Queen Mary and Westfield College London University PhD Thesis ...

to mental and physical health, and tracts published on the subject from the early eighteenth
century were more scandalised by female, than by male, indulgence 492 . The Apology (1748-9) of
the courtesan, Teresia Constantia Phillips and the outrage it provoked in some gentlemen read-
ers, exemplifies how female lust might be accepted by women themselves as a major cause of
insanity, but was regarded by many men as 'monstrous', 'unnatural', 'depraved', and as totally
unfit as a subject for public perusal 493 . By 1764, women, like Martha Nick, were already being
sent to and from Bethiem and parish workhouses under the label 'carnal lunatick[s]'494. There
is little evidence that such incipient classifications were extensively employed at Bethlem or
elsewhere, or of patients of either sex exposing themselves or masturbating in front of visitors,
vices constantly decried and severely penalised by nineteenth century alienists. Indubitably,
such anxieties were concealed (though running less deeply) beneath hospital policy concerning
patients 'unfit to be Exposed'. Accounts of private cases reveal that contemporaries had long
been confined in madhouses for 'Extravagancies' of a sexual nature 495 . Granted, however, such
behaviour seems rarely to have sufficed on its own, or even predominated in the rationales be-
hind committals, or in the diagnosis and treatment of insanity, before the nineteenth century.
492 With the eighteenth century stress on 'new worlds for children', however, it was, as Stone observed, youths
rather than women who were singled out for particular admonition concerning lust and onanism; Family, Sex and
Marriage, 318-22. Richard Baxter, in his The Signs and Casses of Melancholy (London, 1716), warned 'all young
Persons' against the 'wounds' 'venerous Crimes' and 'Self-pollution', 'espedally', 'leave deep...in the Conscience'
and the access 'carnal Lust' allows 'Satan' into their 'Phantasies'. See Hunter & Macalpine, Psychiatry, 240. For
the first treatise dedicated entirely to masturbation, see Onania: Or, the Rein oiis Sin of Self-Pollstion, and all
its Frightful Conseqsences (in both Sexes) Con,ider'd (London, 1710). See, also, Porter, Manacles, 203-5. Re.
children, see Margaret Palling, 'Child health as a sodal value in early modem England', in Joarnal for the Social
History of Medicine, I, 2, Aug. 1988, 135-64. Moreover, as Porter maintains, links between masturbation and
mental illness were tenuous prior to the nineteenth century; Manacle,, 203-5.
See PhilJip, Apology, vol. iii; idem, A Coanter-Apology: or Genaine Confession. Being a Cattion to
the Fair Sex in general. Containing the secret History, Amosrs sni Intrignes of M(rsJ PfluillipsJ, a Jamoss
Courtezan; who underwent various Scenes of Life, and Changes of Fort rene, both at Home and Abroad (London,
1759); GM, vol. 24, Nov. 1754, 497-9. In fact, Phillips's 'Peggy' emerges as a kind of anti-heroine to the tender
and virtuous feeling of the archetypal Ophelia, contrived to demonstrate the 'puny Virtue' and carnal urges
lurking beneath the innocent facade of love. In her condusion, Phillips cites a passage from the disillusioned
Hamlet; Apology, 5 & 102.
See CLRO MSS 188.t, 'Extracts from the Admission Book of...St. Sepulchre['s Workhouse]'. Nick is case
no. 1315, and was admitted to Bethlem at the request of the churchwardens on 9 Jan. 1764. The entry in the
table of the Admission Book is dated 6 March 1765.
The relations of a notorious private patient of Edward Tyson's e g. had been profoundly embarrassed by
her 'wearing Rags, and in Nakedness and Nastyness, exposing her sell in the Streets' where she met with 'all
manner of common Insults'. See, Defoe, Review of the State of the English Nation, no. 89, 25 July 1706, 354.
See, also, The true case of Mrs Clerke (London, 1718) and Andrews, '"In her Vapours" ',re. patients exposing
themselves and (antithetically) delusive claims to virginity.
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