Model guide to Lancashire mental hospital records

more than any other work available, better inform future students (and future medical historians) about the continuity and changes in the ways in which health and disease have been perceived throughout United States history. This book will serve as an exemplary model for complementary publications that could focus upon different temporal and geographical regions. In a sense it is surprising that a guide of this kind has not appeared before, given the interest in the history of insanity over the last two decades. But then, as this book itself points out, collaboration between academic researchers and archivists is not a common occurrence. The Model guide appeared as a result of one such project between the University of Salford and Lancashire Record Office, supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Board, and the authors are to be congratulated on producing such a useful work in a period of only four months. Mental hospital records pose particular problems for hard pressed record offices: recent closures have meant that many records have needed saving within a relatively short period of time, yet they are bulky and there are issues of confidentiality of patient records that affect access. Administrative changes to the asylums, the fact that records of any one institution may be split between one or more offices, and the lack of standardization in the way the records themselves are described (terminology being an additional problem), all add to the difficulties faced by custodians and researchers. Their wide potential research value is underestimated and they are not consulted as frequently as they deserve. An introductory chapter clarifies these issues, making the point that it is possible, though not easy, for bona fide scholars to gain access to patient records less than 100 years old. There is an excellent summary of the legislation affecting key records from 1750 to 1939. Brief histories of twelve Lancashire mental hospitals are given, and a short practical section on how to go about consulting them. Especially useful is the main section, presenting a detailed review and assessment of the records. This goes into detail about the content of different series of records (minutes, reports, journals, financial records, registers, staff records, letter books, etc.) with examples and illustrations from the Lancashire Record Office holdings. A spreadsheet of all the surviving mental hospital record series allows their gaps and strengths to be seen at a glance. Contacts and a brief …