Published in:
01-09-2007 | Literary and Historical
Murder, mercury, mental illness: infanticide in nineteenth-century Ireland
Published in: Irish Journal of Medical Science (1971 -) | Issue 3/2007
Login to get accessAbstract
Background
Infanticide has been described in almost every human society.
Aims
To present a case of infanticide from nineteenth-century Ireland and explore related diagnostic, therapeutic and judicial issues.
Methods
This paper uses original archival material from the Central Mental Hospital, Dublin to present a case of infanticide and inform an exploration of related issues.
Results
In 1892, ‘Dora’, a thirty-four year old servant from Dublin, was found guilty of the murder of her eight-month old child and sentenced to indefinite detention at the Central Mental Hospital, Ireland’s only inpatient forensic psychiatry facility. The subsequent experiences of Dora (“a case of melancholia”) illustrate many of the diagnostic, therapeutic and judicial issues surrounding infanticide in nineteenth-century Ireland.
Conclusions
There were strong links between social circumstances and infanticide in nineteenth-century Ireland, compounded by myriad diagnostic and therapeutic challenges associated with forensic psychiatric committal and lengthy detention in poorly-therapeutic facilities
.