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Acid attacks in Britain, 1760-1975 / Katherine D. Watson.

9783031272721 (electronic bk.)
3031272722 (electronic bk.)
3031272714
9783031272714

Cham : Palgrave Macmillan, [2023].

©2023

English

1 online resource (xv, 135 pages) : illustrations

10.1007/978-3-031-27272-1 doi

HV6618 .W38 2023

364.1555

This Palgrave Pivot examines the history of the largely urban offence once known as vitriol throwing because the substance most commonly used was strong sulphuric acid, oil of vitriol. A relatively rare form of assault, it was motivated largely by revenge or jealousy and, because it was specifically designed to blind and mutilate, commonly targeted the victims face. The incidence of what was thus widely acknowledged to be an exceptionally cruel crime plateaued in the period 18501930 amid a sometimes surprisingly lenient legal response, before declining as a result of post-war social changes. In examining the factors that influenced both the crime and its punishment, the book makes an important contribution to criminal justice history by illuminating the role of gender, law and emotion from the perspective of both victim and perpetrator. Katherine D. Watson is Reader in History at Oxford Brookes University, UK. Her research interests focus on topics where medicine, crime and the law intersect, particularly in Britain since the seventeenth century. She is the author of Medicine and Justice: Medico-Legal Practice in England and Wales, 17001914 (2020). .

Includes bibliographcial references and index.

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World histories of crime, culture and violence.

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