RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Isaac Ray, Malpractice Defendant
JF Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law Online
JO J Am Acad Psychiatry Law
FD American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law
SP 382
OP 390
VO 41
IS 3
A1 Weiss, Kenneth J.
YR 2013
UL http://jaapl.org/content/41/3/382.abstract
AB 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.