urban infrastructure of Philadelphia and quality of the city’s atmosphere were now being considered as potential contributors to the transmission of yellow fever throughout the city. These considerations changed how Philadelphia physicians understood the nature of yellow fever, as well as their recommendations to prevent its return in future years.