{"product_id":"madmen","title":"Madmen","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWhat was it like to be insane in the Georgian England of Mary Wollstonecraft and Coleridge (himself afflicted with madness?)\u003c\/strong\u003e How were our eighteenth-century ancestors confined and how were they treated by the fledgling psychiatric 'profession'? Indeed, how was the most famous mad person of the century - Shelley's 'old, mad, blind, despised king' George III - treated before his final descent into senility in 1808? Best-selling popular historian Roy Porter looks at the bizarre and savage practices of mad-doctors treating those afflicted by 'manias', ranging from huge doses of opium, blood-letting and cold-water immersion to beatings, confinement in cages and blistering.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe author reveals how Bethlem - the London asylum created to care for the capital's mentally sick - was riddled with sadism and embezzlement, and if that wasn't dehumanising enough, jeering, ogling sightseers were permitted entry - for a fee of course.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"The History Press Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54242041561432,"sku":"9780752419725","price":31.99,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0278\/1295\/4195\/files\/9780752419725.jpg?v=1765224918","url":"https:\/\/agendabookshop.com\/products\/madmen","provider":"Agenda Bookshop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}