Death and fear of death in cases of puerperal insanity can be linked to a much broader set of anxieties surrounding childbirth in Victorian Britain. Compared with other forms of mental affliction, puerperal insanity was known for its good prognosis, with many women recovering over the course of several months. Even so, a significant number of deaths were associated with the disorder, and a large proportion of sufferers struggled with urges to destroy their infants and themselves. The disorder evoked powerful delusions concerning death, with patients expressing intimations of mortality and longing for death.
Anonymous (1848a) Chelmsford – Friday, March10. Charge of murder. – Acquittal on the ground of puerperal insanity. Journal of Psychological Medicine1: 478–483.
2.
Anonymous (1848b) Murder of a child by its mother and suicide of the murderess. Lancaster Gazette (15July).
Campbell ClarkA (1887) Aetiology, pathology, and treatment of puerperal insanity, Part I. Journal of Mental Science33: 142, 169–189.
8.
CloustonTS (1887) Clinical Lectures on Mental Diseases, 2nd edn.London: J. and A. Churchill.
9.
ConollyJ (1846) Clinical lectures on the principal forms of insanity; delivered in the Middlesex Lunatic-Asylum at Hanwell, Lecture XIII: Description and treatment of puerperal insanity. Lancet47(1178): 349–354.
10.
GoochR (1820) Observations on Puerperal Insanity extracted from Medical Transactions (6th volume, read at the Royal College of Physicians, London, 16 December 1819). London: Woodfall.
11.
GoochR (1831) On Some of the Most Important Diseases Peculiar to Women; with Other Papers; with a prefatory essay by Robert Ferguson, MD. London: The New Sydenham Society.
12.
ImageWE (1845) Case of melancholia puerperalis attonita. London Medical Gazette1: 281.
13.
JonesR (1902) Puerperal insanity. British Medical Journal1(2149, 2150): 579–586, 646–651.
14.
LeeR (1844) Lectures on the Theory and Practice of Midwifery, Delivered in the Theatre of St. George’s Hospital. London: John Churchill.
15.
London Metropolitan Archives, General Lying-in Hospital London, LMA/H1/GL1/B19/1, Medical Officers’ Case Book, 1827–28.
16.
Lothian Health Services Archive, Edinburgh University Library: Royal Edinburgh Hospital Casebooks, LHSA/LHB7/51:7/51/6 1847–51 Agnes Hunter or Dunbar admitted 9 June 1848, 180–181; Jane Anderson or Rutherford, admitted 6 Oct. 1848, 244–245.
17.
7/51/6, 1847–51, Agnes Hunter or Dunbar, admitted 9 June 1848, 180–181; Jane Anderson or Rutherford, admitted 6 Oct. 1848, 244–245.
18.
7/51/9, 1851–55, Ann McDonald or Grant, admitted 31 Mar. 1852, 139–140, 574.
19.
7/51/11, 1855–58, Mary Sibbald, admitted 26 Oct. 1855, 177–178, 190.
20.
7/51/15, 1862–65, Helen McCorkle, admitted 26 Sep. 1862, 157; Mary Oswald or Carruthers, admitted 22 Mar. 1864, 478–479; Agnes Watson, admitted 1 May 1865, 704–705, 718.
21.
MacleodMD (1886) An address on puerperal insanity. British Medical Journal2(1336): 239–242.
22.
MaddenTM (1871) On puerperal mania. British and Foreign Medico-Chirurgical Review. 47: 477–495.
23.
ReidJ (1848) On the causes, symptoms, and treatment of puerperal insanity. Journal of Psychological Medicine and Mental Pathology1: 128–151.
24.
RigdenA (1906) Presidential address concerning the insanity of childbirth. Delivered before the Shropshire and Mid-Wales Branch of the British Medical Association. British Medical Journal2(2393): 1253–1257.
25.
TukeJB (1864–65) On the statistics of puerperal insanity as observed in the Royal Edinburgh Asylum, Morningside. Edinburgh Medical Journal10: 1013–1028.
26.
TukeJB (1866–67) Cases illustrative of the insanity of pregnancy, puerperal mania, and insanity of lactation. Edinburgh Medical Journal12: 1083–1101.
27.
Warwick County Record Office, Warwick County Lunatic Asylum Casebook: WCRO/WCLA, CR 1664/619, 4 Jan. 1852–22 Mar. 1861, Elizabeth Thompson, admitted 21 July 1859 [no pagination].
28.
WestRU (1854) Fatal and other cases of puerperal mania. Association Medical Journal2(84): 716–720.
29.
AndrewsJ (2002) The boundaries of Her Majesty’s Pleasure: discharging child-murderers from Broadmoor and Perth Criminal Lunatic Department, c.1860–1920. In: JacksonM (ed.) Infanticide: Historical Perspectives on Child Murder and Concealment, 1550–2000. Aldershot: Ashgate, 216–248.
30.
DigbyA (1989) Women’s biological straitjacket. In: MendusSRendallJ (eds) Sexuality and Subordination: Interdisciplinary Studies of Gender in the Nineteenth Century. London and New York: Routledge, 192–220.
31.
DworkD (1987) War is Good for Babies and Other Young Children: A History of the Infant and Child Welfare Movement in England 1898–1918. London and New York: Tavistock.
32.
EigenJP (1995) Witnessing Insanity: Madness and Mad-Doctors in the English Court. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
33.
LeavittJW (1986) Brought to Bed: Childbearing in America, 1750–1950. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press.
34.
LewisJS (1986)In the Family Way: Childbearing in the British Aristocracy, 1760–1860. New Brunswick: Rutgers.
35.
LoudonI (1988) Puerperal insanity in the 19th century. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine81: 76–79.
36.
LoudonI (1992) Death in Childbirth: An International Study of Maternal Care and Maternal Mortality 1800–1950. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
37.
MarlandH (1999a) At home with puerperal mania: the domestic treatment of insanity of childbirth in the nineteenth century. In: BartlettPWrightD (eds) Outside the Walls of the Asylum: The History of Care in the Community 1750–2000. London: Athlone, 45–65.
38.
MarlandH (1999b) “Destined to a perfect recovery”: the confinement of puerperal insanity in the nineteenth century. In: MellingJForsytheB (eds) Insanity, Institutions and Society, 1800–1914. London and New York: Routledge, 137–156.
39.
MarlandH (2002) Getting away with murder? Puerperal insanity, infanticide and the defence plea. In: Jackson [see Andrews, 2002], 168–192.
40.
MarlandH (2004) Dangerous Motherhood: Insanity and Childbirth in Victorian Britain. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave-Macmillan.
41.
MarlandH (2006) Languages and landscapes of emotion: motherhood and puerperal insanity in the nineteenth century. In: Bound AlbertiF (ed.) Medicine, Emotion and Disease, 1700–1950. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave-Macmillan: 53–78.
42.
PollockLA (1990) Embarking on a rough passage: the experience of pregnancy in early modern society. In: FildesV (ed.) Women as Mothers in Pre-Industrial England. London: Routledge, 39–67.
43.
QuinnC (2002) Images and impulses: representations of puerperal insanity and infanticide in late Victorian England. In: Jackson M [see Andrews, 2002], 193–215.
44.
RossE (1993) Love and Toil: Motherhood in Outcast London. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press.
45.
SmithR (1981) Trial by Medicine: Insanity and Responsibility in Victorian Trials. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
46.
WilsonA (1995) The Making of Man-Midwifery: Childbirth in England 1660–1770. London: UCL Press.
47.
WrigleyEADavisRSOeppenJESchofieldRS (1997) English Population History from Family Reconstitution 1580–1837. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
