Observations on the necessity of an extended legislative protection to persons of unsound mind / by Edward D. de Vitré.

  • De Vitré, Edward D.
Date:
1843
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on the necessity of an extended legislative protection to persons of unsound mind / by Edward D. de Vitré. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

    14/64 (page 10)
    thorities to arrive at the conclusion, that, previously to this act, she was not dangerous. An inquest was lately held in one of the workhouses of the Carlisle union, on the body of an infant which was found dead in bed,—overlaid by its mother, who is an idiot, and unmarried, and who had had an illegitimate child before. Independently of the harmlessness of this poor creature, is it fit and proper that she, or others similarly afflicted, should be exposed to the possibility of such occur- rences, by being consigned to a parish workhouse ? A medical friend who has kindly assisted in promoting the views here advocated, writes, that he had the curiosity, a few months ago, to look into a workhouse in his part of the country, for the purpose of seeing how these matters were managed. There was one person whom he remem- bered as a boy, and who particularly attracted his attention. He had been a soldier, had been discharged with a short pension, returned home, and was following some kind of ordinary labour when he became insane. His pension ceasing very shortly after the commencement of his attack, and his friends not being able to maintain him at their own expense, he was sent to the workhouse. He enquired of the master whether he was ever subject to paroxysms of excitement, and was told, that at first he was frequently apt to be very lively, and was often so unreasonably boister- ous in his mirth, as to disturb the whole house by singing, shouting, and dancing, at two or three o’clock in the morning. On asking how he had been cured of this propensity, the mas- ter shelved his own brawny fist, and remarked with the air ol a person who was certainly not conscious of having overstep- ped his duty, that, unless he had taken good care to give him “ a precious lathering with that as often as ever he caught