TY - JOUR T1 - Isaac Ray, Malpractice Defendant JF - Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law Online JO - J Am Acad Psychiatry Law SP - 382 LP - 390 VL - 41 IS - 3 AU - Kenneth J. Weiss Y1 - 2013/09/01 UR - http://jaapl.org/content/41/3/382.abstract N2 - Isaac Ray (1807–1881), founder of American forensic psychiatry, produced his classic Treatise on the Medical Jurisprudence of Insanity in 1838. He did not begin to practice asylum medicine, however, until 1841, when he became superintendent of the Maine Insane Hospital in Augusta. There, he treated a patient, Isaac Hunt, who later sued him for malpractice and then self-published a book, Astounding Disclosures! Three Years in a Mad House, detailing alleged abuses suffered at the doctor's hands. This article recalls the incident and tracks Ray's reactions to it, the public's perception of asylums, and the tension between paternalistic asylum medicine and an emerging consumer-rights movement. ER -