Victorian Women Imprisoned for stress, post natal depression and anxiety

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception

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Women were often labelled insane and locked up in madhouses for a range of conditions – from postnatal depression to alcoholism or senile dementia, and even for social transgressions such as infidelity (‘moral insanity’).

These photographic records exist because some influential doctors, including the photographer, believed that the new science of photography could help to diagnose mental illness by capturing what was called the ‘exact point that had been reached in the scale of unhappiness’.

The idea that a face could be used to read a mind – and how one looked in a photo could determine their fate – fascinates and horrifies.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/you/article-2141741/Sent-asylum-The-Victorian-women-locked-suffering-stress-post-natal-depression-anxiety.html#ixzz1un7M1wYR