Author: UWINS, David
Title: A Treatise on those disorders of the brain and nervous system, which are usually considered and called mental.
Description: London, Publ. by Renshaw and Rush, 256, Strand, near King's College, 1833. 8vo. In its rare original half cloth over paper brds. binding (small [7 x 4 milimeter] hole in spine; most of the original paper spine label still in place; edges and corners rubbed/dam.; overall the binding is somewhat soiled and age darkened). (8 ['New and valuable works in medicine...publ. by Renshaw and Rush' Book catalogue], IV, 235, I (blank) pp.). (Bookcat. pp. some light browning; main text clean w. a few leaves w. some pencil annotations and some light soiling.). Lovely original condition, just the exact way it was printed and distributed in 1833. Half cloth bindings like these belong to the early examples of cloth used for publishers bindings, the earliest example in England being around 1820 [William Pickering], for the Netherlands not before 1835/40.: Hunter & McAlpine, pp. 831 - 835: David Uwins (?1780 - 1837), 'MD Edin., LRCP, medical practicioner of Aylesbury and London; physician to the Royal Free Hospital, the City and Finsbury Dispensaries, and to the Peckham House Asylum, Surrey... In the first half of the 19th c. a number of commenatries on mental diseases were published which though they did not add to practical knowledge ... nevertheless furnished a valuable record of how doctors interested in the nervous and insane thought about them and what theories and treatments they found helpful; and occasionally they contained an observation, critical judgement or novel view which proved fruitful at a later time. Among these ... Syer ... Ashley Gaitskell ... Neville ... but in many ways the most original was Uwins' book... Uwins' attitude was also enlightened in regard to sexual problems...': Uwins attitude towards patients focused on the personality rather than on the illness, in fact the tendency of modern psychaitry. Uwins discusses phrenology and the manifestations of mental illness, the relation (good or bad) between madness and religion and very importantly Uwins pleaded for the individualised or psychological treatment, 'as against the general tendency of combating symptoms with drugs':

Keywords: nerves psychiatry W29A