John Haslam (1764–1844) was an English apothecary, physician and medical writer, known for his work on

mental illness A mental disorder, also referred to as a mental illness, a mental health condition, or a psychiatric disability, is a behavioral or mental pattern that causes significant distress or impairment of personal functioning. A mental disorder is ...

. Haslam's case study of James Tilly Matthews is the earliest detailed description of paranoid schizophrenia. John Haslam Dawe

Life

Haslam was born in London, and trained as an apothecary at the United Borough Hospitals, and (briefly) in

Edinburgh Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...

where he attended medical classes in 1785 and 1786. After acting for many years as apothecary to

Bethlehem Hospital Bethlem Royal Hospital, also known as St Mary Bethlehem, Bethlehem Hospital and Bedlam, is a psychiatric hospital in Bromley, London. Its famous history has inspired several horror books, films, and television series, most notably '' Bedlam'', ...

, London, and obtaining a practical knowledge of nervous diseases, Haslam was dismissed by the governors in 1816 after the publication of the Report of the Select Committee on Madhouses. He was subsequently created a doctor of medicine by the

University of Aberdeen The University of Aberdeen (abbreviated ''Aberd.'' in List of post-nominal letters (United Kingdom), post-nominals; ) is a public university, public research university in Aberdeen, Scotland. It was founded in 1495 when William Elphinstone, Bis ...

on 17 September 1816. Haslam rebuilt his career as a physician in London. To comply with the regulations of the College of Physicians in London, he entered himself at

Pembroke College, Cambridge Pembroke College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. The college is the third-oldest college of the university and has over 700 students and fellows. It is one of the university's larger colleges, with buildings from ...

, and kept some terms there, but took no degree. He was admitted a licentiate of the College of Physicians on 12 April 1824. Haslam was distinguished in private practice by his clinical sensitivity, while his scientific publications and contributions to periodicals gave him a solid professional reputation. In an 1809 edition of a work on insanity he included a detailed description of the case of James Tilly Matthews which is one of the earliest and clearest recordings of paranoid schizophrenia. However, in the early years of the nineteenth century,

came to be compared unfavourably with the reformed asylums, notably with

The Retreat The Retreat, commonly known as the York Retreat, is a place in England for the treatment of people with mental health needs. Located in Lamel Hill in York, it operates as a not for profit charitable organisation. Opened in 1796, it is famous ...

York York is a cathedral city in North Yorkshire, England, with Roman Britain, Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers River Ouse, Yorkshire, Ouse and River Foss, Foss. It has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a Yor ...

, and with St Luke's under

William Battie William Battie (sometimes spelt Batty;) 1 September 1704 – 13 June 1776) was an English physician who published, in 1758, ''A Treatise on Madness'', a highly influential book on the use of institutionalisation and shock therapy as methods of ...

and his successors. This shift of fashionable opinion reached a decisive conclusion with the Norris scandal of 1815/1816, and Haslam (and, to a lesser extent, Thomas Monro) attracted much of the popular and political obloquy, voiced especially by Edward Wakefield, a Quaker land agent and leading advocate of asylum reform. Although he later retrained as a physician, Haslam was dismissed and financially ruined, and he was forced to sell his entire library. He died at 56

Lamb's Conduit Street Lamb's Conduit Street is a street in Holborn in the West End of London, West End of London. The street takes its name from ''Lambs Conduit'', originally known as the ''Holborn Conduit'', a dam across a tributary of the River Fleet. Lamb's Cond ...

, London, 20 July 1844, aged 80.

Works

Haslam wrote:
''Observations on Insanity, with Practical Remarks on the Disease and an Account of the Morbid Appearances on Dissection''
1798. The second edition was entitle
''Observations on Madness and Melancholy''
1809. * ''Illustrations of Madness, with a Description of the Tortures experienced by Bomb-bursting, Lobster-cracking, and Lengthening the Brain'', 1810 (for more information see James Tilly Matthews, ''Illustrations of Madness'') *For ''

Rees's Cyclopædia Rees's ''Cyclopædia'', in full ''The Cyclopædia; or, Universal Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and Literature'', was an important 19th-century British people, British encyclopaedia edited by Rev. Abraham Rees (1743–1825), a Presbyterian minis ...

'' he contributed the article on Mental derangement, Vol 23, (1812/13) * ''Observations of the Physician'' .e. Dr. Thomas Monro' and Apothecary of Bethlem Hospital upon the Evidence before the House of Commons on Madhouses'', 1816; Haslam's observations are on pp. 37–55. * ''Considerations on the Moral Management of Insane Persons'', 1817. * ''Medical Jurisprudence as It Relates to Insanity According to the Law of England'', 1817. * ''A Letter to the Governors of Bethlehem Hospital, containing an Account of their Management for the last Twenty Years'', 1818.
''Sound Mind, or Contributions to the History and Physiology of the Human Intellect''
1819.
''A Letter to the Lord Chancellor on Unsoundness of Mind and Imbecility of Intellect''
1823.
''On the Nature of Thought and its Connexion with a Perspicuous Sentence''
1835. Haslam read three papers—''On Restraint and Coercion'', 1833, ''An Attempt to Institute the Correct Discrimination between Crime and Insanity'', 1843, and ''On the Increase of Insanity'', 1843—before the Society for Improving the Condition of the Insane; these were printed with others by J. C. Sommers in 1850, in ''A Selection of the Papers and Prize Essays on Subjects connected with Insanity''.

References

;Attribution

External links

* * * Burkhart Brückner, Robin Pape
Biography of John Haslam
in
Biographical Archive of Psychiatry (BIAPSY)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Haslam, John 1764 births 1844 deaths English apothecaries History of mental health in the United Kingdom 19th-century English medical doctors Mental health professionals