Patient, Surrey County Lunatic Asylum. Artist: Hugh Welch Diamond (British, 1808-1886). Dimensions: Mat: 11 1/4 × 9 1/8 in. (28.6 × 23.2 cm)Image: 7 1/2 × 5 1/2 in. (19.1 × 14 cm). Date: 1850-58.A medical doctor, antiquarian, and collector of prints, Hugh Diamond is a prime example of a gentleman amateur who furthered the development of the new medium of photography. He made his first photograph in April 1839, only three months after Talbot's demonstration of the invention, was instrumental in founding the Photographic Society in 1853, and through publications and informal gatherings taught many photographers, including Henry Peach Robinson, to use both the calotype and the collodion processes.Following Sir Alexander Morison as the superintendent of the Surrey County Lunatic Asylum, from 1848 to 1858 Diamond updated--with photographs--his predecessor's atlas of engraved portraits of the patients. Working in the belief that mental states are manifested in the physiognomy and that photog