The law of insanity : and hospitals for the insane in Massachusetts / by Edward Jarvis.

  • Jarvis, Edward, 1803-1884.
Date:
1859
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The law of insanity : and hospitals for the insane in Massachusetts / by Edward Jarvis. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    Moreover, these officials should be so accessible, that every insane patient, however disordered, may be able to reach them or obtain from thera due opportunity and facil- ity of removal to the hospital, whenever their malady may require it, however suddenly; so that none may be made to suffer unnecessarily by needless delay, or prevented from reaching these places of protection and restoration, by the difficulty of access to, or unavailability of the channels pro- vided. CLASSES OF THE INSANE. Most of the insane need other care than they can receive at home. These are,— 1. The violent, the furious, who are dangerous to the public safety, and disturbers of the public peace. 2. The uneasy and the restless, who, though not danger- ous, nor even public disturbers, yet are troublesome at home, and cannot there be restrained and controlled suffi- ciently for their own good, and the comfort and even the peace of their families. 3. The mild and curable patients, who have delusions, incoherences and depressions, and who cannot receive that attention in private houses which their condition requires. The first and second of these classes need to be re- strained for their own and for the public good. They need the custodial guardianship of the hospitals, and many of them may be restored to health. The third class needs the influence and the care of the hospital for their restoration. A fourth class, who are mild, harmless, and incurable, may remain with their friends. The State of Massachusetts has created three public hos- pitals for the insane, and the law offers their accommoda- tions and care to the first of the foregoing classes, and, on various conditions, to a part of the second and third classes. The law provides and describes four ways or channels through which the insane may be committed to, or admitted into these hospitals. 1. The higher courts, — Supreme, Common Pleas, and Probate, — are authorized to send any person who is so furiously mad as to render it manifestly dangerous to the peace and safety of the community that he should be at large. * * Rev. Stat., ch. 48, § 6. Commissioners Report, 1858. ch. 73, §8.