ABSTRACT
This chapter examines some of the times in western medical history when the difference between the ‘mad’ and the sane has seemed to blur a little. It is possible for everyone to be a little unreasonable. It is also possible for people considered insane to sometimes feel and think like someone who is not insane. These are possibilities that have occasionally been recognised. They have never, however, overcome a prevailing idea of black and white difference. They have often been identified by people who regard them more as interesting nuances than indicators of the impossibility of sanity. Beyond the immediate observation these nuances die away: especially, perhaps, at the level of cultural representation. The difference between the mad and the sane maintains itself—or is maintained, partly perhaps by a general desire to preserve the distinctiveness of the experience of sanity: of being able to feel and think that you have a healthy mind. Key sources include the work of Robert Burton, Michel Foucault, Jean-Etienne Dominique Esquirol, James Cowles Prichard, Jean-Martin Charcot and Herman Melville.
