For medical purposes: Insanity Supervening on Habits of Intemperance, Plate 12
 

Today we may want to edit our photos to make ourselves look better or present ourselves in a certain way. Yet for Diamond, the editing had a practical agenda behind it. The female patient in Plate 12 looks straight into the camera and has a prayer-like pose with her elbows close to the sides of her body, palms together and fingers straight [the woman on the left in fig.1]. The original photograph held at the Royal Society of Medicine, however, looks nothing like this. Though staring at the camera, the woman turns her head 45 degrees to her left in the photograph, which makes her seem like she is showing suspicion and disdain with her frown. Instead of folding her hands, she is placing her left hand on her right hand and pressing them against her chest.   

The edited lithograph print, which looks straighter and more symmetrical, might be the result of the artist’s and photographer’s aesthetic preference. However, it may also be the case that Diamond and Conolly wanted to emphasise the impact of religion on the patients.

Religious activities were a common therapeutic treatment for patients with alcohol use disorder:

'All physical excess is at an end - no neglect and no cruelty add to the morbid wretchedness; kind words are heard, and religious thoughts are gradually introduced into the mind of the sufferers; and the curtain of death falls gently even upon them'.

'The Physiognomy of Insanity' by John Conolly

 

Afterall, being visual sources published in medical journals and exhibited publicly, these engravings functioned like advertisements. They proved that the asylum’s therapeutic methods worked. The patients became living examples of how Diamond’s photographic physiognomy, Conolly’s advocacy for non-restraint practices in asylums, and religion could help patients regain hope and inner peace.

Muted in photos: Suicidal Melancholy, Plate 2
 

What about the authentic voices of the patients? Being described as ‘evidently of lower ranks of life’, this woman in figure 3 was critically analysed by Conolly:

'Some bodily function becomes accidentally impaired [...] Occasional depression of mind ensues, and gradually increases. The patient becomes inactive, abstracted, and silent, and all cheerful expression is banished from the countenance, [...] until at length, on some dreadful morning, the patient first shows a determined tendency to self-destruction'

Physiognomy of Insanity: Suicidal Melancholy by John Conolly

 

Although he admitted that the lives of working-class women were ‘intimately known to few’ in Conolly’s circle, Conolly attempted to describe the social biography of the woman. To him, poverty was not only associated with malnutrition and bad health, but also alcohol abuse and the deterioration of mental health, especially with the absence of religious faith.

In historic records, the discourses and assumptions of medical professionals are dominant, the voices from those labelled as melancholic, especially the female patient, are scattered. Testimonies of suffering, distress, pains and emotions can only be implied anecdotally or in suicide letters – in the way these women wrote the letters, folded their letter papers, placed their finished letters, addressed themselves and the reader.  Alcohol abuse was believed to be a prevalent social problem in the Victorian era, and was attributed as a cause in many cases of melancholy and suicidal thoughts, but it was certainly not the only reason. For instance, Mary Wainwright Atherstone, wife of the British poet Edwin Atherstone, wrote in her own death note, “I brood & brood ‘till I’m mad. I thank you with my whole heart for all your forbearance to my silly humours – I must have been a bore to you for years.” Mary describes what she feels as the burden of motherhood and a difficult relationship as the reasons for her suicide.

Through Mary’s letter, we can sense the mental anguish and physical pain she was going through:

'[I feel] as if I could scream till it reach’d Heaven or Taunton or Nottingham or all together – my poor head is so hot'

 

Other suicide notes from the 18th and 19th centuries suggest that headaches were a prominent symptom as well as sleeplessness, a sense of heaviness and lowness, heartache and the wringing of hands.

These testimonies, which form part of the patient narrative, were not studied by historians systematically and thoroughly until recent decades when the discourse of underrepresentation emerges. Even now, this topic remains insufficiently researched. At the same time, it is common to see that these letters invoke many interpretations in different contexts even if they represent the psychiatric patients attempting suicide. For instance, is the 'pain' described above metaphorical or suggestive of real physical symptoms? Or how should we comprehend the words and stories of these writers? On the contrary, the works of Diamond and Conolly explain themselves in a systematic way even if they turn out to be inaccurate. They were properly published, circulated among, and accepted by other medical practitioners at the time who had powerful voices like Diamond and Conolly did. It is not surprising, then, to find that the voices of patients have been overshadowed by that of Diamond and Conolly. In addition, these prints, including Plate12 and 2 introduced in this article, were created from the perspective of Diamond right from the beginning.

No matter how objective the photographs or prints engraved from them seem, they are ultimately about who gets the power to express what they want to say. Just as how you and your friend, with different interests, beliefs, preferences and tastes, may choose to emphasise completely different things in your photos, it is time we ask:

From whose perspective are we looking from when we gaze upon an artwork? What does it tell us? And what does it NOT tell.

Joelle Li

UCL, Student placement