PSYCHIATRY

Jenner Typed Letter Signed: Two pages, fol., fold marks, small closed tears on folds, ow good condition. He (and his team) would appreciate Laing's coming to dinner since they are starting to think about schizophrenia in something like the way you have seen it for a long time [...] In particular we are in the middle of what might be called humanistic studies of a mere handful of to us extremely interesting 'schizophrenic' persons.

St Luke's Hospital for Lunatics was founded in 1750 by City of London philanthropists to treat mental illness among the poor of London. In 1786 it moved from Moorfields to Old Street, where it remained until 1916. Simmons was appointed physician to the hospital in 1781. 6pp, 16mo. A piece of laid watermarked paper has been neatly torn into three 16 x 10 cm leaves: a bifolium, with the single leaf loosely inserted. In good condition, lightly aged. A poignant artefact. Simple, brief notes, giving age, name, date [of admission], address, some with follow-up notes. The six women are 'Eliz.

Both in good condition, lightly aged, and each with thin strip of paper from mount adhering to reverse of second leaf. Both addressed to 'My dear Pierce'. (Pierce had worked under Clouston at the Royal Edinburgh Asylum, before taking up his post at the York Retreat asylum in 1892.) Clouston's hand is markedly disordered hand, and difficult of decipherment. ONE: 2pp, 12mo. He is enclosing a cheque for three guineas 'for [Maher's?] Fund'.

Both letters are signed 'Chas. Mercier'. ONE 23 July 1906. 2pp, 12mo. Bifolium with mourning border. In good condition, lightly aged, with thin strip of paper adhering to the blank second leaf. The letter, which is written in a playful tone, begins: 'My dear Bedford Pearce [sic] | Blamed if I do? I am not so ignorant of the Canonical Books as to confuse Prov: 26. 4 with 26. 5. Your offence, which cries aloud to heaven, is the omission of a comma! A quotation should follow the original verbatim et literatim [sic] et punctuatim, and a stop is an integral part of the text.

1p, 4to. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded twice. Written a few months before Bleuler's death to an unnamed recipient ('Liebster Freund!'), regarding the possibility of consciousness within the plant kingdom. As a nonbotanist ('als Nichtbotaniker') Bleuler has no knowledge of 'die Falle, wo Pflanzen Gedichtnis oder sonst eine psyche-artige Funktion zeigen', with the exception of 'der Mimosen', and it strikes him ' dass ich eigentlich die Pflicht hatte, das Material so weit als moglich zu kennen, bevor ich etwas drucken lasse'.

3pp, 4to. Bifolium. In good condition, lightly aged, with thin strip of paper from mount adhering to blank reverse of second leaf. Folded twice. Fifty-two lines of text. He thanks Pierce for his 'most kind expressions of regard for myself, & your eulogistic & cordial tribute to my poor efforts in the cause of Psychological Medicine'. which he has read in 'the account of the proceedings at the Edinburgh Meeting in July last', in the Journal of Mental Science.

Bynum and Porter, in their 'Brunonianism in Britain and Europe' (1988), describe Hill – keeper at one point of two asylums – as a 'substantial figure [...] a champion of Brunonian psychiatry'. For the recipient John Davy (1790-1868), anatomist and physiologist, brother of Sir Humphrey Davy, see his entry in the Oxford DNB. Two letters, both in good condition, attached to one another along one edge, with thin strip from mount adhering. Both letters are bifoliums, and both have had the second leaf, trimmed along the fore-edge, resulting in each case to slight loss to the address.

The entry on Bastian in the Oxford DNB finds one of 'the great paradoxes of Bastian's work' to be 'that in neurology his views were highly conventional, while in biology, and what became bacteriology, they became unorthodox and eventually eccentric.' Chief among Bastian's heterodox positions was his belief in the spontaneous generation of bacteria, the subject of the present letter. 8pp, 12mo. On two bifoliums, both with mourning borders. In fair condition, lightly aged and worn, with minor damp staining. He begins by thanking him for his letter and 'the interesting abstract enclosed'.

3pp, 4to. Bifolium. In fair condition, lightly aged. With thin strip of paper attached to reverse of second leaf, which is addressed, with seal in red wax, to 'Monsieur le General Grenville.' He begins by reassuring him, and condoling with him over his excessive sufferings ('vous en souffrés excessivement'), and continues: 'Votre oppressions paroit etre nerveuse, et elle dévient [sic] plus considerables a mésure que vous vous en saupés dâvantage.

2pp, 12mo. On first leaf of bifolium. In good condition, lightly aged, with thin strip of paper from mount adhering to blank second leaf. Folded once. Written in a markedly disordered hand, difficult of decipherment. The recipient is not named.

3pp, 12mo. Bifolium. In fair condition, lightly aged, with evidence of mount on reverse of second leaf, which is endorsed 'Dr. Forbes Winslow'. Two central folds, one vertical and one horizontal. The male recipient is unnamed. He is 'quite unfit to go up to London to-day', 'owing to the fatigue I underwent yesterday travelling a long distance into Northamptonshire to see a patient'.

7pp., 8vo. A duplicated typescript on seven leaves stapled together. In good condition, lightly aged and worn. A long document, initially convincing, presenting itself as a form to be sent to the womenfolk ('Mrs/Miss') of soldiers who have suffered post traumatic stress in the Falklands conflict, but soon revealing itself to be a British Army in-joke. A revealing piece of military social history. Supposedly addressed from 'British Dept of Psychiatry | Port Stanley | BFPO 666 | Stanley Mil Ext 3002'. Ends: 'Your faithfully | [BLANK] | A. I. R.

417pp., 8vo. A fair copy, on lightly aged paper, a little loose in worn publisher's brown cloth binding, with gilt title on spine and decorative cross on front board, and green patterned endpapers. Blind stamp of the W. H. Smith Library, Strand, to front free endpaper. According to Hammond's biographer Bonnie Ellen Blustein, 'The complex plot of Doctor Grattan revolved around the relation of insanity to neurological impairment, and touched on the subjects of neuralgia, headache, kleptomania, and delusions.' This English edition of Hammond's book is now uncommon.

The three letters are addressed to the translator of Forel's book, the surgeon and free-thinker Percival Macleod Yearsley (1867-1951). Forel's letter: 4to, 1 p. Twenty lines. In French. Text clear and complete. On browned and chipped high-acidity paper. Laid down on the front pastedown. In the first paragraph he thanks the translator, Macleod Yearsley, for the book, which he praises in fulsome terms. He is sending a copy of his 'Question Sexuelle'.

On one side of an 11.5 x 7.5 cm piece of paper. In fair condition, aged and stained. Consisting of a two-line improving Latin quotation beginning: 'Nullius est Felix'. Signed beneath this: 'Felix Platerus Basil | Archiatros & Prof. | Ao S

1611 Maio | Ao AM. 73'. On the reverse are two longer signed quotations, both in calligraphic hands, the lower of the two by 'Johannes Philippus a Fritten back', dated 28 February 1607. The author is identified in pencil in a later hand as John Phillips who died in 1640.

6pp., foolscap 8vo. Duplicated typescript on three leaves of pink paper pinned together. In fair condition, aged and worn, with two fold lines.

Three pages 12mo, fold mark, good condition. He informs his correspondent that he has jsut beeen to London for "dem internatioalur Kongress fur Schulhygiene" but the rest escapes me. Image of letter may be obtained on request. Price assuming decent content. Note: "From 1920, Dr Heinrich Stadelmann, Dresden psychiatrist and hypnotist, fixes us with outsize spectral watery-green eyes, rims pinkly bloodshot. His face is ashen – Stadelmann never saw the sun, working only at night – and his ears are so large that they evoke another nocturnal creature, a bat.

2pp., 4to. Bifolium. Text complete, on aged paper with a number of closed tears repaired with archival tape. The second leaf of the bifolium, lacking a strip at the top, is docketed 'Dr. Morris of Parliament Street's Success in curing Persons afflicted with Complaints similar to that which His Majesty labours under'. Considering the political content at the end of the letter, the author is probably Charles Hamilton, at the time of writing known by his courtesy title of Lord Binning.