Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T04:57:04.454Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A doctor's dilemma: the case of William Harvey's mentally retarded nephew

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2009

Richard Neugebauer
Richard Neugebauer*
Affiliation:
Gertrude H. Sergievsky Center, Faculty of Medicine, Columbia University and the Epidemiology of Brain Disorders Department, NYS Psychiatric Institute, New York, USA
*
1Address for correspondence: Dr R. Neugebauer, Gertrude H. Sergievsky Center, The Faculty of Medicine, Columbia University, 630 West 168th Street, New York, NY 10032, USA.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Synopsis

In June 1637 William Harvey petitioned the Court of Wards and Liveries, a legal incompetency court in early modern England, for a grant of the custody of his mentally disabled nephew, William Fowke. ‘Idiocy’ and ‘lunacy’ were the two medico-legal categories for insanity used by the Court and Harvey requested that his nephew be inspected for idiocy. However, the legal and administrative history of the Court indicates that in the 1630s idiocy (but not lunacy) grants were prejudicial to the assets and economic security of retarded persons. Since petitioners' wishes, more than clinical status, usually determined the diagnostic label assigned to referred individuals, idiocy grants were not sought by persons of some social standing. Harvey's idiocy referral probably reflects his allegiance to his own clinical observations in the face of opposing social norms and family advantage.

Type
Original Articles
Information
Psychological Medicine , Volume 19 , Issue 3 , August 1989 , pp. 569 - 572
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Public Record Office references appear by permission of the Controller of HM Stationery Office.Google Scholar
An Exposition of Certaine Difficult and Obscure Words and Termes (1615). London.Google Scholar
Bell, H. E. (1953). An Introduction to the History and Records of the Court of Wards and Liveries. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.Google Scholar
Calendar of Inquisitions Miscellaneous (Chancery) (PRO, CIM) Preserved in the Public Record Office (Henry III 12 Richard II) Published HMSO: London (1916–1957), vols. I–IV.Google Scholar
Cowell, J. (1701). ‘Ideot’, in The Interpreter of Words and Termes. London.Google Scholar
Fisher, H. A. L. (ed.) (1911). The Collected Papers of Frederic William Maitland, Vol. II. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.Google Scholar
Hunt, D. G. & Phillips, J. F. (1954) Heywood & Massey, Court of Protection Practice (7th edn). Stevens & Sons: London.Google Scholar
Keynes, G. (1966). The Life of William Harvey, p. 132. Oxford University Press: London.Google Scholar
Luders, A., Tomlins, T. E., France, J., Raithby, J., Caley, T. & Elliott, R. (1810–1822). Statutes of the Realm. Record Commission: London.Google Scholar
Manuscript Collection, Cambridge University Library. Ee. 5.22, fo. 354Google Scholar
Manuscript Collection, Cambridge University Library Hh 2.1, fos 16v-18r.Google Scholar
Neugebauer, R. (1979). Medieval and early modern theories of mental illness. Archives of General Psychiatry 36, 477–483.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Neugebauer, R. (1976). Social class, mental illness and government policy in 16th and 17th century England. Ph.D. thesis. Columbia University, New York.Google Scholar
Neugebauer, R. (1978). Treatment of the mentally ill in medieval and early modern England: a reappraisal. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences 14, 158–169.3.0.CO;2-C>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Public Record Office, Kew, London. Neugebauer R. A Catalogue and Introduction to Wards 10 Miscellaneous, 1977.Google Scholar
PRO, Wards W9/163, fo. 79r.Google Scholar
PRO, Wards 10/45, part I.Google Scholar
PRO, Wards 9/92, fo. 618r.Google Scholar
PRO, Wards 9/86, fo. 299r.Google Scholar
PRO, Wards 10/67, examination of Mrs Katherine Tothill.Google Scholar
PRO, Wards 10/51, certificates.Google Scholar
PRO, Wards 9/87, fo. 141v.Google Scholar
PRO, Wards 10/42, part II, certificate of 3 02 1627.Google Scholar
PRO, Wards 9/88, fo. 447r.Google Scholar
PRO, Wards 9/93, fo. 103r.Google Scholar
PRO, Wards 9/219.Google Scholar