Madness in America: cultural and medical perceptions of mental illness before 1914

legal practice of taking these constraintsincluding insanity-into consideration was the attempt to understand the actions of criminals from their own point of view. The crime committed under insanity thus became an understandable act, and the insane criminal became an individual whose motivation and will were fathomable. Rather than simply labelling the insane with the stereotypes of madness or explaining them away as alien figures, lay culture in the late-eighteenth century was therefore moving toward creating the Foucauldian modem individual in the courtroom: carefully examining the vitiated will of the insane criminal in order to reconstruct and understand his or her mental world. Eigen's achievement is thus manifold. It will become the standard citation work on English forensic psychiatry before the McNaughton Rules. It has challenged the present orthodox interpretation of the rise of forensic psychiatry, which will no doubt stimulate discussion and further research. Most importantly, it asks fresh and important questions which will command the attention of many historians of psychiatry. Few will fail to benefit from reading Witnessing insanity, following the fine and careful lines of arguments, and pondering on numerous questions invoked by them.