caa a22 4500 386352399 CHVBK 20180307111838.0 cr unu---uuuuu 161130e198908 xx s 000 0 eng 10.1017/S0033291700024168 doi S0033291700024168 pii (NATIONALLICENCE)cambridge-10.1017/S0033291700024168 Neugebauer Richard Gertrude H. Sergievsky Center, Faculty of Medicine, Columbia University and the Epidemiology of Brain Disorders Department, NYS Psychiatric Institute, New York, USA A doctor's dilemma: the case of William Harvey's mentally retarded nephew [Elektronische Daten] [Richard Neugebauer] In June 1637 William Harvey petitioned the Court of Wards and Liveries, a legal incompetency court in early modern England, for a grant of the custody of his mentally disabled nephew, William Fowke. ‘Idiocy' and ‘lunacy' were the two medico-legal categories for insanity used by the Court and Harvey requested that his nephew be inspected for idiocy. However, the legal and administrative history of the Court indicates that in the 1630s idiocy (but not lunacy) grants were prejudicial to the assets and economic security of retarded persons. Since petitioners' wishes, more than clinical status, usually determined the diagnostic label assigned to referred individuals, idiocy grants were not sought by persons of some social standing. Harvey's idiocy referral probably reflects his allegiance to his own clinical observations in the face of opposing social norms and family advantage. Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989 Psychological Medicine Cambridge University Press 19/3(1989-08), 569-572 0033-2917 19:3<569 1989 19 PSM https://doi.org/10.1017/S0033291700024168 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1017/S0033291700024168 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 100 1- Neugebauer Richard Gertrude H. Sergievsky Center, Faculty of Medicine, Columbia University and the Epidemiology of Brain Disorders Department, NYS Psychiatric Institute, New York, USA NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- Psychological Medicine Cambridge University Press 19/3(1989-08), 569-572 0033-2917 19:3<569 1989 19 PSM CC0 http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0 nationallicence BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-cambridge