Beyond the Cover

Hugh Welch Diamond was a British physician and photographer who is known as the first medical photographer.  Working at an asylum, Diamond-like many others of his time-believed that mental illness could be diagnosed from a person's face, or physiognomy.  Previously, a variety of different artists and physicians attempted to describe the difference in physical features between the mentally ill and the so-called normal.  Working with the new photography techniques that were blooming at the time, Diamond developed the idea that photographing patients could be used medically to record the physiognomy, to aid in treatment, and to identify patients who were being readmitted.  

Seated Woman with Bird

Patient, Surrey County Lunatic Asylum

Patient, Surrey County Lunatic Asylum

Representation of mental illness in the media is something that impacts me in a very particular way.  I think that even to this day, we have this centuries old idea that people who are mentally ill will somehow look different from those who are not.  They will be unkempt and will have some kind of difference in feature, and if not that then their behavior will be different.  Individuals with schizophrenia will always hear voices telling them to kill people and people with bipolar disorder will constantly be swinging from one extreme to the next.  That's what countless television shows, movies, comics, song lyrics, and even books would have us believe the majority of the time.  This isn't the truth though; you can have a mental illness and still be a beautiful, productive, funny, incredible, contributing member of society.  There are so many misconceptions, but we can fight through them.

People that I love very, very much have dealt with this kinds of issues.  But I would never call them crazy.  I would never describe them as unbalanced or neurotic or dangerous.  The truth is that many people are fighting these kinds of battles all around us, every day.  And when we use that kind of language, we're only fighting against them.  We're only making their battle that much harder.  And though Welch and others like him were living in a time where they truly thought that those with mental illness were somehow intrinsically and irreparably different from the rest of society, we cannot let those attitudes continue.  We must advocate for those who cannot advocate for themselves, each of us and all together.

References

Diamond, H. W. (1850-1855). Patient, Surrey County Lunatic Asylum [Photograph]. The Metropolitan      Museum of Art (2005.100.812), New York, NY.

Diamond, H. W. (1850-1858). Patient, Surrey County Lunatic Asylum [Photograph]. The Metropolitan Museum of Art (2005.100.19), New York, NY.

Diamond, H. W. (1855). Seated woman with bird [Photograph]. The J. Paul Getty Museum (84.XP.927.3), Los Angeles, CA.

Lansdown, R. (2011). Photographing Madness. History Today, 61(9), 47-53.