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Professions and the Identification of Mental Incapacity in Eighteenth‐Century Scotland
Author(s) -
Houston R.A.
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
journal of historical sociology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.186
H-Index - 26
eISSN - 1467-6443
pISSN - 0952-1909
DOI - 10.1111/1467-6443.00155
Subject(s) - context (archaeology) , politics , identification (biology) , power (physics) , set (abstract data type) , mental capacity , order (exchange) , law , sociology , political science , psychology , psychiatry , history , business , botany , physics , archaeology , finance , quantum mechanics , biology , computer science , programming language
Eighteenth‐century Scottish legal procedures to investigate the mental capacity of an individual to manage his or her own affairs are examined to discover the relative significance of different professional and lay groups in identifying disabilities. The role of medical men, lawyers and non‐professionals is set in the context of contemporary social and political priorities in order to question simple models of medicalisation. A substantial body of empirical evidence is used to reveal the subtle gradations of power in different domestic, legal and institutional domains.