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
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

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.

    22/32 (page 22)
    him, deriding his words, actions, and personal figure. Further, he heard them declaring that one human being was to be slain every night as an offering for his crimes; and every morning, for months, he declared to me that he had heard the cries and dying moans of the nightly victim the whole night long. He declared that if he could only obtain his liberty, he could find out and would kill and destroy all those conspirators. The Sense of sight was not so much affected, although he said that he continually saw faces and figures of persons hovering round him. The Sense of smell was more affected; he declared seriously that his mattresses were stuffed with the decayed bodies of sharks ; that the most foetid substances were mixed with all that he eat or drunk; that the air he breathed was loaded wdth impurities, &c. When under the full influence of these illusions, he imagined for a long time that I, or some one of the attendants, were parties to the conspiracy, and more actively engaged in persecuting him. Sometimes he fixed on one individual, and in a few weeks fixed on another; at such times the suspected party had to exercise great caution in going near him, as he was always very violent and dangerous when he saw them.'^ Another patient believes himself to be the individual through wTose agency God governs the world; that he is in continual communication with him, hears him distinctly talking, and that the words that he speaks are those by which the world is in future to be governed; this insane optimism is often associated with that unfavourable and hopeless form of disease, which leads its victims, whilst rejoicing over ideas of unbounded wealth and distinction, into an entire prostration of every mental and voluntary function. But the delusions of the patients are not all of a kind agreeable to themselves; some imagine that the food placed before them is not that of animals but of human beings, and that the poultry and fish are birds of prey or carrion ; to a person labouring under such a belief, the very idea of eating food at all, is ever attended with loathing and repugnance; and no wonder this should be the case, as this belief, like all other delusions, is to them, a fearful reality. Some imagine that the tea, coffee, wine, water, and all other fluids, are saturated with metallic substances, others with prussic acid, while with some, the egg itself does not escape their suspicion. * To form a correct diagnosis of this case was, from the complexity of the symptoms, a matter of some deliberation. The opinion formed was, that there existed a node (or bony enlargement) inside the cranium, which pressing upon certain parts of the brain, and produced the Illusion of the Senses, &c.; under this diagnosis he was treated medically for some months without intermission. It is gratifying for me to state, that he is now (December, 1853) approaching convalescence; his delusions have almost all passed away, and he now occupies himself in reading, with whist and chess, painting, &c., when in doors, and in gardening, when out of doors.