Download or read book The Trade in Lunacy written by William Ll. Parry-Jones and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-10-28 with total page 391 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 2006. A private madhouse can be defined as a privately owned establishment for the reception and care of insane persons, conducted as a business proposition for the personal profit of the proprietor or proprietors. The history of such establishments in England and Wales can be traced for a period of over three and a half centuries, from the early seventeenth century up to the present day. This volume is a study of private madhouses in England in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.