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This is Your Brain on Trial

New Books in Science, Technology, and Society

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Is This an Early Example of Mental Illness Being Used in the Justice System?

List of reasons for admission to a lunatic asylum in the 18 sixties. Includes things like deranged masturbation, fits and desertion of husband. Being admitted to an asylum gave the husband grounds for divorce. The fears about madhouses being a device to get rid of an inconvenient person or to seize their assets has a very, very long history.

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