Doctor Forbes Winslow: Defender of the Insane

2000. Whittington-Egan, Molly. Doctor Forbes Winslow: Defender of the Insane. Great Malvern, England: Cappella Archives, 2000. ix, 280 pp. Illustrations. Hardcover fine in lightly worn dust jacket. Internally clean. A near fine copy. $125. * Forbes Winslow was probably the most contentious psychiatrist of his time. Himself brought up as a child in asylums owned by his father, he then spent a lifetime persuading the courts that crime and alcoholism were the results of mental instability. His unwitting attempt to have a 'lunatic wife' committed to an asylum resulted in one of the most extraordinary court cases of the 19th-century. The asylums he had managed after his father's death were removed from his care following a family feud, so his attention turned to the solving of crime by Sherlock Holmesian methods. His views on the 'Jack the Ripper' murders, with some possible manipulation of evidence, gained him further publicity, which resulted in a visit to New York and appearances as an expert defence witness in some American cases involving lunacy. Molly's engaging and informative writing throws much light on an intriguing 'alienist' whose sympathies were with the mentally afflicted. Now that biochemical research is at the heart of modern psychiatric thinking, it is interesting to see the pre-Freudian founding fathers, such as Forbes Winslow, reaching towards genetic and organic solutions and their advocating the study of 'chemico-cerebral' pathology. (Publisher's description).