Third annual report of the medical superintendent of the Manchester Royal Lunatic Hospital, situate near Cheadle, Cheshire, for the year from June 25th, 1852, to June 24th, 1853.

Manchester Royal Lunatic Hospital.

Date:: 1853

Credit: Third annual report of the medical superintendent of the Manchester Royal Lunatic Hospital, situate near Cheadle, Cheshire, for the year from June 25th, 1852, to June 24th, 1853. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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$Many of the cases have, from the nature of the delusions, presented features of great interest. The delusions of those labouring under elevation of ideas have been as varied as the individuals. One person, possessed of only a moderate income, declared that she was going to build three churches, forty factories, and a hundred and forty-three cottages. Another of limited means when admitted, believed that he was possessed of a very large fortune, and became much excited when any argument was used to convince him of the contrary. One of the schemes which he gravely propounded was, that immediately on his discharge he would purchase a large tract of waste land in his native county, and erect upon it some hundreds of iron dwellings for the reception of criminals under sentence of transportation, and w^ould write to the Secretary of State to be ap¬ pointed governor over them. Another patient, even when the most ordinary attentions were shown him, such as the usual salutations, became so profuse and energetic in his expression of gratitude as to be excited to tears by what he considered an extreme mark of kindness and condescension. Another (a determined suicidal patient) at one time believed that he had been waited upon by an official messenger from the House of Lords, who had served upon him an edict, by which he was com¬ pelled to contract a marriage with the most beautiful lady he could find in England, and that if he had a child within twelve months, all children of such marriage were to become peers and peeresses, but that if he had no child within the time named, he was to be beheaded on Tower Hill. Under this belief he regarded his residence here as an act of the most cruel injustice, and became for some months a violent, excited, and dangerous maniac. Fortu¬ nately this delusion passed away, and he now regards himself as Abdullah Caliph en Paladin^' the true and legitimate descendant of the founder of the Bermicidesand that when the present usurper of his throne is dead, he will be waited upon with all the form and grandeur which Eastern pomp and magnificence can supply, to assume the sovereignty. He waits patiently for this; and it is pitiable to witness the anxiety and eagerness with which he is conti¬ nually watching the high-road, looking out for the approach of the procession which is at once to restore him to liberty and grandeur. At one period this patient laboured under Illusion of the Senses— the senses of smell, sight, and hearing being simultaneously, though not equally affected. The eccentricities into which he was led by the illusion of the sense of hearing was the primary cause of his being placed in a Lunatic x\sylum. He imagined and believed that certain parties, had entered into a conspiracy against him, that they followed him everywhere, whether in the church or the studio, the street or the theatre, into all society, and nowhere was he safe from them; he heard them conversing and accusing him of the greatest crimes, and applying the most opprobrious epithets to$