Psychological Classification and Diagnosis in Asylum Statistics, 1800 - 1948

This book provides a detailed examination of the questions that preoccupied British alienists throughout the second half of the nineteenth century. Was insanity one disorder with different forms or a set of distinct natural kinds that each had different causes, symptoms, and outlooks? Was it possible to devise a standardised classification of the insanities that provides a scientific basis to psychological diagnosis? Could statistics on psychological diagnosis provide data to help reveal the nat