Dear all
I agree with David Leach's transcription of the certificate (having
recently looked at many patient case books from 19th-century asylums).
The 'paralysis' was most likely 'general paralysis of the insane',
later discovered to be the result of syphilitic infection. GPI was
almost always degenerative and fatal; one of the stages included mania.
According to the Hospital Records Database on the National Archives
website there are some records for Barnwood (opened 1860 as Barnwood
House Hospital for the Insane) in the Gloucestershire Records Office.
And there is a wikipedia entry for Barnwood House Hospital which might
be a start.
Lots of literature and archives for asylums generally.
Best wishes for the research
Lesley Hoskins
--
Dr Lesley Hoskins
Visiting Research Fellow
School of Geography
Queen Mary, University of London
Mile End Road
London E1 4NS
[log in to unmask]
Thesis: Reading the inventory: household goods, domestic cultures and
difference in England and Wales, 1841-1881
http://qmro.qmul.ac.uk/jspui/handle/123456789/1261
Forthcoming edited collection: Residential Institutions in Britain, 1725-1950:
Inmates and Environments, Pickering & Chatto www.pickeringchatto.com/inmates
Quoting Duncan Amos <[log in to unmask]>:
> Nick (and others)
>
> Now you have given me some options, I have blown the image up in a graphics
> program and I keep 'flicking back to it' to see what it looks like (my
> usual method - but without knowing any possible medical terms, completely
> useless!).
>
> I'm coming down in favour of:
>
> Paralysis
> 2 Years
> Acute Mania
> 2 Months
> Venous Apoplexy
> 26 Hours
> Certified
>
> Clearly there is no clue to the cause or severity of the paralysis but, to
> a non-medical person like me, the three would seem to be consistent with a
> series of '"strokes" although, from my limited experience of them, the
> mania is a little extreme.
>
> There are known to be a lot of "things going on" in his life around the
> 1860-61 timeframe (the exact nature of which I won't know until I can get
> to TNA Kew) but could the "Acute Mania" (if that's what it is) refer to
> what we might now call "a complete mental breakdown"?
>
> Obviously things migh become much clearer if I can locate patient records
> for Barnwood.
>
> Duncan
>
> Duncan Amos
> Oatlands Heritage Group
> www.oatlands-heritage.org
>
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