‘An aid to mental health’: natural history, alienists and therapeutics in Victorian Scotland

Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 39 (3):326-337 (2008)
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Abstract

In the nineteenth century natural history was widely regarded as a rational and ‘distracting’ pursuit that countered the ill-effects, physical and mental, of urban life. This familiar argument was not only made by members of naturalists’ societies but was also borrowed and adapted by alienists concerned with the moral treatment of the insane. This paper examines the work of five long-serving superintendents in Victorian Scotland and uncovers the connections made between an interest in natural history and the management of mental disease. In addition to recovering a significant influence on the conduct of several alienists the paper explores arguments made outside the asylum walls in favour of natural history as an aid to mental health. Investigating the promotion of natural history as a therapeutic recreation in Scotland and elsewhere reveals more fully the moral and cultural significance attached to natural history pursuits in the nineteenth century

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Taxidermy as rhetoric of self-making: Charles Waterton (1782–1865), wandering naturalist.Cristina Grasseni - 1998 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 29 (2):269-294.
The Physiology of Mind, the Unity of Nature, and the Moral Order in Victorian Thought.L. S. Jacyna - 1981 - British Journal for the History of Science 14 (2):109-132.
Journal of mental science.[author unknown] - 1878 - Revue Philosophique de la France Et de l'Etranger 5:462-463.

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