ISAAC RAY This research paper summarizes the li

This research paper summarizes the life, contributions to criminology and influence of Isaac Ray (1807-1881). A man of many interests and talents, Ray pursued a long and distinguished career as a psychiatrist, a mental health administrator, writer, lecturer and community leader. He was the leading figure in the United States in the 19th century in the field of forensic psychiatry. He is best known for his efforts, sustained over several decades, to bring about reforms in the way in which criminal courts determined whether a defendant was insane. Ray wielded great influence within his profession. His views on the insanity defense were quoted by courts in America and Great Britain. They were highly controversial because he challenged the legal and scientific status quo and was an uncompromising advocate of his points of view. Some of his recommendations were over time adopted, while many others were rejected for various reasons.

Highlights of Ray's Early Life and Career

Ray was born in 1807 to an established Boston North Shore family which had been engaged since colonial times in New England's maritime trade. His father, who died when he was seven, was a ship captain. Ray received a superb education, at Philips Exeter Academy and at Bowdoin College and Medical School where he graduated with a medical degree in 1827. He later apprenticed under a local Portland, Maine physician, and Dr. George Shattuck, a member of the Harvard Medical School faculty. In 1831, he

as the basis for his defense (Diamond, 1956, pp. 651-656). M'Naghten was acquitted on the ground of insanity. As refined, the McNaghten Rule states that "to establish a defense on the ground of insanity, it must be clearly proven that at the time of committing the act, the party accused was laboring under such a defect of reason, from disease of mind, as not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing or, if he did know it, that he did not know what he was doing was wrong" (Pate, p. 13). As a result of the Treatise and the M'Naghten case, Ray became well known in English and American legal as well as psychiatric circles. In 1841, he was appointed Superintendent of the Maine Insane Asylum in Augusta. In 1844, he co-founded the Association of Medical Superintendents of American Institutions for the Insane (later called the American Psychiatric Association). His enhanced reputation helped him land in 1845 one of the most prestigious mental health administrative posts, Superintendent of the new and modern for its time Butler Hospital for the Insane in Providence, Rhode Island. In 1845, he became even better known on the Continent where he toured European asylums. Despite all this notoriety, Ray never relented in his view

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