'A disgrace to a civilised community': colonial psychiatry and the visit of Edward Mapother to South Asia, 1937-8.

In 1937, Edward Mapother, Medical Superintendent of the Maudsley Hospital in London, took a trip around the mental hospitals of Britain's dominions in South Asia. The result was a series of documents that provide a snapshot of psychiatry in India and Ceylon in the twilight years of the British Empire. This chapter will consider Mapother's reports from a number of perspectives in order to assess the politics and the impact of an expert 'visitor' to a colonial medical system.