3 10 61 https://nineteenthcenturydisability.org/files/original/f940507ad6ffc60de21b570554471496.jpg 0db5bb1781b1c60678f52b1fe8a25724 Omeka Image File The metadata element set that was included in the `files_images` table in previous versions of Omeka. These elements are common to all image files. Width 758 Height 487 Bit Depth 8 Channels 3 IPTC String copyright_notice:Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons by-nc 2.0 UK, see http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/indexplus/page/Prices.html byline:Wellcome Images object_name:L0035591 A Victorian ear trumpet headline:L0035591 A Victorian ear trumpet caption:L0035591 A Victorian ear trumpet Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images images@wellcome.ac.uk http://images.wellcome.ac.uk A Victorian ear trumpet swathed in black silk and lace mouning Photograph 19th century Published: - Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons by-nc 2.0 UK, see http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/indexplus/page/Prices.html IPTC Array a:5:{s:16:"copyright_notice";s:123:"Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons by-nc 2.0 UK, see http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/indexplus/page/Prices.html";s:6:"byline";s:15:"Wellcome Images";s:11:"object_name";s:32:"L0035591 A Victorian ear trumpet";s:8:"headline";s:32:"L0035591 A Victorian ear trumpet";s:7:"caption";s:360:"L0035591 A Victorian ear trumpet Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images images@wellcome.ac.uk http://images.wellcome.ac.uk A Victorian ear trumpet swathed in black silk and lace mouning Photograph 19th century Published: - Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons by-nc 2.0 UK, see http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/indexplus/page/Prices.html";} Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Description An account of the resource Photograph of a Victorian hearing trumpet swathed in black fabric and lace.  https://nineteenthcenturydisability.org/files/original/5c639dbba52e3fb9a04970fe57b20840.jpg 25c09d6a80556aadcfcd52b79326b57d Omeka Image File The metadata element set that was included in the `files_images` table in previous versions of Omeka. These elements are common to all image files. Width 788 Height 528 Bit Depth 8 Channels 3 IPTC String copyright_notice:Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons by-nc 2.0 UK, see http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/indexplus/page/Prices.html byline:Wellcome Images object_name:L0035592 A Victorian ear trumpet headline:L0035592 A Victorian ear trumpet caption:L0035592 A Victorian ear trumpet Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images images@wellcome.ac.uk http://images.wellcome.ac.uk A Victorian ear trumpet swathed in black silk and lace mouning Photograph 19th century Published: - Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons by-nc 2.0 UK, see http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/indexplus/page/Prices.html IPTC Array a:5:{s:16:"copyright_notice";s:123:"Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons by-nc 2.0 UK, see http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/indexplus/page/Prices.html";s:6:"byline";s:15:"Wellcome Images";s:11:"object_name";s:32:"L0035592 A Victorian ear trumpet";s:8:"headline";s:32:"L0035592 A Victorian ear trumpet";s:7:"caption";s:360:"L0035592 A Victorian ear trumpet Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images images@wellcome.ac.uk http://images.wellcome.ac.uk A Victorian ear trumpet swathed in black silk and lace mouning Photograph 19th century Published: - Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons by-nc 2.0 UK, see http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/indexplus/page/Prices.html";} Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Description An account of the resource This photograph of an ear trumpet swathed in black and lace is taken from the front of the device, showing the trumpet, whose copious fabric makes it look like a black pom-pom. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1837 to 1860 Description An account of the resource Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Ear Trumpet in Mourning Description An account of the resource The ear trumpet is among the earliest hearing aid devices designed to bring sound more effectively to the ear, dating to as early as 1800 when manufacturer Frederick Charles Rein opened shop in London (later becoming F.C. Rein & Son). They came in various designs from long trumpets 16” to 19” inches in length, to collapsible trumpets that could be placed in an individual’s pocket, banjo-styles, or bell/dome types that were popular for their ability to resonate sound effectively—the greater an individual’s hearing loss, the larger the instrument was recommended for use. These hearing trumpets, however, were very conspicuous devices and drew attention to an individual’s hearing loss. In the nineteenth century, a design trend towards hearing instruments favouring concealment became popular; large devices were redesigned to be worn on the person, as part of their attire, or masked as <a title="Ear Trumpet as Furniture" href="http://beckerexhibits.wustl.edu/did/19thcent/index.htm" target="_blank">furniture</a>. As hearing trumpets and devices became aesthetically appealing and socially acceptable, more individuals were making use of them to improve their hearing losses. This particular nineteenth-century hearing trumpet is a unique one, designed for use during a woman’s mourning period, to blend in with her clothes, as evident by the black fabric, lace, ribbon, and earpiece wrapping the device. It was likely constructed by one of the popular hearing aid instrument makers in London—F.C. Rein & Son, or T.Hawksley, Ltd., on Oxford Street, which was established in 1869 (later Hawksley & Sons). This hearing trumpet was part of the elaborate accoutrements of Victorian mourning inspired in part by Queen Victoria’s 40-year mourning period following the death of King Albert in 1861. Lavish funerals, formal garments, black-bordered stationery, were all part of the complicated and dignified mourning period, clearly an aspect for the wealthier parts of society, though in some cases these mourning rituals may served as sources of financial anxiety and commercial exploitations (Clewell 2004). The mourning period also invoked a strict and fashionable dress code which was applied rigorously to widows, who were required to wear full black mourning for at least <a title="Victorian mourning conventions" href="https://www.msu.edu/user/beltranm/mourning/mourning.htm" target="_blank">two years</a>. Extravagance and social emulation were part of the mourning rituals for the middle-classes and were reflected in fashion magazines such as Queen or Gentlewoman that outlined dictations for refinements and mourning and even updated mourning outfits according the latest season’s fashions (Jalland 1996:301). Advice manuals such as Manners and Rules of Good Society, or Solecisms to be Avoided (London: Frederick Warne & Co., 1887) also provided clear instructions for devotion to the mourning period. It was believed that mourning clothes, fashion, furniture, or even ear trumpets were the grieving family’s way of displaying their inner feelings over the loss of a loved one. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Uknown Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Jaipreet Viridi Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Photograph of a Victorian hearing trumpet swathed in black fabric and lace. Image courtesy <a title="Wellcome Images" href="http://wellcomeimages.org/" target="_blank">Wellcome Library, London</a> under a Creative Commons License (<a title="wellcome images" href="http://wellcomeimages.org/" target="_blank">Museum No. A129677</a> and <a title="Wellcome Images" href="Museum%20No%20A129677" target="_blank">Museum No A129677</a>). Relation A related resource <ul><li>Science Museum “Brought to Life” exhibit: Ear Trumpet c.1850-1910. <a href="http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/broughttolife/objects/display.aspx?id=92089">http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/broughttolife/objects/display.aspx?id=92089</a></li> <li>Bernard Becker Library Virtual Exhibit: Deafness in Disguise: Concealed Hearing Devices of the 19th and 20th Centuries <a href="http://beckerexhibits.wustl.edu/did/index.htm">http://beckerexhibits.wustl.edu/did/index.htm</a></li> <li>Tammy Clewell, “Consolation Refused: Virginia Woolf, The Great War, and Modernist Mourning,” Modern Fiction Studies 50.1 (2004): 197-223.</li> <li>Jalland, Pat. Death in the Victorian Family. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.</li> <li>Rothman, Heather, “Mourning in the Victorian Era.” Web. May 2013. <a href="http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/agunn/teaching/enl3251/vf/pres/rothman.htm">http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/agunn/teaching/enl3251/vf/pres/rothman.htm</a></li> <li>Berger, Kenneth W. The Hearing Aid, it’s Operation and Development. Michigan, USA: National Hearing Aid Society, 1970.</li> </ul> Deafness Material Culture Prosthesis Technology https://nineteenthcenturydisability.org/files/original/4a9f064106917802c6e0bd7beb312f7d.jpg 8a663bb92893d0b1a640cd261e95895f Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Text Any textual data included in the document. [T]he effectual head of the whole cretinous school [of fiction with characters with disability] is the renowned novel in which the hunchbacked lover watches the execution of his mistress from the tower of Notre-Dame;<a title="" href="#_ftn1">[1]</a> and its strength passes gradually away into the anatomical preparations, for the general market, of novels like Poor Miss Finch,<a title="" href="#_ftn2">[2]</a> in which the heroine is blind, the hero epileptic, and the obnoxious brother is found dead with his hands dropped off, in the Arctic regions.* … * The reader who cares to seek it may easily find medical evidence of the physical effects of certain states of brain disease in producing especially images of truncated and Hermes-like deformity<a title="" href="#_ftn3">[3]</a>, complicated with grossness. … In its grotesque and distorting power, it produced all the figures of the Lay Goblin,<a title="" href="#_ftn4">[4]</a> Pacolet,<a title="" href="#_ftn5">[5]</a> Flibbertigibbet,<a title="" href="#_ftn6">[6]</a> Cockledemoy,<a title="" href="#_ftn7">[7]</a> Geoffrey Hudson,<a title="" href="#_ftn8">[8]</a> Fenella,<a title="" href="#_ftn9">[9]</a> and Nectabanus<a title="" href="#_ftn10">[10]</a>; in Dickens it in like manner gives Quilp,<a title="" href="#_ftn11">[11]</a> Krook,<a title="" href="#_ftn12">[12]</a> Smike,<a title="" href="#_ftn13">[13]</a> Smallweed,<a title="" href="#_ftn14">[14]</a> Miss Mowcher,<a title="" href="#_ftn15">[15]</a> and the dwarfs and wax-work of Nell's caravan<a title="" href="#_ftn16">[16]</a>; and runs entirely wild in Barnaby Rudge<a title="" href="#_ftn17">[17]</a>, where, with a corps de drame composed of one idiot, two madmen, a gentleman fool who is also a villain, a shop-boy fool who is also a blackguard, a hangman, a shrivelled virago, and a doll in ribands—carrying this company through riot and fire, till he hangs the hangman, one of the madmen, his mother, and the idiot, runs the gentleman fool through in a bloody duel, and burns and crushes the shop-boy fool into shapelessness, he cannot yet be content without shooting the spare lover's leg off, and marrying him to the doll in a wooden one; the shapeless shop-boy being finally also married in two wooden ones. It is this mutilation, observe, which is the very sign manual of the plague; joined, in the artistic forms of it, with a love of thorniness… . The two frescoes in the colossal handbills which have lately decorated the streets of London (the baboon with the mirror,<a title="" href="#_ftn18">[18]</a> and the Maskelyne and Cooke decapitation<a title="" href="#_ftn19">[19]</a>) are the final English forms of Raphael's arabesque <a title="" href="#_ftn20">[20]</a>under this influence... . [I]t is always to be remembered that the evil and good are alike conditions of literal vision: and therefore also, inseparably connected with the state of the health. I believe the first elements of all Scott’s errors were in the milk of his consumptive nurse, which all but killed him as an infant … and was without doubt the cause of the teething fever that ended in his lameness. <div> <h3>Notes</h3> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[1]</a> Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1831). </div> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[2]</a> Wilkie Collins’s Poor Miss Finch (1872). Ruskin misinterprets the death of the “obnoxious brother”: his hands did not “drop off” his body in the Arctic regions, but rather they dropped—while remaining attached to his arms—to his lap as he died. </div> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[3]</a> Hermes, the Ancient Greek messenger god and guide to the underworld, has no direct relation to deformity (unless in his offspring, Pan, the Panes, and the Satyri, who all had the legs and feet of goats). Ruskin refers here to Hermes’s role as a god of boundaries and to the boundary-marking "herm" statues, whose bodies were shapeless pillars with a carved head on top and an erect phallus halfway down. </div> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[4]</a> A page or errand boy from Sir Walter Scott’s The Lay of the Last Minstrel. </div> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[5]</a> A “dwarf” from Sir Walter Scott’s Kenilworth. </div> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[6]</a> An “imp” from Sir Walter Scott’s Kenilworth. </div> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[7]</a> A “goblin” and “fool” from Sir Walter Scott’s The Doom of Dervorgoil. </div> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[8]</a> A knighted “dwarf” from Sir Walter Scott’s Perevil of the Peak. </div> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[9]</a> A character, from Sir Walter Scott’s Perevil of the Peak, who pretends to be deaf and mute to spy on her employer. </div> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[10]</a> A “dwarf” from Sir Walter Scott’s Tales of the Crusador. </div> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[11]</a> A little person and villain from Charles Dickens’s The Old Curiosity Shop (1841). </div> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[12]</a> The illiterate, drunk rag and bottle merchant who spontaneously combusts in Charles Dickens’s Bleak House (1853). </div> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[13]</a> Nicholas Nickleby’s “simple-minded” best friend, who dies of consumption in Charles Dickens’s Nicholas Nickleby (1839). </div> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[14]</a> An elderly loan shark who is also hearing impaired and paralyzed from Charles Dickens’s Bleak House (1853). </div> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[15]</a> The "dwarf" beautician from Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield (1849). </div> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[16]</a> From Charles Dickens’s The Old Curiosity Shop (1841). </div> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[17]</a> Charles Dickens’s Barnaby Rudge (1841). </div> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[18]</a> Possibly an advertisement for Brook’s Monkey Soap, which commonly featured a monkey dressed as a man and carrying a mirror or a reflective pan. </div> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[19]</a> An <a title="Advertisement from British Library" href="http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/evanion/FullImage.aspx?EvanID=024-000004633&ImageId=52145">advertisement</a> for magicians John Neville Maskelyne and George Alfred Cooke in which a man holds a decapitated head over the still-living beheaded body. <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[20]</a> Grotesque architectural decorations by Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino (1483-1520). </div> </div> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Description An account of the resource As theories of degeneracy<a title="" href="#_ftn1">[1]</a> gained currency in the latter part of the nineteenth century, literary critics increasingly used rhetoric of pathology (that is, of health and sickness) to discuss authors and their works.<a title="" href="#_ftn2">[2]</a> As Arata explains, critics interpreted literature deemed “degenerate” (for unsavoury topic matter, for example) as “symptom and sign of its author’s pathology” with the potential to operate as “an instrument of contagion” to its readers (“Strange Cases” 173). As apparent in the works of not just art and literary critics, but also that of psychiatrists, political theorists, scientists, and sociologists, Victorian thought interwove literature and morality with the body, often implying that the disabled or ill body manifested moral disorder. The passage below from the first instalment of “Fiction, Fair and Foul,” John Ruskin’s series of literary criticism published in The Nineteenth-Century, strikingly illustrates this rhetoric. In this piece, Ruskin complains about the Victorian fascination with the “analysis of physical corruption,” which he argues has become “the most valued material of modern fiction, and the most eagerly discussed texts of modern philosophy” (943). Ruskin believed that Victorian fiction was preoccupied with depicting scenes of death and characters with illness and disability, and that this preoccupation was caused by increased urbanization and industrialization. In the section below, the bulk of which is a footnote to a section referring to this fiction as a “cretinous school,” Ruskin argues that disabled characters are the product of the authors’s brain disease. <div> <h3>Notes</h3> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[1]</a> The theory that certain groups of people, or even society in general, were biologically, psychologically, and socially degenerating or regressing into a less civilized state. </div> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[2]</a> Barbara Spackman shows how this trend continued well into the twentieth century, as well, and traces the “genealogy” of the rhetoric of sickness in her book Decadent Genealogies. </div> </div> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Ruskin, John. “Fiction, Fair and Foul.” The Nineteenth Century: A Monthly Review 7 (June 1880): 941-962. Literary Theory Full-Text Database. Cambridge: Chadwyck-Healey, 1999. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1880-1881 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kylee-Anne Hingston Relation A related resource <ul><li> Arata, Stephen D. Fictions of Loss in the Fin de Siècle. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1996. </li> <li> ---. “Strange Cases, Common Fates: Degeneration and the Pleasures of Professional Reading.” Centuries’ Ends, Narrative Means. Ed. Robert Newman. Stanford, CA: Stanford UP, 1996. 171-190 Print. </li> <li> Holmes, Martha Stoddard. Fictions of Affliction: Physical Disability in Victorian Culture. The Corporealities Series. Ann Arbour: U of Michigan P, 2004. Print. </li> <li> Spackman, Barbara. Decadent Genealogies: The Rhetoric of Sickness from Baudelaire to D’Annunzio. Ithaca and London: Cornell UP, 1989. </li> </ul> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This image depicts a winged Ruskin flying over London, under the guiding star of “High Art,” sprinkling roses beribboned with the titles of his art criticism. Image Courtesy T<a title="Public Domain Review" href="http://publicdomainreview.org/2012/08/17/cartoon-portraits-of-leading-19th-century-figures-1873/">he Public Domain Review</a> under a Creative Commons License. Title A name given to the resource Fiction, Fair and Foul Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource John Ruskin Language A language of the resource English Degeneration Literature Orthopaedic Disability Ruskin https://nineteenthcenturydisability.org/files/original/bc970afea3bff06562ca28f5ab36ef9b.jpg a6e4e165f595ee0dfe9a152990a6615c Omeka Image File The metadata element set that was included in the `files_images` table in previous versions of Omeka. These elements are common to all image files. Width 798 Height 534 Bit Depth 8 Channels 3 IPTC String copyright_notice:Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons by-nc-nd 2.0 UK, see http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/indexplus/page/Prices.html byline:Wellcome Images object_name:N0028879 Royal Earlswood Hospital, Redhill, Surrey headline:N0028879 Royal Earlswood Hospital, Redhill, Surrey caption:N0028879 Royal Earlswood Hospital, Redhill, Surrey Credit: Niall McCrae. Wellcome Images images@wellcome.ac.uk http://images.wellcome.ac.uk Royal Earlswood Hospital, Redhill, Surrey This grand structure was designed by W B Moffatt. Originally a charitable institution, its last fifty years were served under the NHS as a hospital for the mentally handicapped. This photogrph was taken in 1997, just prior to its closure. Photograph 1997 Published: - Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons by-nc-nd 2.0 UK, see http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/indexplus/page/Prices.html IPTC Array a:5:{s:16:"copyright_notice";s:126:"Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons by-nc-nd 2.0 UK, see http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/indexplus/page/Prices.html";s:6:"byline";s:15:"Wellcome Images";s:11:"object_name";s:50:"N0028879 Royal Earlswood Hospital, Redhill, Surrey";s:8:"headline";s:50:"N0028879 Royal Earlswood Hospital, Redhill, Surrey";s:7:"caption";s:579:"N0028879 Royal Earlswood Hospital, Redhill, Surrey Credit: Niall McCrae. Wellcome Images images@wellcome.ac.uk http://images.wellcome.ac.uk Royal Earlswood Hospital, Redhill, Surrey This grand structure was designed by W B Moffatt. Originally a charitable institution, its last fifty years were served under the NHS as a hospital for the mentally handicapped. This photogrph was taken in 1997, just prior to its closure. Photograph 1997 Published: - Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons by-nc-nd 2.0 UK, see http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/indexplus/page/Prices.html";} Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Description An account of the resource A contemporary photograph shows the Earlswood Asylum, an impressive red brick building, from the road. A tree and an expanse of green lawn make up the foreground. Photograph of Royal Earlswood Hospital, Redhill, Surrey (1997) by Niall McCrae. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1860 to 1880 Description An account of the resource Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Text Any textual data included in the document. The dream of the monks and hospitallers<a title="" href="#_ftn1">[1]</a> of old has been realized—alms-giving has become an art, indeed, it may be said, a fine art. Among all the institutions of the country there are none so well organised, so liberally conducted, or so carefully and thoughtfully adapted to their purpose, as those which are designed to relieve the sufferings and mitigate the misfortunes of humanity. Here in England there is scarcely a disease either of the mind or body, scarcely even a deformity, for whose alleviation some hospital has not been provided by the inexhaustible charity of the people. And our hospitals [start 565] and asylums vie in architectural magnificence with the mansions of the rich and great. When the intelligent foreigner is making his way towards London by the South Eastern Railway, and sees on every side magnificent buildings rising majestically from woods and gardens rich in stately timber, and glowing with rare plans and flowers, he is apt to inquire the names of the great English milords who own those splendid seats. This Italian place on the left, with the British flag floating proudly from its summit. Surely this must be the residence of a royal prince? No, monseiur, it is the residence of some two or three hundred poor creatures who are suffering from incurable disease [...] Descending from the noble terrace by a flight of stone steps, I come upon the whole of the inmates of the Asylum, disporting themselves upon the lawn. They number in all three hundred and sixty-five, two hundred and sixty being males, and one hundred and five females. They are of all ages, ranging from a grey-haired old lady of sixty, to a child of five years; and of all ranks, from the sons of prosperous merchants, it may be noblemen, down to the children of poor clerks and petty tradespeople. The Asylum at Earlsowood is not absolutely a charity. All who can afford it, pay something for their maintenance, and in some instances pay handsomely. Those who cannot afford to pay are elected by the votes of the subscribers, and are maintained gratuitously. The receipts of the Asylum are thus, to a certain extent, a common fund for the support of all the inmates; although those who maintain themselves receive special advantages according to the amount of their payments. But none of the inmates, however poor they may be, are deprived of any of the essentials of comfort. A patient who pays a hundred or a hundred and fifty pounds a year may have a separate apartment and an attendant entirely to himself; but as regards the necessaries and comforts essential to health and enjoyment of life, the rich and the poor are on the same footing. I fully expected that the sight of so many idiotic creatures in a body would be exceedingly painful.<a title="" href="#_ftn2">[2]</a> It certainly was painful; but far less so than I could possibly have imagined. Contrary to my anticipation they were all clean , and neat and tidy in their dress. Moreover, the majority of them exhibited an activity of body and a cheerfulness of expression which I had never before witnessed in persons so manifestly deficient in mental power. The manifestations are very similar in all cases,--a deformed head or jaw, a wide loose mouth showing the gums, large irregular teeth, a fixed stare, and an imbecile smile that comes and goes in a mechanical manner. These peculiarities told plainly that the persons I saw before me were idiotic; but their manner and bearing conveyed no idea of their being useless and helpless. The kindly system of the institution had done its work. Many of these poor creatures, when they were first brought to Earlswood, were in a condition inferior almost to the brutes. They were confirmed in filthy habits; they were at times perfectly torpid and completely insensible. All the gates of their understanding were as firmly locked as if they had been sealed by the hand of death. They had ears and could not hear; eyes and could not see; tongues and could not speak. And now, here on this lawn, were these self-same creatures, all more or less awakened to life and understanding, running and leaping, laughing and chatting, asking and answering questions, and contending with each other in a high spirit of emulation in all kinds of games, while the workshops, the garden, and the farm offered a hundred specimens of their work in almost every department of art and industry. [...] On the reception of a pupil, the first step is to inquire from friends the history of the case, and to discover the peculiar predilection and repugnancies of the individual. Certain objective facts, as weight, height, shape, condition of the organs of sense, and powers of prehension and locomotion, are carefully registered. Then follow personal observation with comparison of habits and propensities with the accounts received from friends. These are the data for treatment, and instructions in accordance with them are given to the attendant or nurse. The first efforts are directed to the eradication of bad habits, such as tearing the clothes and wallowing in the dirt. After this, if there exist sufficient power, the pupil has proposed to him, occupations: such as unravelling coca fibre for matting, slitting rods for baskets, and the result of is labour, whatever it may be, is always received with praise instead of blame. When the pupil is indolent, morose, or stubborn, the example of good fellow-pupils is tried, and the imitation of their conduct is encouraged. If he prove incapable from low physical power, the physician's skill is exercised on diet, attention to the condition of the skin, and due medical treatment. The physical state is held to be of the greatest importance, and the appliance of gymnastic exercise is regulated by it. These exercises are first to the upper extremities, and then to the lower and the trunk, and the lessons are enlivened by music. From the examination of many hundred cases, Dr. Down has found that a malformation of the mouth and the palate is a physical characteristic of nearly all idiots. It is not surprising, therefore, that many of them are mute, semi-mute, or indistinct in utterance. But even the worst of such cases are successfully treated at Earlswood. The method pursued is curious. For example, if the sounds to be caught were those of the letter T, the teacher would first hold up a top, which the pupils are made to name collectively; then a letter, and lastly a pot. In the same manner for D, he would show pictures of a dog, a ladder, and some object coloured red. Hence, when a learner can name every object in the collection, he is able to utter the required words correctly. The result has been that many who could scarcely articulate a sound, can now speak intelligibly and with tolerable correctness. Pictures play an important part on conveying ideas to the pupils, and many of them have learned all they know from pictures. Some of them, who are incapable of reading and writing, have become expert draughtsmen, as may be seen from various specimens of their artistic works which adorn the walls of the Asylum. Another ingenious mode of conveying instruction, is by engaging the pupils in playing at shop-keeping. A counter is set out with various articles in daily use, at which a boy presides as shopkeeper, while the others come forward in turn and act as buyers. “It is most curious,” says Mr. Sidney,<a title="" href="#_ftn3">[3]</a> “to see what a puzzle it often is to find the correct weight; when it is found, the class is well questioned upon it, and, indeed, on every other weight the shopman touches, before it is put onto the scale. Then there is further perplexity in getting the correct quantity of the required substance, as, for instance, sugar, into the scale... [Omitted further description of the difficulties of weighing the goods.] All this causes a regular excitement till the due proportions are achieved; and then comes the moment of pay, which is one of great excitement, the whole class trying to check every step in the reckoning. Combinations of pence and halfpence are trying things to get over; and sometimes the purchaser who cannot calculate them uses cunning, and tries to pay with a silver coins, and asks for change, thus throwing his perplexities on the shopman.” The Asylum is at once a hospital, a school, and a workshop within; without, a gymnasium, a garden, and a farm. In the workshops the inmates practise tailoring, shoemaking, carpentering, mat-making, and the like. The clothes of the inmates and the attendants are nearly all made by imbeciles, who have learned their trades in the Asylum. They all take a great interest in their work, and are very proud of the results. Some of the lads act as cooks. On a visit to the kitchen, Mr. Sidney found twelve of the pupils, not one of whom, a year previously, could have been trusted near an oven or a fire, neatly dressed in white, helping the regular officials of the kitchen with the greatest order and zeal. One poor fellow acted as a scullery-boy, and to show how completely his heart was in his humble occupation, on being asked which he liked best, Earlswood or the establishment where he had previously been, he answered, “O Earlswood great deal;” and on being further question “Why?” added, “Because we have a bigger sink.” It should be observed, that the pupils are not forced to engage in occupations which they do not like. Each one is allowed to choose the employment for which he has a fancy. Some of them occupy themselves in drawing, and in making models and toys, simply for their own amusement. One of these, a youth of sixteen, has completed a most beautiful model of a frigate fully equipped and rigged with every rope, sail, and spar. The model of of considerable size, and is executed with marvellous neatness and skill. I was informed that the constructor had never seen a ship, and took his first notion from a picture on a pocket-handkerchief, being afterwards assisted by drawings in the Illustrated London News. In the progress of his work, he made a great discovery, namely, that boiling wood rendered it capable of being easily bent. He had never heard of this process, so that the discovery was really his own. With the permission of Dr. Down, this pupil took me to his room to show me the model His articulation was so imperfect, and his vocabulary so limited, that I could scarcely understand a word he said. He was, I was assured, a true idiot, who could scarcely read or write; yet he could draw admirably, and had made this wonderful ship. Though he could measure well, as his work testified, he had no idea of figures, or of money. I asked him how much the ship had cost him. He said, “Three thousand pounds.” The girl's side of the Asylum comprises, besides the dining-hall and dormitories, a sewing school, and a play-room. In the school the girls are taught to read by the aid of large letters chalked on black boards; they are also employed in useful work; in the afternoon they are allowed to make fancy articles which may be seen exhibited in the reception-room. In another apartment there is a baby class taught entirely by pictures. In these rooms are stands of flowers and ferns prettily arranged, rendering the place cheerful and attractive. Some of the girls have learned to read and write very well. The farm, situated at the end of the garden, gives regular employment to twelve of the inmates, and in hay and harvest time brings others from the workshops, who profit greatly by the change. Strolling into the yard, I met one of he idiot farmers dressed in a smock-frock and a wideawake hat.<a title="" href="#_ftn4">[4]</a> He certainly did not look more idiotic than some farm servants, not supposed to be deficient in mental capacity, whom I had seen outside the Asylum gates. He took me to the cow-house and showed me the cows. There were twenty of them, all in god condition and well provided with straw, and over each stall their attendant had placed a label bearing the cow's name in highly ornamental text. The lad who accompanied me was a good farmer; but a perfect idiot. He could not count the pigs in a sty, though there were barely a dozen of them; but he was a most useful member of the establishment for all that. He spoke very imperfectly. I asked him if he were happy there. He said, “Yes, very happy, but no money.” I asked him what he would do with money if he had any. He said, “Buy sweetstuff.”<a title="" href="#_ftn5">[5]</a> A friend came to see him, and he gave the friend particular instructions to send him a seed cake. The farm supplies the establishment with the whole of milk and butter consumed by the inmates of the Asylum. Amusement enters largely into the system pursued by Dr. Down. Besides the daily sports on the lawn and in the gymansium, a theatrical performance is given at Christmas, and a fête at Midsummer. The charade performances have proved highly successfull in stimulating into lasting vigour several whom it had been previously impossible to rouse from idiotic depression and apathy. The leading parts are sustained by inmates, assisted by the attendants; the scenery is painted by a youth who, though an excellent artist, is incapable of describing his work intelligibly, or of referring to it except in a jumble of incoherent words. All the woodwork is done by boys in the carpenter's shop. In all these amusements the pupils have the hearty assistance of Dr. Down and Mrs. Down, who are regarded by all in the establishment with the strongest affection. I saw many unmistakable evidences of the regard in which the doctor is held, during my visit. Whereever he appeared on the grounds, the boys and girls ran to him, to talk to him, to ask him questions, and to fondle him. The men and women attendants, too, seemed to be all favourites with the poor imbeciles. I observed no indication that any of them inspired fear. I saw one man humour a tiresome boy with the utmost patience for fully half an hour, and in the end he succeeded in diverting him from the absurd desire he wished to gratify. I do not know upon what principle the attendants are chosen, but I noticed that they were al “good looking,” which suggests the theory that good looks and a kind disposition generally go together. The inmates all like the place. Some of them who have gone home for a few weeks have expressed a desire to return to Earlswood and their friend Dr. Down, before the expiration of their leave. One boy actually packed up and walked to the Asylum, saying he could not stay away from “home” any longer. Seeing how they were surrounded by every comfort, and indulged in every way, I could not feel surprised at this; but considering the labour and patience required of those who are employed to watch and tend them, I certainly was not prepared for the statement of one of the female attendants—that she was very happy at Earlswood, that she had been there three years, and that she should not like to go to another place. It was one the fête-day that I visited Earlswood—a day long and anxiously looked forward to by all the inmates. The amusements on the lawn continued from one o'clock until dusk, consisting of cricket, croquet, Aunt Sally, racing and jumping matches, a performance of Punch and Judy, glees by the singing class, negro melodies by the Earlswood Troupe, and the ascent of a fire balloon.<a title="" href="#_ftn6">[6]</a> Under the influence of the emulation excited by the racing and jumping for prizes, ranging from a shilling to a penny, the idiotic expression vanished from the faces of the patients in a magical way. In several instances I found it difficult to say whether they were idiots or not. One lad achieved some astonishing feats in bar-jumping, trying again and again until he had accomplished his purpose. I was informed that this boy, when he first entered the Asylum, was incapable of any physical effort whatever. His energies, both mental and physical, had been roused chiefly by gymnastic exercises. In all the sports, I noticed that Dr. Down and the attendants joined on equal terms with the patients, and thus set them all perfectly at their ease. The only refractory subject was a fat boy, whose accomplishments consisted in standing on his head, and in the execution of a dance in frog fashion, which he was ready to perform any number of times on the slightest encouragement. The fat boy's idiosyncrasy was to be always out of humour and always grumbling. He was last in all the races, but would insist upon a prize; in the pole-climbing he had to be hoisted up on the shoulders of an attendant. When the attendant dropped him, he came forward to the doctor in a triumphant manner, and held out his hand for a prize. In all cases he had one. They were all extremely fond of money, but the amount was of no consequence. They were just as well pleased with a penny as with a shilling. The results of the system pursued at Earlswood are very great, very astonishing. Are they desirable? Is it incumbent upon those who have the charge of idiots, to do their utmost to rouse their dormant faculties and restore the broken and defaced image to the likeness of Him who made it? If these questions are to be answered in the affirmative, to do anything less than is done at earlswood would be to fail in a great and sacred duty. Dr. Down's system is purely one of kindness, and it was not long before I perceived that his uniform and scrupulous kindness, his minute attention to every case, his liberal employment of every means calculated to divert the mind and promote the health of the body, were the true cause of the great expense of which some persons have complained. There is no doubt that the inmates of Earlswood might be kept and maintained for considerably less money; but this could only be done by reducing the number of attendants, and the success attained, by dispensing with many sanitary precautions, by adopting mechanical restraints, and by otherwise limiting the comforts and enjoyments of the inmates. For example, I found in the grounds some twenty or thirty attendants going about among the patients, watching them without appearing to watch them, laughing and chatting, joining in their sports, and taking infinite pains to divert their minds from the particular notions which possess them. In the good old times, this was done by a third of the number of attendants; but then they saved the labour and the money of the patrons by chaining the patients to their bedsteads, by strapping them to boards, and by beating them until they were insensible. A blow is a cheap and effective quieter, there is no doubt. Dirt, filth, and unwholesome food, are also cheap, but they are nasty too, and, I trust, wholly distasteful to the humane and Christian feeling of the times in which we live. Relatively the expenses at Earlswood may be larger than absolutely necessary, but I was quite convinced from what I saw, that the system pursued by Dr. Down could not be carried out without great liberality. The number of attendants; the various workshops, with all their fittings and appliances; the schools, the play-rooms, the works of art and ornament, the organised entertainments, the cheerful gardens; are all necessary and essential to the subtle process by which these poor idiots are coaxed, and petted, and insensibly led into developing their latent faculties, and assuming, as near as possible, the attributes of useful and intelligent human beings. One item of expense may be reasonably objected to—that of the mere ornamental parts of such an edifice. It surely can never be necessary to burden a charitable institution with an enormous rent in the form of interest of capital, or an incubus in the much more depressing form of a heavy building debt. <h3>Notes</h3> <div> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[1]</a> Hospitaller: According to the OED: “A member of a religious order, brotherhood, or sisterhood, formed for charitable purposes, esp. for the care of the sick and infirm in hospitals. Many such have existed from the 13th c. or earlier.” </div> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[2]</a> The term “idiot” as David Wright points out, was “packed with social, legal, and medical meanings,” and understanding the history of its use is part of understanding how it became a derisive term (Earlswood 10). For a history of the term “idiot” see David Wright, Mental Disability in Victorian England, pages 9-10, and Patrick McDonagh, Idiocy: A Cultural History, 12-15. </div> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[3]</a> Reverend Edwin Sidney, a clergyman and benefactor of the Earlswood Asylum, who watched the progress of the institution firsthand and published several accounts, including: A Visit to Earlswood Asylum (London, 1859). </div> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[4]</a> A “smock-frock” is a loose outer-garment worn by rural labourers, often made of hard-wearing wool or linen. A wideawake (or “wide-awake”) hat was a men's hat with a broad brim and a low crown, made of black or brown felt, reminiscent of those worn by Quakers. </div> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[5]</a> Men with cognitive disabilities were stereotypically thought to be unable to manage money and also to concentrate instead on gustatory pleasures, especially sweets. George Eliot's short story, “Brother Jacob,” also turns to this theme. See McDonagh, Idiocy, pages 165-168 for a reading on this topic. </div> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[6]</a> <a href="http://www.tradgames.org.uk/games/Aunt-Sally.htm"> Aunt Sally</a> is a throwing game where contestants try to knock over “Aunt Sally,” often a pipe. It is traditionally played in pubs or on fairgrounds. Punch and Judy is a traditional puppet show featuring Mr. Punch and his wife Judy; while there is no definitive storyline, they are often shown bickering and hitting each other with bats. A fire balloon is a nineteenth century folk toy made of tissue paper, string, and a cup with tallow and a wick; the heat from the candle would propel the balloon for thirty minutes to an hour. Unfortunately when it landed it was likely to cause a fire. </div> </div> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Happy Idiots Description An account of the resource This article, which appeared in Charles Dickens's publication All The Year Round in 1864, describes a journalist's visit to the Earlswood Asylum, the first institution for the care of the cognitively disabled in England. It was founded by J Langdon Down (now best known as the doctor who identified Down syndrome) in 1847. The term “idiot” (or sometimes “imbecile”) was commonly used to designate a person who was seen has having a permanent cognitive disability from birth or an early age. An attempt to distinguish “idiocy” legally and medically from “lunacy” was made in the Lunacy Act of 1845, which stated that an “idiot” was legally a person “whose mind from his birth by a perpetual infirmity is so deficient as to be incapable of directing him in any matter which requires thought or judgement” while a “lunatic” was legally “sometimes of good and sound memory” and sometimes not, while any other person “of morbid condition of intellect” who did not fit either of these categories was “a person of unsound mind” (quoted in Wright Earlswood Asylum 16). The need for a third category suggests that attempts to label cognitive difference were more difficult in practice than in theory, and that idiocy was not a stable or transparent category for the Victorians. In describing the conditions of the Earlswood Asylum, the journalist deploys language common to reports on other educational institutions and asylums for the physically and cognitively disabled, comparing the initial condition of the patients to one “inferior almost to the brutes” and suggesting that institutional care humanizes them. The Earlswood Asylum was not a place where patients expected to be institutionalized for life. David Wright suggests that “institutionalization, even during the so-called Victorian heyday of the asylum, was only one part of a lifelong strategy of families to care for and control their disabled family members” (Earlswood Asylum 8). Contrary to our contemporary view of cognitive disability, especially a condition like Down Syndrome, as more or less a fixed state, at the Earlswood Asylum it is taken as a mutable condition. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Andrew Halliday Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived “Happy Idiots.” All the Year Round. (23 July 1864): 564-569. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 23 July 1864 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Karen Bourrier Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource A contemporary photograph shows the Earlswood Asylum, an impressive red brick building, from the road. A tree and an expanse of green lawn make up the foreground. Photograph of Royal Earlswood Hospital, Redhill, Surrey (1997) by Niall McCrae. Courtesy of the <a title="Wellcome Images" href="http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/" target="_blank">Wellcome Library, London </a>under a Creative Commons License (<a title="Wellcome Images" href="http://wellcomeimages.org/" target="_blank">Wellcome Library No: N0028879</a>). Relation A related resource <ul><li>Drew, John and Tony Williams. <a title="Dickens Journal Online" href="http://www.djo.org.uk/" target="_blank">Dickens Journal Online</a>. University of Buckingham. <http://www.djo.org.uk/> [Contains digitized versions of the full run of Household Words and All the Year Round.]</li> <li><a title="Museum of Learning Disability" href="http://langdondownmuseum.org.uk/" target="_blank">Langdon Down Museum of Learning Disability</a>. <<a href="http://langdondownmuseum.org.uk/">http://langdondownmuseum.org.uk/</a>></li> <li>McDonagh, Patrick. Idiocy: A Cultural History. Liverpool: Liverpool UP, 2008.</li> <li>Wright, David. Downs: The History of a Disability. New York: Oxford UP, 2011.</li> <li>---. Mental Disability in Victorian England: The Earlswood Asylum, 1847-1901. New York: Oxford UP, 2001.</li> </ul> All the Year Round Charles Dickens Cognition Institutions life writing https://nineteenthcenturydisability.org/files/original/0a38b3f9f7a845aad0b69a78a812161f.jpg 79f855406542a40866e6a31b693508c7 Omeka Image File The metadata element set that was included in the `files_images` table in previous versions of Omeka. These elements are common to all image files. Width 523 Height 800 Bit Depth 8 Channels 3 IPTC String caption:by Sir John Everett Millais, 1st Bt, oil on panel, 1850 caption_writer:National Portrait Gallery London - www.npg.org.uk headline:NPG 967; Wilkie Collins by Sir John Everett Millais, 1st Bt special_instructions:Unauthorised reproduction prohibited. For authorisation contact rightsandimages@npg.org.uk www.npg.org.uk byline:National Portrait Gallery London - www.npg.org.uk byline_title:Rights and Images Department credit:National Portrait Gallery London source:National Portrait Gallery London object_name:NPG 967; Wilkie Collins date_created:02.05.2012 city:London, St Martin's Place, WC2 0HE country:United Kingdom keyword:Portraits with Archive documents; Eyeglasses and spectacles�� copyright_notice:© National Portrait Gallery, London IPTC Array a:14:{s:7:"caption";s:55:"by Sir John Everett Millais, 1st Bt, oil on panel, 1850";s:14:"caption_writer";s:49:"National Portrait Gallery London - www.npg.org.uk";s:8:"headline";s:59:"NPG 967; Wilkie Collins by Sir John Everett Millais, 1st Bt";s:20:"special_instructions";s:105:"Unauthorised reproduction prohibited. For authorisation contact rightsandimages@npg.org.uk www.npg.org.uk";s:6:"byline";s:49:"National Portrait Gallery London - www.npg.org.uk";s:12:"byline_title";s:28:"Rights and Images Department";s:6:"credit";s:32:"National Portrait Gallery London";s:6:"source";s:32:"National Portrait Gallery London";s:11:"object_name";s:23:"NPG 967; Wilkie Collins";s:12:"date_created";s:10:"02.05.2012";s:4:"city";s:34:"London, St Martin's Place, WC2 0HE";s:7:"country";s:14:"United Kingdom";s:7:"keyword";s:118:"Portraits with Archive documents; Eyeglasses and spectacles��";s:16:"copyright_notice";s:36:"© National Portrait Gallery, London";} Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Description An account of the resource Millais's oil painting shows Wilkie Collins seated wearing a brown velvet jacket, and looking downwards pensively with his hands clapsed in front of his chest. Wilkie Collins (1850) by John Everett Millais. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1837 to 1860 Description An account of the resource Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Text Any textual data included in the document. As the course of her education proceeded, many striking peculiarities became developed in Madonna's disposition, which seemed to be all more or less produced by the necessary influence of her affliction on the formation of her character. The social isolation to which that affliction condemned her, the solitude of thought and feeling into which it forced her, tended from an early period to make her mind remarkably self-reliant, for so young a girl. Her first impression of strangers seemed invariably to decide her opinion of them at once and for ever. She liked or disliked people heartily; estimating them apparently from considerations entirely irrespective of age, or sex, or personal appearance. Sometimes, the very person who was thought certain to attract her, proved to be absolutely repulsive to her--sometimes, people, who, in Mr. Blyth's opinion, were sure to be unwelcome visitors to Madonna, turned out, incomprehensibly, to be people whom she took a violent liking to directly. She always betrayed her pleasure or uneasiness in the society of others with the most diverting candor--showing the extremest anxiety to conciliate and attract those whom she liked; running away and hiding herself like a child, from those whom she disliked. There were some unhappy people, in this latter class, whom no persuasion could ever induce her to see a second time. She could never give any satisfactory account of how she proceeded in forming her opinions of others. The only visible means of arriving at them, which her deafness and dumbness permitted her to use, consisted simply in examination of a stranger's manner, expression, and play of features at a first interview. This process, however, seemed [end page 119] always amply sufficient for her; and in more than one instance events proved that her judgment had not been misled by it. Her affliction had tended, indeed, to sharpen her faculties of observation and her powers of analysis to such a remarkable degree, that she often guessed the general tenor of a conversation quite correctly, merely by watching the minute varieties of expression and gesture in the persons speaking--fixing her attention always with especial intentness on the changeful and rapid motions of their lips. Exiled alike from the worlds of sound and speech, the poor girl's enjoyment of all that she could still gain of happiness, by means of the seeing sense that was left her, was hardly conceivable to her speaking and hearing fellow-creatures. All beautiful sights, and particularly the exquisite combinations that Nature presents, filled her with an artless rapture, which it affected the most unimpressible people to witness. Trees were beyond all other objects the greatest luxuries that her eyes could enjoy. She would sit for hours, on fresh summer evenings, watching the mere waving of the leaves; her face flushed, her whole nervous organization trembling with the sensations of deep and perfect happiness which that simple sight imparted to her. All the riches and honors which this world can afford, would not have added to her existence a tithe of that pleasure which Valentine easily conferred on her, by teaching her to draw; he might almost be said to have given her a new sense in exchange for the senses that she had lost. She used to dance about the room with the reckless ecstasy of a child, in her ungovernable delight at the prospect of a sketching expedition with Mr. Blyth in the Hampstead fields. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Hide and Seek Description An account of the resource Wilkie Collins (1824-1889) was a prolific British writer who was famous for his contributions to the genre of<a title="Sensation Fiction" href="http://www.victorianweb.org/genre/sensation.html" target="_blank"> “sensation fiction”</a> including the popular novels The Woman in White (1860) and The Moonstone (1868). Hide and Seek (1854), from which this passage is excerpted, one of his early novels, was centered on the mysterious parentage of its deaf character Madonna Blyth. Madonna, who was found as an orphaned infant by circus performers, was raised in the circus where, during a performance, she fell from a horse and was deafened. Eventually, an artist, Valentine Blyth, and his “invalid” wife Lavvie, adopt Madonna and raise her as their daughter. The mystery of the novel is eventually solved by Mat Grice, a character who enters the Blyth’s lives when he is looking for answers about the seduction and death of his sister Mary. While the plot of Hide and Seek centers on detection, intrigue and other sensational elements, Collins inserted a note to chapter seven explaining that he wished to “represent[] the character of a ‘Deaf Mute’ as literally as possible according to nature” (431). When Collins describes Madonna’s communicative and sensory experiences in detail, then, he typically relies on his source material, John Kitto’s <a title="Kitto The Lost Senses" href="http://www.nineteenthcenturydisability.org/items/show/9" target="_blank">The Lost Senses (1845)</a>, an autobiographical work by a deaf writer. In this passage, Collins suggests that Madonna has extraordinary visual abilities as a kind of “compensation” for her deafness and this notion that there must be a sensory compensation for a sensory impairment had enormous currency in Victorian writing about both deafness and blindness. When Collins describes Madonna’s skill at, and pleasure in, looking, he borrows from Kitto’s assessment of his own acuity; while Kitto disputes the idea that his sight must be better than the sight of people who can hear in compensation for his deafness, he nevertheless contends that his deafness led to his “passionate love” of “the beautiful in nature and art” (Kitto 51) and a “habit of seeking the character and passing sentiments of persons in their countenance” (Kitto 61). As Flint argues, in attending to the compensations of a sensory impairment in his novels featuring disabled character, “Collins is offering… a commentary on the role played by the senses in perception in general—something which was very much a live issue for many commentators in the mid nineteenth-century in the rapidly consolidating field of psychophysiology” (Flint 157). However, when Collins describes Madonna’s deafness as having “sharpen[ed] her faculties of observation and her powers of analysis to…a remarkable degree,” he is not only representing deafness in a way that he believes is realistic, nor simply commenting on her lip-reading abilities, but also is developing an important feature of characterization in a mystery novel. The fact that Madonna’s visual prowess enables her superior judgment is invaluable in a novel where looks can be deceiving and mysteries require solving. While, as Martha Stoddard Holmes has noted, Madonna’s sensitivity to visual pleasure may be read as a “dangerous” quality in a woman (Holmes 80), Madonna is also celebrated in the novel as a model of perceptiveness. Collins, who includes disabled characters in many of his works, explains that he has a “moral purpose” in introducing Madonna Blyth, who is deaf, and Lavvie Blyth, who is an “invalid”: I know of nothing which more firmly supports our faith in the better parts of human nature, than to see – as we all may—with what patience and cheerfulness the heavier bodily afflictions of humanity are borne, for the most part, by those afflicted and also to note what elements of kindness and gentleness the spectacle of these afflictions constantly developes [sic] in the persons of the little circle by which the sufferer is surrounded. Here is the ever bright side, the ever noble and consoling aspect of all human calamity…(Introduction to Hide and Seek 431) Despite Collins employment of the rhetoric of “affliction” and “calamity,” his depictions of disability, as Kate Flint notes, tend to “collapse the boundaries between the able-bodied and the impaired” (Flint 154), suggesting perhaps a more positive portrayal of disability in his novels. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Collins, Wilkie Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Collins, Wilkie. Hide and Seek. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2009. Pages 119-20. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1854 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Jennifer Esmail Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Millais's oil painting shows Wilkie Collins seated wearing a brown velvet jacket, and looking downwards pensively with his hands clapsed in front of his chest. Wilkie Collins (1850) by John Everett Millais. Courtesy <a title="National Portrait Gallery" href="http://www.npg.org.uk/" target="_blank">National Portrait Gallery</a> under a Creative Commons License (<a title="National Portrait Gallery" href="http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw01409/Wilkie-Collins?LinkID=mp00975&search=sas&sText=wilkie+collins&role=sit&rNo=0" target="_blank">NPG 967</a>). Relation A related resource <ul><li>Carpenter, Mary Wilson. Health, Medicine and Society in Victorian England. Santa Barbara: Praeger, 2010. </li> <li>Esmail, Jennifer. Reading Victorian Deafness: Signs and Sounds in Victorian Literature and Culture. Athens: Ohio UP, 2013. </li> <li>Flint, Kate. “Disability and Difference.” The Cambridge Companion to Wilkie Collins. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2007. </li> <li>Holmes, Martha Stoddard. Fictions of Affliction: Physical Disability in Victorian Culture. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 2004.</li> </ul> Deafness Literature Novel Wilkie Collins https://nineteenthcenturydisability.org/files/original/cf6d36b49ce1f5522650cb4c6715cbe0.jpg 1afd2a6b694b1b748d528160eda8be59 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Pratt, Matthew. The American School, 1765, oil on canvas, 36 x 50 ¼”. Image Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art. This painting depicts a group of students painting in Benjamin West’s London studio. Description An account of the resource The artist, Matthew Pratt, is seated at the easel, while West, at left wearing green, gives instructions to another young, unidentified artist. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1798 to 1837 Description An account of the resource Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Text Any textual data included in the document. While Trumbull and Stuart were together as pupils of Mr. West, Stuart being the senior student, and more advanced in the art, Trumbull frequently submitted his works to him for the benefit of his remarks. Stuart told Mr. Sully, from whom we derive the anecdote, that on one occasion he was excessively puzzled by the drawing, “and after turning it this way and that, I observed, ‘Why, Trumbull, this looks as if it was drawn by a man with but one eye.’ Trumbull appeared much hurt, and said, ‘I take it very unkindly, sir, that you should make the remark.’ I couldn't tell what he meant, and asked him. ‘I presume, sir,’ he answered, ‘that you know I have lost the sight of one eye, and any allusion to it, in this manner, is illiberal.’ Now I never suspected it, and only the oddness of the drawing suggested the thing.” We have heard from Stuart’s companions in Boston, the same story, in nearly the same words, and when he told it to them, he went into a long dissertation on optics to prove, that a man, with but the sight of one eye, could not possibly draw truly. This notion Sully thought perfectly idle, and only one of Stuart’s whims, who could lecture most eloquently on any subject, from the anatomy of a man, to the economy of his shoe-tie.<a title="" href="#_ftn1">[1]</a> <div> <h3>Note</h3> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref1">[1]</a> Dunlap, History of the Rise and Progress of the Arts of Design in the United States, 1:182. </div> </div> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Description An account of the resource Despite his resistance to the formal study of painting, William Dunlap’s time in Europe would prove critical to the history of American art because it was at West’s studio in London that Dunlap became acquainted with the foremost artists of the time. Dunlap is today best remembered as “the American Vasari,” after Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574), the 16th-century Italian biographer of Renaissance painters, as Dunlap would go on to write the first history of American art and artists, History of the Rise and Progress of the Art of Design in the United States, published in 1834. The following excerpt, drawn from the Rise and Progress, recounts an exchange between two other American painters working under West in London, Gilbert Stuart (1755-1828) and John Trumbull (1756-1843), as related later by a third American, Thomas Sully (1783-1872). Dunlap’s decision to include this anecdote is likely informed by his own visual impairment, which is identical to that suffered by John Trumbull, described below.<a title="" href="#_ftn1">[1]</a> Although Dunlap does not draw attention to this similarity here, elsewhere in the Rise and Progress and in his 1832 history of American theatre<a title="" href="#_ftn2">[2]</a> Dunlap details the accident that rendered him blind in the right eye (see linked entry on Dunlap’s self-portraits). Curiously, however, in neither of these accounts does Dunlap suggest that his monocular vision limited his ability to draw in perspective. Instead, Dunlap notes multiple times in his published works that he found his sense of color wanting, possibly as a result of the accident, or, as he hypothesizes, “a natural defect.”<a title="" href="#_ftn3">[3]</a> Nonetheless, Dunlap appears to use this anecdote, and particularly Sully’s criticism of Stuart’s theory, as a defense of painters, like Dunlap himself, who suffered from visual impairments. <div> <h3>Notes</h3> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref1">[1]</a> Stuart’s criticism of Trumbull’s drawing evidently held little weight; Trumbull was commissioned to paint four large American historical scenes for the Capitol Rotunda in 1817. See: http://www.aoc.gov/capitol-hill/artists/john-trumbull </div> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref2">[2]</a> William Dunlap, History of the American Theatre, vol. 2 (London: Richard Bentley, 1833), 49, http://books.google.com/books/about/History_of_the_American_Theatre.html?id=yDEOAAAAIAAJ. </div> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref3">[3]</a> Dunlap, History of the Rise and Progress of the Arts of Design in the United States, 1:259. Also describes his difficulty with color on p. 250. It should be noted that the first widely acknowledged account of color blindness was not published until 1798 by the English physicist John Dalton. Dunlap was likely unaware of the possible genetic explanation for his condition, which may have been a partial color blindness. See: A E Emery, “John Dalton (1766-1844).,” Journal of Medical Genetics 25, no. 6 (June 1988): 422–26. </div> </div> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Dunlap, William. History of the Rise and Progress of the Arts of Design in the United States. Vol. 1. 2 vols. New York: George P. Scott and Company, Printers, 1834. Available at: https://archive.org/details/historyofrisepro01dunl. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1834 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kim Beil Relation A related resource <ul><li> Dunlap, William. A History of the American Theatre. New York : J. & J. Harper, 1832. http://archive.org/details/historyofamerica00dunl. </li> <li> Lyons, Maura. William Dunlap and the Construction of an American Art History. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2005. </li> </ul> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Pratt, Matthew. The American School, 1765, oil on canvas, 36 x 50 ¼”. Image Courtesy <a title="Met Museum Link" href="http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/11797">Metropolitan Museum of Art</a>. This painting depicts a group of students painting in Benjamin West’s London studio. The artist, Matthew Pratt, is seated at the easel, while West, at left wearing green, gives instructions to another young, unidentified artist. Title A name given to the resource History of the Rise and Progress of the Art of Design in the United States Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource William Dunlap Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available George P. Scott and Company Art History Blindness Visual Culture William Dunlap https://nineteenthcenturydisability.org/files/original/4e666e957ca572d0e5c1b82159c1a7e2.jpg 0f79da7c2f9d8878cc73865aada87311 Omeka Image File The metadata element set that was included in the `files_images` table in previous versions of Omeka. These elements are common to all image files. Width 712 Height 868 Bit Depth 8 Channels 1 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Description An account of the resource Jane and Rochester reunite. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1837 to 1860 Description An account of the resource Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Text Any textual data included in the document. “It is time some one undertook to re-humanize you,” said I, parting his thick and long-uncut locks; “for I see you are being metamorphosed into a lion, or something of that sort. You have a ‘faux air’ of Nebuchadnezzar in the fields about you, that is certain, : your hair reminds me of eagles’ feathers; whether your nails are grown like birds’ claws or not, I have not yet noticed.” “On this arm, I have neither hand nor nails;” he said, drawing the mutilated limb from his breast, and shewing it to me. “It is a mere stump—a ghastly sight! Don’t you think so, Jane?” “It is a pity to see it; and a pity to see your eyes—and the scar of fire on your forehead; and the worst of it is, one is in danger of loving you too well for all this; and making too much of you.” “I thought you would be revolted, Jane, when you saw my arm, and my cicatrized visage.” “Did you? Don’t tell me so—lest I should say something disparaging to your judgment. Now, let me leave you an instant, to make a better fire and have the harth swept up. Can you tell when there is a good fire?” “Yes; with the right eye I see a glow—a ruddy haze.” “And you see the candles?” “Very dimly—each is a luminous cloud.” “Can you see me?” “No, my fairy: but I am only too thankful to hear and feel you.” “When do you take supper?” “I never take supper.” “But you shall have some to-night. I am hungry: so are you, I dare say, only you forget.” Summoning Mary, I soon had the room in more cheerful order: I prepared him, likewise, a comfortable repast. My spirits were excited, and with pleasure and ease I talked to him during supper, and for a long time after. there was no harassing restraint, no repressing of glee and vivacity with him; for with him I was at perfect ease, because I knew I suited him: all I said or did seemed either to console or revive him. Delightful consciousness! It brought to life and light my whole nature: in his presence I thoroughly lied; and he lived in mine. Blind as he was, smiles played over his face, joy dawned on his forehead: his lineaments softened and warmed. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Jane Eyre Description An account of the resource Charlotte Brontë’s 1847 sensation, Jane Eyre, ends with a dramatic climax in which the hero is blinded and maimed. This ending is often read as a symbolic castration. Richard Chase first proposed this Freudian reading of Rochester's disabilities in a 1948 essay, arguing that "Rochester’s injuries are, I should think, a symbolic castration. The faculty of vision, the analysts have shown, is often identified in the unconscious with the energy of sex."<a title="" href="#_ftn1">[1]</a> Peter Pickrel summed up the argument thus: “Charlotte Brontë’s spinsterish sensibilities were such that his [Rochester’s] rampant sexuality had to be tamed before he could become a suitable husband for a nice early-Victorian heroine like Jane Eyre”.<a title="" href="#_ftn2">[2]</a> Susan Gubar and Sandra Gilbert found that the opposite was true thirty years later, and that though Brontë really did wish to castrate Rochester, the urge came from her anger at being a woman author in a patriarchal society rather than from her spinsterish inability to handle her hero's sexuality.<a title="" href="#_ftn3">[3]</a> Recent disability studies readings of Jane Eyre, collected in The Blindman and the Madwoman, have overturned this critical chestnut. Critics have found an erotics of care-giving in the Jane-Rochester dyad, and an emphasis on interdependence. In this scene from the penultimate chapter of the novel, Jane returns after an absence to find Rochester has been blinded and maimed in an attempt to save his estranged wife from a fire she has set to Thornfield. Rochester is surprised to find that Jane finds him as attractive as ever. Far from suggesting that Rochester’s sexuality has been tamed, the couple’s playful banter and the tactility of their rapport now that Rochester is blind and must feel Jane to see her suggest an erotic side to disability. <h3>Notes</h3> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[1]</a> Chase, Richard. “The Brontës, or, Myth Domesticated.” Forms of Modern Fiction. Ed. William Van O'Connor. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 1948. 108-109. <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[2]</a> Pickrel, Peter. "Jane Eyre: The Apocalypse of the Body." ELH 53.1 (1986): 165-82. <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[3]</a> Gilbert, Sandra M. and Susan Gubar. “A Dialogue of Self and Soul: Plain Jane's Progress.” The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Brontë, Charlotte Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Brontë, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. Ed. Richard Nemesvari. Peterborough, ON: Broadview Press, 1999 [1847]. 537-538. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1847 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Karen Bourrier Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource "You are altogether a human being Jane? You are certain of that?" Jane stands facing the viewer, clasping Rochester's hand, who is seated in a chair with his back to the viewer. F.H. Townsend illustration to the second edition of Jane Eyre, 1847, Chapter 37. Image in the public domain courtesy of <a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AP422b.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a>. Relation A related resource <ul><li> Bolt, David, Julia Miele Rodas, and Elizabeth Donaldson, eds. The Madwoman and the Blindman: Jane Eyre, Discourse, Disability Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press. </li> <li> Carpenter, Mary Wilson. <a href="http://differences.dukejournals.org/content/17/3/52.refs">“Blinding the Hero.”</a> Differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies 17.3 (2006): 52–68 </li> </ul><ul><li> Chen, Chih-Ping. "Am I a Monster?": Jane Eyre Among the Shadows of Freaks.” Studies in the Novel. 34.4 (Winter 2002): 367-384. </li> </ul> Language A language of the resource English Amputation Blindness Charlotte Brontë Literature Novel https://nineteenthcenturydisability.org/files/original/3682d8c699e444ae4b5f5e8261af025a.gif d5a1aa8b3e55908850d3253e007aba83 Omeka Image File The metadata element set that was included in the `files_images` table in previous versions of Omeka. These elements are common to all image files. Width 312 Height 429 Bit Depth 8 Channels 3 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Description An account of the resource The illustration shows Phineas on crutches in the foreground with Jael, looking towards John Halifax, who is walking toward him carrying a hobo's bindle à la Dick Whittington. The caption reads: “I smiled, for I, at least, had no difficulty in recognizing John Halifax.” Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1837 to 1860 Description An account of the resource Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Text Any textual data included in the document. I lifted myself, and began looking for my crutches. John found them and put them into my hand, with a grave, pitiful look. “You don’t need those sort of things,” I said, making pretense to laugh, for I had not grown used to them and felt often ashamed. “I hope you will not need them always.” “Perhaps not—Doctor Jessup isn’t sure. But it doesn’t matter much; most likely I shan’t live long.” For this was, God forgive me, always the last and greatest comfort I had. John looked at me—surprised, troubled, compassionate—but he did not say a word. I hobbled past him; he following through the long passage to the garden door. There I paused—tired out. John Halifax took gentle hold of my shoulder. “I think, if you did not mind, I’m sure I could carry you. I carried a meal sack once, weighing eight stone.” I burst out laughing, which may be was what he wanted, and forthwith consented to assume the place of the meal sack. He took me on his back—what a strong fellow he was!—and fairly trotted with me down the garden walk. We were both very merry, and though I was his senior, I seemed with him, out of my great weakness and infirmity, to feel almost like a child. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource John Halifax, Gentleman Description An account of the resource Dinah Mulock Craik’s (1826-1887) novel John Halifax, Gentleman (1856) follows John Halifax’s journey from an impoverished orphan boy to self-made tradesman hero. As their friendship unfolds, Phineas Fletcher, the novel’s disabled first-person narrator, relates John’s narrative of heroic strength, and the invalid’s physical immobility and pre-bachelor dandy femininity forms a stark contrast to the masculine strength of John Halifax. Scenes depicting Phineas’s admiration of John’s able body and John’s tenderness as he carries his feeble friend in strong arms emit a homoerotic charge that was apparent even to Craik’s contemporary readers. Victorian critic R.H. Hutton remarked, “it is hard to suppress the fear that Phineas Fletcher will fall hopelessly in love with John Halifax, so hard is it to remember that Phineas is of the male sex” (258). Modern critics continue to remark on Phineas’s femininity its possible impact in making the novel popular with an audience of middle-class women readers. For instance, Kiran Mascarenhas interprets Phineas as a stand-in for the female novel reader, observing that his “repression and circumscription makes him a character that they identify with, and along with whom they could look—with some longing—at John, the epitome of ideal masculinity” (257). Craik wrote extensively about the lives of disabled men and women in Victorian society, with many of her novels, such as Olive (1850), A Noble Life (1866), and The Little Lame Prince (1875) offering complex and often contradictory representations of the experiences of disabled protagonists. Phineas is no exception, and scholars continue to debate about whether Phineas provides a positive glimpse into the pleasures of bachelor invalid domesticity or serves as a helpless, negative foil to John’s middle class determination. In either case, the relationship between Phineas and John underscores the importance of caring for one another; John’s tenderness with Phineas proves as important to his development as gentleman as his devotion to labor. In the following excerpt, John has just met Phineas for the first time after Phineas’s father, Abel Fletcher, trusts Phineas to the strong young man’s care. John’s body willingness to carry not only a heavy meal sack, but also its human equivalent—a weary Phineas— underscores his value as both a hearty, masculine laborer and a gentle caretaker. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Craik, Dinah Mulock Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Craik, Dinah Mulock. John Halifax, Gentleman. 1856. Ed. Lynn M. Alexander. Peterborough, ON: Broadview Press, 2005. Page 43. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1856 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Melina Moore Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource The illustration shows Phineas on crutches in the foreground with Jael, looking towards John Halifax, who is walking toward him carrying a hobo's bindle à la Dick Whittington. The caption reads: “I smiled, for I, at least, had no difficulty in recognizing John Halifax.” John Halifax, Gentlemen (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, Publishers, 1897). Relation A related resource <ul><li>R.H. Hutton, “Novels by the Authoress of ‘John Halifax.’” North British Review 29 (1858)</li> <li>Holmes, Martha Stoddard. Fictions of Affliction: Physical Disability in Victorian Culture, The Corporealities Series (Ann Arbour: U of Michigan P, 2004). </li> <li>Mascarenhas, Kiran. “John Halifax: A Counter Story,” Antifeminism and the Victorian Novel: Rereading Nineteenth-Century Woman Writers (Amherst, NY: Cambria Press, 2009) 255-269.</li> <li>Mitchell, Sally. Dinah Mulock Craik. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1983. Available online: <<a href="http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/craik/index.html">http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/craik/index.html</a>></li> <li>Sussman, Herbert. Victorian Masculinities: Manhood and Masculine Poetics in Early Victorian Literature and Art. Cambridge University Press, [1995] 2008.</li> </ul> Language A language of the resource English Class Dinah Mulock Craik Gender Literature Mobility Novel https://nineteenthcenturydisability.org/files/original/575f6f2bdd8657306182d472178086e6.jpg b8d973c68cb81d3baaaf9d48cc6265bf Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1880 to 1901 Description An account of the resource Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Text Any textual data included in the document. “I first saw the light on the 5th of August, 1860, I was born in Lee Street, Wharf Street, Leicester. The deformity which I am now exhibiting was caused by my mother being frightened by an Elephant; my mother was going along the street when a procession of Animals were passing by, there was a terrible crush of people to see them, and unfortunately she was pushed under the Elephant's feet, which frightened her very much; this occurring during a time of pregnancy was the cause of my deformity. The measurement around my head is 36 inches, there is a large substance of flesh at the back as large as a breakfast cup, the other part in a manner of speaking is like hills and valleys, all lumped together, while the face is such a sight that no one could describe it. The right hand is almost the size and shape of an Elephant's foreleg, measuring 12 inches round the wrist and 5 inches round one of the fingers; the other hand and arm is no larger than that of a girl ten years of age, although it is well proportioned. My feet and legs are covered with thick lumpy skin, also my body, like that of an Elephant, and almost the same colour, in fact, no one would believe until they saw it, that such a thing could exist. It was not perceived much at birth, but began to develop itself when at the age of 5 years. I went to school like other children until I was about 11 or 12 years of age, when the greatest misfortune of my life occurred, namely - the death of my mother, peace to her, she was a good mother to me; after she died my father broke up his home and went to lodgings; unfortunately for me he married his landlady; henceforth I never had one moment's comfort, she having children of her own, and I not being so handsome as they, together with my deformity, she was the means of making my life a perfect misery; lame and deformed as I was, I ran, or rather walked away from home two or three times, but suppose father had some spark of parental feeling left, so he induced me to return home again. The best friend I had in those days was my father's brother, Mr. Merrick, hair Dresser, Church Gate, Leicester. When about 13 years old, nothing would satisfy my step-mother until she got me out to work; I obtained employment at Messrs. Freeman's Cigar Manufacturers, and worked there about two years, but my right hand got too heavy for making cigars, so I had to leave them. I was sent about the town to see if I could procure work, but being lame and deformed no one would employ me; when I went home for my meals, my step-mother used to say I had not been to seek for work. I was taunted and sneered at so that I would not go home for my meals, and used to stay in the streets with an hungry belly rather than return for anything to eat, what few half-meals I did have, I was taunted with the remark – ‘That's more than you have earned.’ Being unable to get employment my father got me a pedlar's license to hawk the town, but being deformed, people would not come to the door to buy my wares. In consequence of my ill luck my life was again made a misery to me, so that I again ran away and went hawking on my own account, but my deformity had grown to such an extent, so that I could not move about the town without having a crowd of people gather around me. I then went into the infirmary at Leicester, where I remained for two or three years, when I had to undergo an operation on my face, having three or four ounces of flesh cut away; so thought I, I'll get my living by being exhibited about the country. Knowing Mr. Sam Torr, Gladstone Vaults, Wharf Street, Leicester, went in for Novelties, I wrote to him, he came to see me, and soon arranged matters, recommending me to Mr. Ellis, Bee-hive Inn, Nottingham, from whom I received the greatest kindness and attention. In making my first appearance before the public, who have treated me well -- in fact I may say I am as comfortable now as I was uncomfortable before. I must now bid my kind readers adieu.” Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Description An account of the resource The story of Joseph Carey Merrick began in 1862, when he was born to Mary Jane and Joseph Merrick of Leicester, but the story of the Elephant Man did not start until several years later. It was when he was a toddler that tumours first appeared on Merrick's body. They continued to grow and multiply throughout his short life, the result of what is now generally understood to be <a title="Proteus Syndrome" href="http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/condition/proteus-syndrome" target="_blank">Proteus Syndrome</a>. Without modern surgical treatment, the condition eventually became so severe that it made a normal life impossible. As the autobiographical pamphlet above states, Merrick found a means of supporting himself by joining travelling 'freak shows', displaying his deformity to the public under the stage name of The Elephant Man. While touring, Merrick composed – albeit possibly with the help of an external writer – the above statement as part of a pamphlet to be distributed to crowds at each exhibition. He later attained fame of a different sort through his relationship with Dr. Frederick Treves, whose reports to the Pathological Society of London made him a medical curiosity. Similarly, F.C. Carr Gomm, chairman of the London Hospital, sent letters to The Times requesting charitable donations to cover the cost of Merrick’s residence there in the final years of his life, and these appeals saw the former sideshow performer faced with an entirely new audience of upper-class benefactors comprised of some celebrities and even royalty. As a result of the spectacular career pressed upon him, scholarly discussions about Merrick’s life and experiences tend to take place within frameworks focused on freakery or nineteenth century medicine rather than a wider perspective of disability history. It’s perhaps significant that most critical approaches centre on the many second-hand accounts of his life. Treves’ reports and his own autobiographical The Elephant Man and Other Reminiscences, Carr Gomm’s letters, even accounts in the diaries of those who visited Merrick while at the London Hospital: these typically combine with official documents to form the basis on which contemporary scholars analyse Merrick. Primarily, these second-hand accounts present confused attempts to define Merrick as ‘other’, whether other-as-object or other-as-martyr. In most accounts he becomes both, and yet he is neither. Merrick is other, and yet he is also human; more accurately, he is the realization of the other within humanity, and the reflection of the limitations of binaries and boundaries which define humanity in opposition to the other. But while the contemporary accounts that refer to Merrick struggle with this reflection, the one account which at first glance seems most to struggle, Merrick’s own autobiography, in fact offers a more complete acceptance of his redefined humanity. Despite debate over the authorship of the statement in this pamphlet, I refer to it as an autobiography because I find no evidence to convince me otherwise; Merrick was literate, and there is no concrete evidence that the pamphlet was composed by anyone else, although he may have had help with the physical act of writing. That said, confusion as to the author is understandable given the strange narrative voice that characterises the autobiography. In their critical exploration of Merrick’s narrative construction, Peter Graham and Fritz Oehlschlaeger note that the persistent detachment of the statement “might plausibly be ascribed either to an external writer... or to Merrick's own distinguishing between his essence and the misshapen 'thing' that was his body” (13). However, to explore Merrick’s written experience as a means of understanding his own perspective on his “essence” and his “body”, it helps to consider the way in which the autobiographical pamphlet can be considered a piece of disability writing, and to examine this voice in relation to those which speak about Merrick. Mark Mossman explores the function of disability writing in relation to the disabled persons’ construction or definition of selfhood; he describes how disability writing “attempts to reclaim ownership of the body and the way the body is understood” by spinning the body’s inherent instability into “the articulation of a volitional mode of selfhood” (7). For Mossman, “writing disability becomes an empowering act of control, a deconstructive critical strategy that attempts to break down oppressive and imprisoning cultural construction… the performance and general representation of disability is re-centered, re-focused on the disabled subject itself” (7-8). At first glance, it would appear that Merrick’s autobiography does not constitute “an empowering act of control” or a “deconstructive critical strategy,” given that Merrick seems to describe himself within the confines of stereotypes imposed on him by Treves and others. Merrick emphasises his own otherness by referring to his right hand as “almost the size and shape of an Elephant's [sic] foreleg,” and to himself as an impossible “thing”, informing readers that “no one would believe until they saw it, that such a thing could exist.” The way that Merrick both distances and owns his body throughout his autobiography also seems not to fit under the heading of disability writing, which Mossman asserts attempts to reclaim ownership of the body. Merrick’s narrative alternates between the use “the” and “my” when referring to his body: “my head is 36 inches”, “the face is such a sight that no one could describe it”, “the right hand”, “my feet and legs”, “my body”, “my deformity.” While these fluctuations and the images of otherness that Merrick employs could be seen as an inability to reclaim his body or as evidence of an external writer, they can also be interpreted another way. Merrick describes his body as both part of his subjectivity, claiming his embodied experience as a fundamental part of his humanity, and at the same time realizing his body as an object. His language throughout this passage reflects a subjectivity like that outlined by Ruth Robbins, in which “we are not only subjective selves... but also objective selves - selves with a material presence in the world, selves with bodies that may in fact be subject to actions and forces that we cannot control, which are in fact the objects of the actions and desires... of others” (8-9). From this perspective, then, Merrick is not hesitating or unable to reclaim his body; he is in fact claiming ownership of his body as intertwined with his subjectivity and as distanced object. In short, he is claiming ownership of his body in a way that those whose bodies conform to the strictures of “normal” humanity cannot do, at least, not comfortably. Understanding Merrick’s autobiography as a method of reclaiming his body and his embodied subjectivity brings it more in line with disability narratives. However, rather than simply “deflect[ing]and displac[ing] the powerful gaze of the ‘norm’” (Mossman 8), Merrick’s autobiography calls the very nature of the ‘norm’ into question. The accounts written about him by others attempt to divide him into the bodily other and the human spirit, but Merrick’s autobiography denies this separation, and brings his body and his spirit together into one lived experience. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Merrick, Joseph Carey. “The Autobiography of Joseph Carey Merrick.” In Michael Howell and Peter Ford, The True History of the Elephant Man, 3rd Edition. 173-174. London: Penguin Books Ltd., 1980, 1992. (Available online at <a href="http://www4.ncsu.edu/~leila/documents/autobioMerrick.pdf">http://www4.ncsu.edu/~leila/documents/autobioMerrick.pdf</a>) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource c. 1884 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Ally Crockford Relation A related resource <ul><li> Evans, Jonathan. Treves and the Elephant Man. Compiled by Jonathan Evans. Loughton, Essex: Metloc Printers, 2003. </li> <li> Montagu, Ashley. The Elephant Man: A Study in Human Dignity. London: Allison & Busby Ltd, 1972. </li> <li> Mossman, Mark. “Acts of Becoming: Autobiography, Frankenstein, and the Postmodern Body.” Postmodern Culture 11, no. 3 (May 2001). </li> <li> Robbins, Ruth. Subjectivity. Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 2005. </li> <li> Treves, Sir Frederick. The Elephant Man and Other Reminiscences. London: Cassell & Company Ltd, 1923. (Available at: <a href="http://archive.org/details/elephantmanother00trevuoft">http://archive.org/details/elephantmanother00trevuoft</a>) </li> </ul> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Carte de visite photograph of Joseph Carey Merrick. Image Courtesy <a title="Merrick" href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AJoseph_Merrick_carte_de_visite_photo%2C_c._1889.jpg" target="_blank">Wikimedia Commons</a> under a Creative Commons License. Title A name given to the resource Joseph Carey Merrick, ‘The Elephant Man’ Autobiographical pamphlet Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Merrick, Joseph Carey Language A language of the resource English Celebrity freakery life writing Medicine https://nineteenthcenturydisability.org/files/original/223e90d53a50a30669bcdec5a4411574.jpeg 44ccb11f742b60fa912395d02a2ae58e Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Description An account of the resource A woman swathed in the robes of a Greek goddess measures two children with a ruler that reads: “Haec est regula recti” (“This is the model of straightness”). Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1837 to 1860 Description An account of the resource Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Text Any textual data included in the document. [T]here is no higher pleasure, no greater distinction, no more exalted exercise of the human mind, than that profession which has for its object the benefit of our species, and the mitigation and removal of those ills to which all of mortal birth are subjected. To the visitation of deformity this remark applies with double force, for the deformed have been regarded as loathsome in body, and depraved in mind; they have often isolated themselves from their fellow creatures; persecution of them has ever been sanctioned by the Mosaic ceremonial, which admitted the unblemished alone to the dignity of priesthood. Possessing all the feelings, and susceptible of all the impulses which animate the breast of man, frequently morbidly sensitive from the consciousness of their deformity, adorned with genius, gifted with wit, graced by fortune and by birth, crowned with learning,--still is the deformed man exposed to the derision of the heartless, and is shut out from the world simply because nature has played some freak by which he differs from his fellow mortals. Nevertheless, history records the names of many whose spiritual excellence overcame their bodily deformity: Socrates, Aesop, Alexander the Great, whose head his said to have inclined slightly to the left shoulder, the illustrious Lord Burleigh, Pope, Talleyrand, Sir Walter Scott, Flaxman, and Byron, were all deformed in different degrees.<a title="" href="#_ftn1">[1]</a> I believe the sole instance recorded by the classic poets of female deformity is a woman named Kutila, who lived to be a hundred, she is spoken of by Pliny, and also by Juvenal. A facetious Englishman, named Hay, has written an Essay on Bodily Deformity, in which he good-naturedly and sensibly vindicates those labouring under such an affliction from the stigma so ungenerously cast upon them.<a title="" href="#_ftn2">[2]</a> He was himself deformed. <div> <h3>Notes</h3> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[1]</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socrates">Socrates</a> (c. 469-399 BC), an ancient Greek philosopher, was considered by some ugly to the point of deformity; <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aesop">Aesop</a> (c. 620–564 BC), was an ancient Greek fabulist sometimes depicted as a hunchback; <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_the_Great">Alexander the Great</a> (356-323 BC) was the King of Macedon who united Greece; <a href="http://www.britannia.com/history/r-cecil.html">Lord Burleigh</a> (Robert Cecil, 1563-1812), a powerful Elizabethan politician, had a slight hunch back; <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Pope">Alexander Pope</a> (1688-1744) a satirical English poet, had a hunch back; <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Maurice_de_Talleyrand-P%C3%A9rigord">Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord</a> (1754-1838), a politician and aristocrat who survived the French Revolution, had a clubfoot caused by Marfan syndrome; <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Scott">Walter Scott</a> (1771-1832), nineteenth-century novelist, was lame; <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Flaxman">John Flaxman</a> (1755-1826) a neoclassical sculptor, had a shoulder deformity; <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byron">Lord Byron</a> (1788-1824), a Romantic poet, was born with a club foot. </div> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[2]</a> Member of Parliament <a title="William Hay" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Hay_(MP)">William Hay</a> (1695-1755), who had a hunch back, wrote what is now considered the first personal memoir of deformity in 1754. See William Hay. Deformity: An Essay. Ed. Kathleen James-Cavan. Victoria, BC: English Literary Studies, University of Victoria, 2004. </div> </div> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Tamplin, Richard William. Lectures on the Nature and Treatment of Deformities, Delivered at the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital, Bloomsbury Square. London: 1846. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1846 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Karen Bourrier Relation A related resource <ul><li>Borsay, Anne. “Disciplining Disabled Bodies: The Development of Orthopaedic Medicine in Britain, c.1800-1939.” Social Histories of Disability and Deformity: Bodies, Images and Experiences. Ed. David M. Turner and Kevin Stagg. New York: Routledge, 2006.</li> <li>Bourrier, Karen. “Orthopaedic Disability and the Nineteenth-Century Novel.” Nineteenth-Century Contexts. 36.1 (2014): 1-17.</li> <li>Klenerman, Leslie. The Evolution of Orthopaedic Surgery. London: Royal Society of Medicine, 2002.</li> </ul> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Frontispiece from Nicolas Andry's Orthopaedia. A woman swathed in the robes of a Greek goddess measures two children with a ruler that reads: “Haec est regula recti” (“This is the model of straightness”). Image Courtesy the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine under a Creative Commons License. Title A name given to the resource Lectures on the Nature and Treatment of Deformity Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Tamplin, Richard William Description An account of the resource Orthopaedic medicine began as a general practice of child rearing in France with Nicolas Andry’s Orthopaedia (1741). (Andry’s work was translated into English in 1743.) In the mid-nineteenth century, orthopaedic medicine became a specialized branch of surgery that aimed to surgically correct asymmetries in the human frame, ranging from club foot to wry neck to hunch back. The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_National_Orthopaedic_Hospital">Royal Orthopaedic Hopsital of London</a>, which began as a small institution in Bloomsbury Square in 1838, had moved to Oxford Street by 1865, and treated over 1600 cases of “deformity of all kinds”, according to surgeon William Adams, annually.<a title="" href="#_ftn1">[1]</a> The following excerpt, from surgeon R. W. Tamplin’s 1846 series of lectures, brings to the fore several ideas associated with orthopaedic disability in the nineteenth century. Firstly, orthopaedic disability, rather than being seen as a variation in human form that may or may not need any intervention, became seen as an individual medical “problem” that needed to be treated through specialized surgery. In addition, orthopaedic disability was presumed to have a strong emotional impact on the individual, who would feel isolated from the community; this emotional impact, rather than any medical issue, was often given as one of the primary reason to operate on a person with a disability. A second emotional effect that orthopaedic disability might have on an individual was to spur them to “overcome” their disability by achieving great success, as Tamplin notes in his list of eminent individuals below.<a title="" href="#_ftn2">[2]</a> Nineteenth-century thinkers seemed to associate orthopaedic disabilities and their presumed emotional excesses with men in particular, though there is no reason to think that orthopaedic disabilities affected men in greater numbers than women. <div> <h3>Notes</h3> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[1]</a> William Adams. Lectures on the Pathology and Treatment of Lateral and Other of Forms Curvature of the Spine. London: 1865, page 9. </div> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[2]</a> As disability studies scholars have noted, this overcoming narrative can have the pernicious effect of making it seem as though people with disabilities must achieve great success in order to compensate for a perceived lack. </div> </div> Medicine Mobility Orthopaedic Disability https://nineteenthcenturydisability.org/files/original/0716ee2ac2a3af085eeab54188f8c9be.jpg 8e1e92cdc18d954bd8ffda527651241e Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1837 to 1860 Description An account of the resource Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Text Any textual data included in the document. “It is important to society to know whether Mesmerism is true. The revival of its pretensions from age to age makes the negative of this question appear so improbable, and the affirmative involves anticipations so vast, that no testimony of a conscientious witness can be unworthy of attention. I am now capable of affording testimony; and all personal considerations must give way before the social duty of imparting the facts of which I am in possession.” “Those who know Mesmerism to be true from their own experience are now a large number; many more, I believe, than is at all supposed by those who have not attended to the subject. Another considerable class consists of those who believe upon testimony: who find it impossible not to yield credit to the long array of cases in many books, and to the attestation of friends whose judgment and veracity they are in the habit of respecting. After these there remain a good many who amuse themselves with observing some of the effects of Mesmerism, calling them strange and unaccountable, and then going away and thinking no more about them; and lastly, the great majority who know nothing of the matter, and are so little aware of its seriousness as to call it “a bore,” or to laugh at it as nonsense or a cheat.” “A besetting sickness, almost disabling me from taking food for two years, brought me very low; and, together with other evils, it confined me to a condition of almost entire stillness, — to a life passed between my bed and my sofa [. . .] From that time, I lay still; and by means of this undisturbed quiet, and such an increase of opiates as kept down my most urgent discomforts, I passed the last two years with less suffering than the three preceding. There was, however, no favourable change in the disease. Everything was done for me that the best medical skill and science could suggest, and the most indefatigable humanity and family affection devise: but nothing could avail beyond mere alleviation. My dependence on opiates was desperate.” “A few days after the arrival of my kind Mesmerist, I had my foot on the grass for the first time for four years and a half [. . .] I never before was in the open air, after an illness of merely a week or two, without feeling more or less overpowered; but now, under the open sky, after four years and a half spent between bed and a sofa, I felt no faintness, exhaustion, or nervousness of any kind” “[f]rom the early summer of 1839, I was, till this autumn, a prisoner from illness. My recovery now, by means of mesmeric treatment alone, has given me the most thorough knowledge possible that Mesmerism is true” “After my medical friend’s avowal<a title="" href="#_ftn1">[1]</a> of his hopelessness, however, I felt myself not only at liberty, but in duty bound, to try, if possible, the only remaining resource for alleviation. I felt then, and I feel now, that through all mortification of old prejudices, and all springing up of new, nobody in the world would undertake to say I was wrong in seeking even recovery by any harmless means, when other hope was given up by all: and it was not recovery that was in my thoughts, but only solace. It never presented itself to me as possible that disease so long and deeply fixed could be removed; and I was perfectly sincere in saying, that the utmost I looked for was release from my miserable dependence on opiates. Deep as are my obligations to my faithful and skilful medical friend, for a long course of humane effort on his part, no one kindness of his has touched me so sensibly as the grace with which he met my desire to try a means of which he had no knowledge or opinion, and himself brought over the Mesmerist under whom the first trial of my susceptibility was made.” “I put in a claim for my experiment being considered rational. It surely was so, not only on account of my previous knowledge of facts, and of my hopelessness from any other resource, but on grounds which other sufferers may share with me;— on the ground that though the science of medicine may be exhausted in any particular case, it does not follow that curative means are exhausted” <div> <h3>Note</h3> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref1">[1]</a> Martineau is referring to Thomas Greenhow, her physician and brother-in-law. Greenhow, according to Martineau’s personal letters, had, in the course of treating her for uterine tumours he considered incurable by traditional methods, proposed that she attempt a course of mesmerism. She writes that he introduced her to the famous mesmerist, Spenser Hall (1812-1885). However, Greenhow refuted Martineau’s claims in his <a href="http://books.google.ca/books?id=7VkXAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false">“Medical Report on the Case of Miss H—M—.”</a> </div> </div> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Description An account of the resource Mesmerism<a title="" href="#_ftn1">[1]</a> was the term used by Victorians for the procedure during which the practitioner, or mesmerist, would fix his or her (usually his) gaze on a subject or make passes over their body in order to treat and even cure disabilities and illnesses such as consumption, tuberculosis, rheumatism, and gout. Although many traditional physicians considered mesmerism to be quack medicine practiced by charlatans on weak and gullible patients, some lay-practitioners, radical physicians, and patients saw power in the therapy. Author and social theorist, Harriet Martineau, who had written extensively on her own deafness and invalidism, was one such proponent of the curative properties of mesmerism. She claimed that a course in mesmerism had cured her of the uterine tumours that had disabled her to the point that she had become confined to a sickroom and had produced a significant improvement in her deafness. In 1844, Martineau published a series of letters entitled <a href="http://books.google.ca/books?id=te8DAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#http://books.google.ca/books?id=te8DAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0%23v=onepage&q&f=false">“Letters on Mesmerism”</a> in the Athenæum with the intention of educating her readers and fellow “sufferers” on the healing power of mesmerism. She hoped that her letters would confirm the scientific validity of mesmerism and that this would strengthen the movement of patients taking control over their own medical cases and assuming some of the power and authority of the medical profession. Ultimately, her candid description of her mesmerism and recovery prompted increased debate on the procedure and resulted in copious letters to her from disabled and ill persons asking for further information on her mesmerism and requests from traditional physicians seeking additional details of her recovery. However, Martineau’s publication also resulted in a barrage of disparaging responses to the Athenæum that questioned her ability to evaluate mesmerism’s effect on her health, that stated that she did not meet the intellectual conditions required to determine the efficacy of the therapy, and that implied that any beneficial results of procedures such as mesmerism reported by patients could only be called, as we would say today, a placebo effect. Martineau’s “Letters on Mesmerism” as well as the public responses to her publication are striking illustrations both of the debate between patients and physicians for authority over the disabled or ill body during the Victorian period and of Martineau’s role in this debate. <div> <h3>Note</h3> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref1">[1]</a> This procedure was based on the work of eighteenth-century physician, Franz Anton Mesmer (1734–1815), who called his theory “animal magnetism ” and who believed that individuals who possessed natural healing powers could harness the strength of the mind and control a fluid permeating the entire universe to cure any illness considered incurable by traditional medicine. </div> </div> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Martineau, Harriet. “Letters on Mesmerism.” London: Athenæum. (23 November 1844): 1070-1072. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1844 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Nadine LeGier Relation A related resource <ul><li>Kaplan, Fred. Dickens and Mesmerism: The Hidden Springs of Fiction. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1975.</li> <li> Ryall, Anka. “Medical Body and Lived Experience: The Case of Harriet Martineau.” Mosaic: A Journal for the Interdisciplinary Study of Literature. 34.4 (2000): 35-53. </li> <li> Tatar, Maria. Spellbound: Studies on Mesmerism and Literature. Princeton, NJ:Princeton University Press, 1978. </li> <li> Winter, Alison. Mesmerized: Powers of Mind in Victorian Britain. Chicago: U Of Chicago P, 2000. </li> </ul> Title A name given to the resource Letters on Mesmerism Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Harriet Martineau Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource “Treatment of consumption and tuberculosis by mesmerism” from The Illustrated Practical Mesmerist by William Davey, c1854. Courtesy of Wellcome Images under a Creative Commons License (L0000487). Harriet Martineau Invalidism Mesmerism