"In urbanized Europe, and in North America, the rise of the asylum is 
better seen not as an act of state but as a side effect of commercial 
and professional society.  Growing surplus wealth encouraged the 
affluent to buy services - cultural, educational, medical - which 
once had been provided at home.  Private madhouse keepers argued 
persuasively that seclusion was therapeutic.  In England around 1800, 
the confined mad were largely housed in private asylums, operating 
for profit within the market economy in what as frankly termed th e 
'rade in lunacy'.  In 1850, more than half were still in private 
institutions." p 95

Madness: A Brief History, Roy Porter, Oxford, 1002
"readable yet rigorous" (Library Journal)

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