Madmen: A Social History of Madhouses, Mad-Doctors and Lunatics

What was it like to be insane in the Georgian England of Mary Wollstonecraft and Coleridge? Indeed, how was the most famous mad person of the century--Shelley's "old, mad, blind, despised king" George III--treated before his final descent into insanity in 1808? The best-selling popular historian, Roy Porter, looks at the bizarre and savage practices used by doctors for treating those afflicted by manias, ranging from huge doses of opium, blood-letting, and cold water immersion to beatings, confinement in cages, and blistering. The author also reveals how Bethlem--the London asylum created to care for the mentally sick of the capital--was riddled with sadism and embezzlement, and if that wasn't dehumanizing enough, ogling sightseers were permitted entry--for a fee of course.