A chronology of medicine and related sciences

Learning Disability held in 1994. The thrust of the book is that oral, documentary and photographic resources are complementary strands in the history of learning disability. The period covered is mainly the twentieth century. Included is the autobiography of Mabel Cooper, produced with the help of Dorothy Atkinson. Although this is a very interesting human story, it would have been enhanced by a correlation with the histories of the institutions concerned. Mabel Cooper's contribution is analogous to a soldier's account of the horrors of trench warfare, but, like a soldier's description of the Battle of the Somme, it adds very little to the understanding of the overall strategy. Rebecca Fido and Maggie Potts give an account of the harshness of conditions in some institutions. By contrast, Andrew Stevens describes how nurses in Colchester were ostracized by their colleagues whenever they broke the no-punishment code. Differing behaviours are described. Drawing on the records of Sandlebridge (Cheshire), Mark Jackson demonstrates the value of photographs in the study of the development and maintenance of an institution, illustrating attitudes to the disabled and, at the same time, providing material for use in medical text books. The Sandlebridge photographs were taken in 1909 and 1911, and Jackson is rightly concerned to ensure that the right to confidentiality is preserved, while pointing out there are adequate conventions protecting anonymity. We are unlikely ever again to see such a spectacular breach of the codes as Sano's 1918 paper in the Journal of Mental Science in which he discussed William Pullen by name and gave full details of his autopsy. Two chapters by Jan Walmsley, one on the history of learning disability in Bedfordshire and the other on the history of community care, are based on the records of Bedford Mental Deficiency Committee 1915-1946. They emphasize the value of local studies and indicate what can and cannot be gleaned from local records, listing Northamptonshire, Cheshire, Greater London, and Norfolk as holding substantial archives. Dorothy Atkinson similarly describes material in Somerset County Records Office, in particular after 1913, when the county's "range of institutions and systems ... put it high on the Board of Control's 'league table' of local authorities". The authors might also have mentioned Surrey County Records Office, which holds a substantial volume of material on the Royal Earlswood Asylum for Idiots, already used extensively by Lilian Zihni and David Wright for their unpublished PhD theses. The final contribution by Julia Sheppard lists the relevant resources available in the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine. Overall the book contains very useful information, and it should stimulate further study of the history of learning disability.