Amentia and dementia : a clinico-pathological study / by Joseph Shaw Bolton.

  • Bolton, Joseph Shaw, 1867-1946.
Date:
1905
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Amentia and dementia : a clinico-pathological study / by Joseph Shaw Bolton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    In August, 1895, she was sent to C. H. She knows the day and the date within a day, and her general memory and power of conversation are good. It is difficult at first to estimate her mental capacity, as her intelligence appears masked by a grotesque exaggeration of her own powers which renders all the information she gives untrustworthy. In con- versation she soon passes from the possible to the absurd. For example, at school she learned and could speak all languages but talks none now. Asked if she has any children, she says she has not, but adds that she picked up a boy and took him to her house and took care of him. On seriously leading her on she even makes such statements as that she was a General in the Boer War and her supreme conceit prevents her from seeing the absurdity of such attempts to convince me of her great capacity. She finally informs me that it is by no wish of hers that she is in the asylum, but as she is here she will do any work I wish. She speaks in a curiously abrupt manner, which seems to suggest that it would be barely worth her while to do so at all, were it not for the fact that it may impress me if she does. She became a worker, and a most useful one, in the nurses’ mess- room, and at once developed the idea that she was engaged as mess- room maid at ^18 a year. She considered the real maid her junior, and frequently made most candid, and in some cases probably correct, remarks about her laziness and incapacity. On one occasion she told me the maid was no use at all since she had taken to sweethearting, that she had two sweethearts, who gave her money, and that she had better take one or she would lose them both. Every staff pay-day she used to speak to me about the wages owing to her, telling me the exact sum owing since her admission and insisting on payment. She once offered me a shilling in the pound to buy tobacco and the matron two shillings in the pound to buy dresses if I would get her the cash. When I said I would do what I could if she would offer me the same as the matron, she was disgusted at my greediness and got quite bad- tempered. Whenever she happened to be tired or cross she would solemnly give me notice and tell me to send for her boxes so that she could leave and start a butcher’s shop. She used to speak of marriage as quite a probability, and on one occasion she made an elephantine attempt to embrace me. At times she would make the most cutting remarks about the shortcomings of both the patients and nurses, and her appearance and behaviour were invariably those of a woman who appreciated her infinitely superior position and abilities, though occa- sionally she would condescend to be friendly and, in a heavy sort of way, even jocose. PRINTED BY ADLARD AND SON, LONDON AND DORKING.