Posted: 8/8/2005 1:27:42 AM EDT
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The Professor and the Madman A tale of murder, insanity, and the making of the Oxford English Dictionary Simon Wnchester. One of the most prolific contributors to the original OED was Dr. W.C. Minor. Dr. Minor was a retired Civil War Army surgeon who went insane and murdered a man in London. He spent nearly the rest of his life in an English insane asylum. While there he contributed greatly to the creation of the OED and is noted for doing so several times within it. The degree of research done in the book is amazing. The Victorian era certainly had a different approach to pyschiatric problems, seems to be a more effective one than that which we currently use in this country. The section on autopeotomy was enlightening 
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