Furiously Mad: 300 Year of Legal Insanity

Thursday Blog 5 HALF TERM!

ooooo its half term how much work do you think i have been doing today? weli have been inside a wind turbine windmill. who can say they have done that? i have also been to a play barn oh joy at least this one didnt smell of wee and wotsits!

back to the project yesterday my poster of hironimus bosh ‘cutting of the stone’ arrived so it can go in the brilliant gilt frame i bought. when i bought the frame it was very new looking so i took great pleasure in bashing it about a bit and covering it with shoe polish that has made it look old nicely.

im trying to get my website up and running again befor the exhbition starts but dream weaver is a bit time consuming when you have forgotten how to us it.

the back story is coming on graet here is the story so far.

Folly Stones

The cutting of the stone was a procedure in the 15th century involving trepanation (craniotomy) a surgeon or physician would extract a stone from the head of the afflicted. The stone in question is the “stone of folly” or “stone of madness” which, according to popular superstition, was a cause of mental illness, depression, or stupidity. Such stones could be located anywhere in the body, such as the bowels or back, but were most commonly assigned to the head, where a surgeon would have to cut into the skull to remove them.

The stones on display are part of a collection on loan to Durham University from the Wessynton estate from Washington in Northamptonshire.

The Wessyngton family were residents at the old hall Washington from 1183 until 1539, when the family re located to another part of the Wessyngton estate Sulgrave Manor (where they still reside now), where Gertrude Margaret Lothian Bell (14 July 1868 – 12 July 1926) was born. Gertrude was an English writer, traveler, political officer, administrator, archaeologist and spy. She explored, mapped, and became highly influential to British imperial policy-making due to her skills and the contacts she built up through extensive travels in Greater Syria, Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, and Arabia. Along with T. E. Lawrence, Bell helped establish the Hashemite dynasties in what is today Jordan as well as in Iraq.

Gertrude discovered the stones in 1903 aged 17 and transcribed the original documents that were associated with them.The original was written by the physician Thomas Hertburn in 1496 (a family member by marriage to the Wessyngtons). These kind of documents are extremely rare as medical notes weren’t usually made until the late 1500’s. Sadly the original documents cease to exist.

Whilst cataloguing the Gertrude Lowthian Bell archive at Durham University, an entry in an early diary from 1903 was found describing the folly stones. The Folly stones are one of the first editions to her vast collection of rare archeological objects.

can i pull it off???????

someone sugested that i should let my five year old choose a stone and a folly so that will be a task for tme this week. my cotton gloves have arrived so that the viewers can touch the stones. how exciting.

things to do

find small canvase, hassle people for their stones, learn my story,make a name bage and poss make a video of me talking about the exhibit to see how i look, thinking about ways of not to be like me (not just the way i look)

the best bit about this project has been the process im worried the performance will be a bit of an anti climax. i suppose i will only find that out after the first performance so no point in worrying about it.

oh well back to the kids im off to play the teacher game, they love it! (dont ask)

Nous – rhyming with mouse not moo.

A large group of us were interviewed last Tuesday by the woman who runs Nous magazine. She has enough nous to respect that we preferred sight of the article before it’s published.

But before reading it, I thought I’d record here that her presence led to us having a really good discussion about the general themes of the exhibition and attitudes to mental health issues/problems/diagnoses and so on in particular.

I felt we bounced ideas and opinions with neither painful liberalism, mm, but with respect. And learnt from each other in the process.

Now to see how all that has been extracted from the recording.

thursday blog 5

here it is.

Folly Stones

The cutting of the stone was a procedure in the 15th century involving trepanation (craniotomy) a surgeon or physician would extract a stone from the head of the afflicted. The stone in question is the “stone of folly” or “stone of madness” which, according to popular superstition, was a cause of mental illness, depression, or stupidity. Such stones could be located anywhere in the body, such as the bowels or back, but were most commonly assigned to the head, where a surgeon would have to cut into the skull to remove them.

Could charlatan “surgeons” have fleeced desperate families by purporting to remove a palmed stone from an impressively bloody scalp wound? Could well-intentioned practitioners have done this as a placebo, to convince despairing patients that they had been “cured”? The scenarios seem plausible. Medical quackery was common in the sixteenth and seventieth centuries, as documented in paintings, books, and edicts of the time. However, there is no historical evidence to suggest that stone extractions were actually conducted in late-medieval or Renaissance Europe, much less a widespread medical scam. Schupbach (1978) suggests that extractions were theatrical performances, farces or tableaux associated with processions and celebrations, and that these paintings were never meant as documentation of real procedures. In any case, medical historians and art historians have disputed whether the sham operations depicted in the “stone of madness” paintings reflect real events, or are allegorical.

At this time, however, trepanning or trepanation (drilling a hole in the skull, preferably without disturbing the brain) was an established medical procedure. Archaeological evidence indicates that trepanning was practiced across Europe (indeed, worldwide) in prehistoric times; in medieval Europe, various medical experts recommended it for a variety of illnesses ranging from skull fracture to epilepsy, insanity, and melancholia.

The stones on display are part of a collection on loan to Durham University from the Wessynton estate from Washington in Northamptonshire.

The Wessyngton family were residents at the old hall Washington from 1183 until 1539 when they moved to Sulgrave Manor, where Gertrude Margaret Lothian Bell (14 July 1868 – 12 July 1926) was born. Gertrude was an English writer, traveler, political officer, administrator, archaeologist and spy who explored, mapped, and became highly influential to British imperial policy-making due to her skill and contacts, built up through extensive travels in Greater Syria, Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, and Arabia. Along with T. E. Lawrence, Bell helped establish the Hashemite dynasties in what is today Jordan as well as in Iraq.

Gertrude transcribed the original documents in 1903 (at the age of 17) the original was written by the physician Thomas Hertburn in 1496 (a family member by marriage to the wessyngtons) sadly the original documents cease to exist.

THURSDAY blog 4

aaaargh time is getting short, i feel overwhelmed with what i have to do, not just this project but a new set of workshops for kids at the park in wythenshaw plus being a mum plus being on the PTA and having to make biscuits TODAY!!!!

ok, ok, focus! the paragraph for the explanation of the stones is done. i am buying a plastic info despenser (i have no idea what the are called) so the info can be printed out for people to take away. ive ben thinking that i wuld like to have some furthur reading a place where people can accsess the whole project from my point of view all the emails people have sent and actually that it is all made up.

i have just relised that i have not explained what the folly stones are….

im of to cut and paste from wiki