The lunacy question; or, the lunatic benefited and protected; with an inquiry into public and private asylums / by Joseph Williams.

  • Williams, Joseph, 1814-1882.
Date:
1852
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The lunacy question; or, the lunatic benefited and protected; with an inquiry into public and private asylums / by Joseph Williams. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    ject; but in the case of poor persons or parish paupers, they should either be attended at their own houses by the parish doctor, or a special room should be set apart as an infirmary in the workhouse, a great object, however, being never to designate it by a term which might prejudice the recovery or the feelings of those who occupied it; consequently it should never be called the mad-ward, or the lunatic-house, and it would be much more discreet in medical men, when speaking to non-professional persons, to call such cases those of preternatural excitement or morbid irritability, or cases of inflammation of the brain ; the fact being that many persons never regain their social position when once said to have been insane ; whereas, where excitement has depended upon inflammation, the evil or injurious tendency is scarcely remembered after the patient has convalesced. To show how important early treatment is, turn to the deplorable condition of the insane in North and South Wales, where the unfortunate pauper lunatics are shamefully neglected In North Wales there is not a single public or private asylum, the lunatics being imperfectly and badly boarded out, their worst cases being sent to the Liverpool Asylum, the governor of which states, “ that he never re- members an instance of recovery in an insane pauper from Wales/^ From a general survey of what has been already stated, it will be evident. that, although it is very necessary and highly desirable in every possible way to cure insanity when present, yet it is even of still more importance to pre- vent its occurrence at all, thus making true the old adage, « Prevention is better than cure,'' and therefore how essen- tial is it to remove all predisposing causes. And as a man who has once been the occupant of a mad-house seldom regains his social position, therefore it is of the greatest pos- sible consequence to place him under proper treatment at home. If madmen must be mixed up together, and for the greater number of them, I do not see how it can be avoided, the most complete system of classification should be esta- blished, but where the circumstances of a patient will admit of it, he will be placed in a far better position when mixing with those who are rational, rather than with those who are insane. If classification be important in all stages, it is doubly so when convalescing, for, as was previously stated, how dreadful for a convalescent to see madness in every form around him.