ABSTRACT
The brain fever of the shoplifting Lydia Dixon’s and Jane Tyrwhitt’s claim of insanity in her trial for fraud hint at the evolution of a medical concept that alleviates the responsibility of the respectable, female criminal. Although technically a genderless ailment, kleptomania became a particularly female malady as the nineteenth century progressed and was attached to other female manias like hysteria. Along with the many developing female manias in medical science, the use of medical diagnoses to lessen the responsibility of female criminals emerged in English courts. The emergence of the kleptomaniac as particularly female malady relating to consumer crime developed due to the rising problem of consumer crime and in conjunction with actual cases. Throughout the debate over kleptomania and its many manifestations, doctors like Henry Maudsley continued to fight for the acceptance of the condition in the English justice system.
