This website is an accessible, online presentation of my research conducted with the support of the Undergraduate Research Support Scheme (URSS) at the University of Warwick during the Summer of 2021.

The project sought to inquire whether the patient’s voice presented in Royal Edinburgh Asylum’s patient-run periodical Morningside Mirror was censored by medical staff. To answer my research question I analysed the first seven years of publication (1845-1852); my experience with New York State Asylum’s The Opal (1850-1860) revealed that medical staff usually altered the thematic content of the periodical within the first few years if they deemed it unsuitable. Consequently, I followed a similar line of inquiry. By ‘unsuitable’ I mean presenting an image that does not uphold the asylum’s, and superintendent’s, ability to cure the patients. Therefore, language that criticises medical authority or appears ‘mad’.