JOURNEY TO ASYLUM - A MEDICAL-GEOGRAPHICAL IDEA IN HISTORICAL CONTEXT

This paper investigates a specific ''geographical idea''-one stressing the importance of distance-decay patterns in the utilization of medical (and more particularly mental health) facilities-and the objective is to illuminate the historical-geographical contexts in which the idea originated, was debated and was seen to break down. This idea is closely associated with the thinking of a nineteenth-century North American physician called Edward Jarvis, and it is important to understand why he became concerned with distance-decay patterns around state lunatic asylums, and to appreciate the policy implications flowing from this concern. In this respect the paper complements research already undertaken on what has since become known as ''Jarvis's Law'', but more novel is the inquiry into the emergence of similar distance-decay concepts in England, dating back to Medieval times and growing in particular from the experiences of the eighteenth-century charitable lunatic hospitals. Furthermore, the paper examines contexts in nineteenth-century England-associated with the territorial structure of the public county asylum system, and also with ''class'' divisions present in the treatment of both ''rich lunatics'' and ''borough lunatics''-when ''Jarvis's Law'' was apparently contravened.