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Old and mad in Victorian Oxford: a study of patients aged 60 and over admitted to the Warneford and Littlemore Asylums in the nineteenth century

St Andrews Hospital, Billing Road, Northampton, NN1 5DG, UK. GYorston{at}standrew.co.uk

Camilla Haw

St Andrews Hospital, Northampton

This is a historical case note analysis of older patients admitted to the Warneford and Littlemore Asylums in nineteenth-century Oxford. Of 1044 admissions to the Warneford, 93 patients were aged over 60 (8.9%). At Littlemore, 998 of a total of 5464 admissions were aged over 60 (18.3%). High levels of psychopathology were found, as in other studies examining patients of all ages, and were similar for the two institutions. The largest difference was in the death rate, which was much higher for Littlemore Asylum. This resulted from the preponderance of patients with organic diagnoses who were admitted to Littlemore, many of whom died shortly afterwards.

Key Words: diagnosis • history • hospitals • medicine • mental disorders • old age • psychiatry • 19th century

History of Psychiatry, Vol. 16, No. 4, 395-421 (2005)
DOI: 10.1177/0957154X05054079


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