The Reality of Nervous Disorders in Britain, 1760-1820. (360G-Wellcome-079432_Z_06_Z)

The Reality of Nervous Disorders in Britain, 1760-1820 The purpose of my D.Phil, is to bring some much needed reality of the phenomenon of fashionable disorders. Instead of the usual theoretical, philosophical, and fictional discourse employed by previous historians, I have begun a detailed examination of newspapers, hospital registers, journals of sufferers, and the writings and case notes of various town doctors to determine the types of treatments given to nervous patients, their perceived chance of recovery from these disorders, as well as their number, class and location. My research also aims to explore the lives of the "nerve doctors", and to discover the motivations which drove so many of them to publish on the subject. It is only through this kind of a systematic review that the presence of fashionable disorders in the eighteenth century can effectively shed light on the boundaries of politeness and the extent to which fashion played a role in constructing the 'Age of Sensibility'. The plan for my research is threefold: I need to continue my study of the popular discourse surrounding nervous disorders, and to examine the lives and surviving records of the doctors treating nervous disorders, as well as the lives and experiences of their nervous patients. To date I have focused my attention on the sources available in Oxford's Bodleian library. The Bodleian's manuscript collections have also proved very helpful, providing me with unpublished letters and lecture notes by doctors like Thomas Beddoes and William Cullen. Aside from London, my research will necessarily take me to Scotland, as it was primarily the Scottish nerve doctors like William Cullen and John Gregory that taught British physicians from the 1750s to the end of the century. There is little question that the sources exist which will answer my questions regarding the reality of nervous disorders in the eighteenth century and will heighten our appreciation of the importance of this subject.