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A doctor's dilemma: the case of William Harvey's mentally retarded nephew

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2009

Richard Neugebauer
Richard Neugebauer*
Affiliation:
Gertrude H. Sergievsky Center, Faculty of Medicine, Columbia University and the Epidemiology of Brain Disorders Department, NYS Psychiatric Institute, New York, USA
*
1Address for correspondence: Dr R. Neugebauer, Gertrude H. Sergievsky Center, The Faculty of Medicine, Columbia University, 630 West 168th Street, New York, NY 10032, USA.
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Synopsis

In June 1637 William Harvey petitioned the Court of Wards and Liveries, a legal incompetency court in early modern England, for a grant of the custody of his mentally disabled nephew, William Fowke. ‘Idiocy’ and ‘lunacy’ were the two medico-legal categories for insanity used by the Court and Harvey requested that his nephew be inspected for idiocy. However, the legal and administrative history of the Court indicates that in the 1630s idiocy (but not lunacy) grants were prejudicial to the assets and economic security of retarded persons. Since petitioners' wishes, more than clinical status, usually determined the diagnostic label assigned to referred individuals, idiocy grants were not sought by persons of some social standing. Harvey's idiocy referral probably reflects his allegiance to his own clinical observations in the face of opposing social norms and family advantage.

Type
Original Articles
Information
Psychological Medicine , Volume 19 , Issue 3 , August 1989 , pp. 569 - 572
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989

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