Monthly Archives: June 2019

Fears of Terrorism and the ‘Swinish Multitude’

My series of mysteries featuring Dr Adam Bascom are all set in the early years of the struggle between Britain and revolutionary, later Napoleonic, France. Several feature the British government’s real concerns about spying, infiltration and subversion by the French. … Continue reading

Posted in Politics | 6 Comments

Melancholy and Madness

In the eighteenth century, melancholia was thought of not as a curable mental affliction, but as one of the primary forms of madness. Melancholia means ‘black bile’, one of the four bodily humours recognised by the Hippocratic and Galenic systems … Continue reading

Posted in Georgian Society, Medicine & Science | 1 Comment