By Jessie Foreman Warning: this blog post contains graphic descriptions of infanticide. Elizabeth Bathory, Myra Hindley, and Rose West: there is an enduring fascination with women who murder. Yet it is the women who choose to murder their own children (also known as filicide) who spark the most morbid interest for the rest of the …
Discrepancies in Early Modern Melancholy
By Mary Blomgren The notion that melancholy was a frequent disease in the 16th and 17th centuries was supported by a variety of scholars, including Robert Burton. His book, The Anatomy of Melancholy offered hundreds of pages describing causes, symptoms and cures for the disease. The idea that the country was facing an epidemic of melancholy was evident by …
Early Modern Melancholy
By Mary Blomgren Robert Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy is a combination of a medical text with a literary work of art. Although Burton was not a doctor, he was very interested in medicine and subsequently read a wide variety of texts on the subject. Throughout the book Burton integrates evidence and medicinal anecdotes from ancient doctors and …
The Art of Melancholy
By Lindsey Gosling Visual representations are an alternative avenue to pursue, when attempting to gain an understanding of the past. Works of art are more than just drawings and paintings, they are historical documents which contain important and insightful information about the experience of humans. By analysing works of art such as Albrecht Dürer’s Melencholia …
Insanire & Skhizein
By Shakor Paul Madness is not a term used today to describe a person with mental illness; however, in the Early Modern period, it was used to describe a wide variety of different mental illnesses. Looking into madness in this period, an exciting topic arose on how schizophrenia was perceived in this period. Schizophrenia caught …
Self-Murder
By Lindsey Gosling Warning: this blog post discusses issues of a sensitive nature. During a visit to the University of Essex’s Special Collections, whilst pursuing a number of early modern household books, I came across the term ‘self-murder’ in George Cheyne’s A Treatise on Health and Long Life, (London, 1787), p. 142. Credit: The …
The Written Word on Mental Health
By Lindsey Gosling The Sick-Mans Rare Jewel was first published as a surgical text, containing ‘Remedies to every Disease, with the Description, Definition, Signs and Symptoms of those Diseases’. This version however was reprinted in 1674 for use in the home, ‘a piece profitable for every Person and Family, and all that Travel by Sea …
Maladies of the mind 