| Description Of Item | Collection of notes under the heading ‘Feminine Insanity’ from the collection of Thomas Laycock. Consists of many pages of handwritten notes, along with numerous newspaper cuttings and other pages either inserted or pasted directly onto the pages.
The first two pages appear to be general writings on the symptoms, causes and presentation of feminine insanity.
The next section is entitled ‘Pyromania’. The first page of this section contains three newspaper cuttings, reporting various cases of arson. The first of these cuttings details the case of John Mara of Tipperary, who was charged by magistrates with burning a rick of hay and several houses belonging to other men. This cutting appears to be from the 25 October 1862 edition of the London Illustrated Times. The second cutting details the case of David Watson, sentenced to eight years of penal servitude for setting fire to stacks of wheat in Lochhend, South Leith. A version of this article appears in the 16 January 1868 issue of the Southern Reporter (Selkirk), but the exact source of this cutting could not be found. The final cutting on this page details the case of 16-year-old Mary Robson, the daughter of a farmer, who was found to have set fire to haystacks and a shed on her father’s property. The story is attributed to the Newcastle Chronicle, and a version of this article is found in the 7 October 1865 issue of the Leeds Mercury, but the source of this particular cutting could not be found.
The following pages contain pasted-in cuttings of an article that appears to be from the 19 January 1861 issue of the Yorkshire Gazette, titled ‘Extraordinary Arson Case at Whitby – Committal of the Prisoner’. The article details the case of Elizabeth Murray, a servant girl convicted of setting fire to her dwelling-house.
The next page is a handwritten note that appears to be discussing the ‘natural instincts’ at play in the selection of shelter, but much of the page is illegible and further details could not be confirmed.
Inserted between the previous page and the next is a note titled ‘Longing and [illegible]’, with a handwritten extract from the 1614 Jacobean comedy play ‘Bartholemew Fair’ by Ben Jonson. The extract is from Act I Scene V of the play. Below the quotation is written ‘see also my book for another quotation’; the author of this note is not known.
The following page contains newspaper cuttings of two articles. The first, titled ‘Case of Feigned Epilepsy – Introduction of Foreign Bodies into the Bladder’, details the case of 21-year-old Mary Jane C Mary was admitted to hospital complaining of urine retention and was provided a catheter. Upon losing the catheter and using a piece of tobacco-pipe instead, Mary returned to hospital to have a piece of the pipe surgically removed after it broke inside her bladder. Following this, Mary returned to hospital several more times, claiming to require further surgery and to be suffering from epilepsy – the author of the article, (Mr Roberts at York County Hospital) does not believe these claims to be genuine. The article is from the 6 October 1861 issue of the Medical Times and Gazette. The second cutting on this page details cases of ‘Alleged Simulated Chromhidrosis’ (the excretion of coloured sweat from the body) – the article is from the 10 Aug ust1861 issue of the Medical Times and Gazette.
The following three pages contain several more newspaper cuttings, containing reports of people behaving strangely, breaking windows and exhibiting disorderly conduct. The cases detailed in the cuttings on the first page are as follows: first, the case of 48-year-old Helen McDonald of Leith, a compulsive window-breaker; James Morrison, another compulsive window-breaker who had been imprisoned in both Edinburgh and Glasgow for the crime; Ann Reid, of Carlisle, convicted of breaking windows in York; and Sarah Acton, an ‘incorrigible’, charged with disorderly behaviour in the Castlegate area of Edinburgh.
The articles on the second page detail: spirit rappings (communication with a spirit through tapping on a table or other surface) which are attributed here not to unseen spirits but to the noise of a tendon moving through a groove in the ankle bone; stone-throwing and window-breaking in Darlington by a mysterious culprit, later found to be a local servant girl; ‘The Holy Maid of Montmiral’, a young woman who alleged saintly visions and the appearance of stigmata on her body, but who later admitted to causing the wounds herself; and the disorderly conduct of an 18-year-old servant girl named Elizabeth Cameron, of Falkirk.
The third page contains a single cutting of an article detailing the case of Robert Dennis Chantrell in Rottendean, found to be keeping a large number of cats (estimated in the article to number 100-200) and dogs, as well as a fox, a goat, and several birds, in poor condition in his home. This article was published in at least nineteen publications across the United Kingdom in May 1867, but the exact source of this cutting is unknown.
The next page contains both a handwritten note and a newspaper cutting, discussing the impulse in both birds and humans to provide warmth and protection for their young. The article details the ways in which megapodes, leipoa and brush-turkeys (all types of bird), construct mounds of leaves and other decaying material to provide incubation for their young. The information in the article is referred to in the handwritten note. The cutting appears to be from an article in the 31 May 1862 issue of the Medical Times and Gazette, discussing a lecture on birds given by Professor [Richard] Owen at the Government School of Mines (now part of Imperial College London).
The next page contains a short handwritten note entitled ‘Theft of Children (Natural Instincts)’, seemingly detailing a case of a woman who ‘stole’ two children from different families circa 1861. There seems also to be a reference to a journal or journal article in the note, but the handwriting is not entirely legible.
The next page contains notes on ‘infanticide’, detailing different forms and motivations, followed by further notes under the heading ‘kleptomania and its relation to utero-ovarian [illegible]’.
The following page is an insert on darker blue paper, detailing the case of 32-year-old Agnes Stuart, an epileptic and a ‘klept’ prone to violent outbursts, admitted for treatment on 30 April 1852. The note also discusses Janet [illegible] and [Betsy] [Maclean], both also suffering from kleptomania.
The following page contains a small newspaper cutting discussing the abolition of corporal punishment in female prisons in Prussia. Other versions of this article were found circa May 1868, but the exact source for this cutting was not located. Alongside the cutting there is also a handwritten note discussing ‘hysteria’ among female prisoners, with reference to the 1862 book ‘Female Life in Prison, by a Prison Matron’, written by F W Robinson.
The following page contains a newspaper cutting titled ‘Account of an Epidemic of Hysterical Demonomania’ by Dr [Augustin] Constans [French Inspector-General of Insane Asylums]. The article details the case of the ‘possession’ of more than 100 people in the village of Morzine, in the French Alps. Dr Constans described the outbreak as having a ’hysterical character’ and claimed that he was able to ‘cure’ the ‘possession’ by dismissing the village priest (who had been performing exorcisms on the affected), and instilling armed forces within the village, at which point ‘the people were intimidated’ and the alleged ‘possessions’ ceased. A version of this article appeared in the January 1863 edition of The Medical Critic and Psychological Journal, but the source of this specific cutting is not known.
The final pages contain handwritten notes on case studies of women who have exhibited signs of hysteria, insanity, or kleptomania. |