Life in the Victorian Asylum
by Mark Stevens
The reissue of this book is most welcome. Mark Stevens does a good job in bringing to life the Victorian public asylum and the 19th-century approach to mental illness. The majority of the book is written in the present tense, as if it were a contemporary Victorian handbook for an asylum. It outlines to the prospective inpatient and their family what might be expected in terms of how the patient will be admitted. It also describes the asylum accommodation, the types of diagnosis, and the typical daily routine, treatment and care. The types of staff at the asylum are discussed together with their roles, and an explanation is given about what will happen after discharge if the patient is well enough to leave.
Readers may open this book expecting it to be crammed with horrors, whereas this is not the case. The use of restraints and sedating medicines are not viewed as routine, and the aim is to cure whenever possible rather than to create long-term inpatients. This book outlines the aspirations of the best of the Victorian asylums, but sadly as the era came to a close, the custodial function of asylums began to be prized more than their therapeutic role.
Published by Pen & Sword (originally 2014, reissued 2021) at £14.99 (pb), ISBN 9781526782090.
www.pen-and-sword.com
Review by Simon Fowler