Care and Treatment of the Mentally Ill in North Wales 1800-2000

Care and Treatment of the Mentally Ill in North Wales is a ground-breaking study of the history of insanity in north Wales over a period of two centuries. It follows the rise and fall of a 'total institution', the predominantly Welsh-language North Wales Hospital in Denbigh, from its origins as the North Wales Lunatic Asylum in 1848 to its closure in 1995. Pamela Michael makes extensive use of patient case notes in order to discuss life in an asylum, to look at changing diagnostic and treatment patterns, and to explore the ways in which ordinary people understood and experienced mental illness. Through an examination of the ways in which disruptive behaviour has been contained, she also considers the social and cultural meanings of mental illness in Wales over the past two hundred years. Care and Treatment is the first detailed history of an asylum in Wales, as well as being a important contribution to the sociology of mental illness. In its analysis of the interaction between events inside the asylum and changes in Welsh society beyond its walls, it offers a significant new perspective on the cultural history of Wales.