Hi everyone, thanks for all your replies and information. I'm a psychiatric nurse and I cared for dementia patients before moving to my new post so I'm finding it very interesting looking into the history of the illness!
Mark, the year of death was 1874 (not 1872, my mistake!), which is why I was thinking it may have meant another form of mental illness, but as others have said, it could well have been early onset dementia as we know it today.
That's an interesting find for you Annie! I did look for my relative, Elizabeth, in the admission registers but I couldn't find her. She also died at home so it would seem that she never had to be admitted to an asylum for her illness.
