Luminous-Lint - for collectors and connoisseurs of fine photography
HOME  BACK>>> Subscriptions <<< | Testimonials | Login |

HomeContentsVisual indexesHugh Welch Diamond

 
  
Standard
  
  
Hugh Welch Diamond 
Portrait of a patient from Surrey County Asylum 
1855 (ca) 
  
Salt print, from calotype negative 
National Science and Media Museum 
The Royal Photographic Society Collection, Inventory no: 2003-5001/2/24911 
  
 
LL/51630 
  
In May 1856 Dr. Hugh Welch Diamond, a physician at the Surrey County Asylum and Secretary to the Photographic Society of London, presented a paper to the Society called 'On the Application of Photography to the Physiognomy and Mental Phenomena of Insanity'.
 
Diamond stated that photography was invaluable in the treatment of mental illness. He proposed that by studying the faces of patients, physicians could identify and diagnose mental complaints. These beliefs were rooted in the pseudoscience of physiognomy, where the face was seen as the mirror of the soul. For Diamond, the faces of the patients represented 'types' of mental illness such as melancholia and delusional paranoia.
 
“...the Photographer catches in a moment the permanent cloud, or the passing storm or sunshine of the soul and thus enables the Metaphysician to witness and trace out the visible and the invisible in one important branch of his researches into the Philosophy of the human mind...” Dr. H. W. Diamond - ' On the Application of Photography to the Physiognomy and Mental Phenomena of Insanity', The Photographic Journal, July, 1856. 
 

 
  
 
  
HOME  BACK>>> Subscriptions <<< | Testimonials | Login |
 Facebook LuminousLint 
 Twitter @LuminousLint