ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to supply a more detailed analysis of moral treatment, as practised at the Retreat during the first fifty years of its existence. During this period the institution was under the control of lay therapists and was unconstrained by externally imposed legislation. By the time that the Retreat opened its doors in 1796 moral treatment was not a novel phenomenon, so that rather than being a pioneer of such treatment, the York institution was a successful practitioner of received ideas. This era ended in 1846 after the Lunatics Act of 1845 made it necessary for the Retreat to appoint its first medical superintendent and also led to the first visit of state-appointed lunacy commissioners to the Retreat. The case of W. William illustrates in an extreme form the progress which could be achieved by the substitution of moral treatment at the Retreat for the traditional regimen of restraint which had been suffered by an insane person before admission.
