Over the last century, healthcare for mental illness has undergone massive change to incorporate a social as well as a medical perspective. In the latest episode of the Overend-Knight Medical History Podcast, Professor Allan Pacey takes us on a historical journey which looks at Middlewood Hospital and how two men from the University of Sheffield challenged the status quo.
Professor Pacey is joined by several guests: Dr Kate McAllister and Dr Chris Millard, two historians from the University of Sheffield; Dr Helen Crimlisk, Consultant Psychiatrist at Sheffield Health and Social Care NHS Foundation Trust; and Dr Josie Soutar, Managing Director for local mental health charity Sheffield Flourish.
The Asylums Act of Parliament in 1808 allowed the opening of the South Yorkshire Lunatic Asylum in Middlewood. At that time Middlewood was a small village, some distance away from Sheffield, separating 'inmates' at the asylum from wider society. Patients were admitted to Middlewood from all over South Yorkshire and in 1880, the maintenance cost was fixed at ten shillings and sixpence a week, approximately forty pounds today.
Acts of Parliament passed in the early 1900s challenged the stigma associated with terms such as ‘mental disorder’ and suggested using ‘hospital’ instead of ‘asylum’ and suggesting early, preventative measures for patients. Sir Arthur Hall and Professor Alec Jenner, both with positions at Sheffield University championed removing the stigma around mental illness.
Sir Arthur was an eminent physician who was born and bred in Sheffield and became an adviser to the Royal College of Physicians and helped set up the Sheffield Medical School. In the 1890s, he forged new collaborations with Middlewood and created a joint mental health outpatient clinic where people could receive treatment without having to be certified as ‘insane’. Hall believed in treating the mind as well as the body.
Dr Jenner was at Sheffield during a period of improvement in the facilities for the comfort and welfare of patients at Middlewood. These included rehabilitation activities such as car washing and housekeeping. In 1967, he was appointed Professor and began to challenge the views of previous decades on isolation and medicalisation for mental illness instead believing that the total ambience of a person’s life is of central importance to their mental health. He encouraged a focus on listening to patients and recovery of emotional and mental balance.
Today, experts in Sheffield researching the stigma of mental health illness continue to practice Jenner's philosophy of listening to the lived experiences of patients, including those at Middlewood, to inform the future.
Dr Chris Blackmore from the School of Medicine and Population Health with collaborators Amanda Crawley Jackson, Ian McMillan, Patrick Murphy, Brendan Stone and Sheffield Flourish, have taken an in-depth look at the changing nature of the language of mental health over time as part of their "Mind: You're Language" project. This is a Festival of the Mind project, with an exhibition, book and Spiegeltent talk. The book will also feature in Off the Shelf. Listen to their podcast, Middlewood of the Mind to hear more.