Institutionalising Pellagrous Insanity: An Introduction

Abstract

Whilst the exact aetiology of pellagra remained unclear, the effects of the disease could not have been clearer: asylums in the maize-growing areas of northern Italy were filled with cases of the disease. Part II of this book focuses on the experience of insanity caused by pellagra. We explore how pellagrous insanity was understood, diagnosed and treated by medical investigators and asylum doctors alike, as well as the patient experience of this terrible phase of the disease. We begin, in this chapter, by introducing pellagrous insanity—how it manifested itself, its place in pellagra’s symptomatology, as well as its impact on society. The qualitative—here referring to individual patient histories and asylum directors’ reports—will be integrated with the quantitative—based on data culled from the five thousand patient files which make up our Venetian Mental Asylums Database.