title: Bloody technology: the sphygmograph in asylum practice.
abstract: The sphygmograph, an instrument to measure and visually chart the pulse, was used by a number of asylum researchers in the late nineteenth century in an attempt to better understand mental disease. In charting the use of such a medical technology in the asylum, this article explores the utility of a practice-oriented approach in the history of psychiatry - as a window onto the alienist profession and as a means of investigating how new medical technologies were assimilated into everyday practice.
authors.affiliation: Queen Mary University of London, UK.
authors.forename: Jennifer
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wallis
mesh_terms: D020811:Biomedical Technology / Q000266:history*; D049672:History, 19th Century; D006778:Hospitals, Psychiatric / Q000266:history*; D006801:Humans; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000266:history*; D011674:Pulse
keywords: Blood; medical technologies; pharmacology; physiology; sphygmograph