The lunacy profession and its staff in the second half of the nineteenth century, with special reference to the West Riding Lunatic Asylum

The development of asylum doctors and superintendents into a profession took place in two main areas: in the pages of the professional journal and through the profession’s own organization, with its attempts at educational standards and entry-control. The Journal was to become truly the home of medical theory and speculation, whilst practical and administrative matters to do with the asylum itself, the cutting-edge of the profession’s dealings with insanity, were dropped altogether. The asylum was also able to supply the resources of its own pathology laboratory where not only anatomy but also vivisection was available as a teaching aid. The increasing workload in the already bulging asylums meant that medical officers were sometimes doubling for the superintendent while being expected also to cope with extra clerical duties. The lunatic asylum, as well as being a necessary research base, was also the launching-pad of the mental physicians’ own journal, which began life simply as The Asylum Journal in 1853.