Photographs from An Illustrated Casebook of Victorian Psychiatric Patients in Bethlem Hospital

By Hering.

In the 1850's Henry Hering photographed patients at Bethlem (see Richard Dadd), his work being used for diagnostic purposes.

By Galton.

In the 1880's Francis Galton photographed patients, motivated by his interest in eugenics.

This fascinating book , showing photographs taken from the mid 1880's to the mid 1890's by Alfred Barker, Herbert Parker, Carbutt Fairbank and Horace Pring (all of whom were on the hospital staff) is going for a hundred quid on Amazon. In the book the photographs are accompanied by case summaries .


Presumed Curable: An Illustrated Casebook of Victorian Psychiatric Patients in Bethlem Hospital- Colin Gale & Robert J Howard
Wrightson Biomedical Publishing Ltd (2003)
ISBN-13: 978-1871816488

Herbert Gehr at Worcester, 1949.

Life Magazine (01.08.1949) featured photographs by Herbert Gehr (1910 - 1983) of Worcester Hospital for the Insane, Mass.

Another image from Kraepelin's textbook on psychiatry...

Another image from Kraepelin's textbook on psychiatry.

Richard Dadd

The painter Richard Dadd (1817-1886) photographed by Henry Hering at Bethlem Royal Hospital (c.1856).

A group of sufferers from Dementia Praecox (Schizophrenia)

Taken from Kraeplin's seminal textbook, 1899 edition.

The Insane Ward at the Naval Hospital , Vladivostok.

Photograph by John Van Rensslaer Hoff (c.1905)

Hugh Welch Diamond

Inmates of the Surrey County Asylum (England) -1850's- photographed by Dr Hugh Welch Diamond.

Waxy Flexibility...

Emil Kraepelin. Psychiatrie: Ein Lehrbuch fur Studirende und Aerzte. Sechste, vollstandig umgearbeitete Auflage. Leipzig: Verlag von Johann Ambrosius Barth, 1899.