Customers and Patrons of the Mad Trade: The Management of Lunacy in Eighteenth-Century London. With the Complete Text of John Monro’s 1766 Case Book by Jonathan Andrews and Andrew Scull (review)

67 to law school. And one day, perhaps, those lawyers may just stumble on Dryden or Pope or Swift in their children’s reading lists (great literature will always outlast bad critics, as the Scriblerians argued in their more optimistic moments), and then decide to sue their own English departments for having failed to introduce them to the Scriblerians, to the best that had been thought and written in the eighteenth century. I just hope they sue one of those ‘‘prestigious departments’’ first. University of Florida BOOKS BRIEFLY NOTED* ALEXANDER POPE and JOHN ARBUTHNOT . Memoirs of the Extraordinary Life, Works and Discoveries of Martinus Scriblerus , Foreword by Peter Ackroyd. London : Hesperus, 2002. Pp. x ⫹ 102. $12. Most readers of The Scriblerian have never read the Memoirs of its eponymous hero except in the magnificent edition of Charles Kerby-Miller. They would suspect that Memoirs would be an unrewarding experience without this weighty explanatory apparatus, so steeped is the work in eighteenth-century arcana. Mr. Ackroyd’s accomplishment is to perceive that the Memoirs would be able to ‘‘speak for itself’’ in a volume with a cursory three-page Introduction and few annotations . This handsome little paperback, elegantly printed and designed, reintroduces the Scriblerians’ extraordinary wit, even if one cannot remember the thrust of every allusion. As Mr. Ackroyd notes, this is‘‘acomedy undertakenbythemostbrilliant and most facetious men of their time.’’ It is well worth reading straight through in a clean text; like Cornelius’s shield, scrubbing off the rusts of antiquity can make what is beneath shine all the more brightly. *Unsigned reviews are by the editors. JONATHAN ANDREWS and ANDREW SCULL. Customers and Patrons of the Mad Trade: The Management of Lunacy in Eighteenth-Century London. With the Complete Text of John Monro’s 1766 Case Book. Berkeley: California, 2003. Pp. xvi ⫹ 209 ⫹ 124. $44.95. This book is the second oftwovolumes focusing on the career of Dr. John Monro (1715–1791), physician to Bethlem (‘‘Bedlam’’) Hospital and one of the best known mad-doctors of his era. The first volume, Undertaker of the Mind: John Monro and Mad-Doctoring inEighteenth -Century England (2001; see my review in Albion 35:1, Spring 2003, 130– 132), gave an overview of mad-doctoring in this period, focusing on Monro’s practice at Bethlem. The 1766 casebook which inspired both volumes is reproduced in this volume . A lengthy commentary placesMonro ’s practice in a medical context, discussing the social origins of patients, diagnosis, treatment, and payment. The chapters on consultation and on patients ’views of themselves are especially strong. Monro’s casebook gives evidence of his own opinions in ways that correspondence, for example, cannot, and therefore provides an exceptional glimpse into the medical view of madness , and Messrs. Andrews and Scull’s 68 analysis explains the medical side well. Patients at their most vulnerable explain their own worries and discomforts to the doctor. The authors note that madness was very much a ‘‘shared discourse’’between doctor and patient, and this discourse was not entirely medical. While they offer some analysis of Monro’s female patients, a little more consideration of gender would have been welcome. Monro recorded sixty-five female patients in 1766 and only forty-five male; why was this? As in the earlier volume, Messrs. Andrews and Scull are at their weakest in their discussion of religion. WhileMonro apparently made little use of spiritual ideas of healing, it is a mistake to claim that these ideas therefore did not exist. While those in political power may have viewed religious enthusiasm as a threatto order, it neither disappeared nor became totally subsumed into a vague categoryof madness. Monro’s casebook for the year 1766 is reproduced in a separately paginated section in modern typeface with all of his deletions and additions noticed. Messrs. Andrews and Scull’s valuable notes identify individuals and references, giving needed context to Monro’s sometimes sketchy records, including often giving the outcome of the case. The notes themselves are fascinating. A skilled physician , Monro wasexperiencedatcapturing the essence of an individual in a case history . We also learn much about patients’ social circumstances, home life, and relationships , making the case book useful not only as a...