On the construction and management of hospitals for the insane : with a particular notice of the institution at Sieburg / by Maximilian Jacobi ; translated by John Kitching ; with introductory observations, &c. by Samuel Tuke.

Date:
1841
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the construction and management of hospitals for the insane : with a particular notice of the institution at Sieburg / by Maximilian Jacobi ; translated by John Kitching ; with introductory observations, &c. by Samuel Tuke. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

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    the rich are more subject to these diseases than the poor. * It must, nevertheless, be confessed that the history of the causes of insanity, which is obtained by our public asylums, is very imperfect indeed; and is therefore far from exhibiting the influence of the various cir- cumstances of the poor, in inducing insanity.—The history of the predisposing causes is particularly defective. It is to be regretted that we are not able to judge from direct returns of the prevalence of insanity in the middle and higher classes, more correctly than at present we are able to do. The Metropolitan Commissioners in lunacy are the body from whom our chief information, respecting these classes, is to be derived : to them a return is annually made of the number of inmates in the various licensed houses in South Britain, and also of those containing a single insane person placed under care from home ; it is much to be desired that these returns should be published annually. As the paupers confined in licensed houses are dis- tinguished from others in the returns made to the Commissioners, we should have presented to us an enumeration of probably the greater portion of the insane from the middle and higher classes of society. It would, however, be very far from exhibiting the whole. The return would not include those lunatics of the higher and middle classes who are confined in houses erected by private benevolence, where the poor and the rich are admitted on terms suited to their circumstances; nor those in county asylums of a mixed character; nor the large number, especially of the higher class, who are either attended at home, or so placed as not to come into any public return: and, neither this enumeration of the Commissioners, nor that of the paupers, previously referred to, would embrace many of the patients in Bethlem *“La frequence de la folie est toujours en rapport avec les professions qui rendent rhomme plus dependantdes vicissitudes sociales: ainsi, loin de’pargner le palais des rois, I’alienation mentale y est plus frequente qu’ailleurs. Aristote demande pourquoi les grand legislateurs sont tous melancholiques, les courtisans, les hommes eminens de la societe, les riches sont plus sujets a cette maladie que le pauvre. Les militaires jouets des caprices de la fortune, les negocians, surtout ceux qui font des speculations hasardenses, les employes dont I’existence depend de la volonte de leur chefs, courent le meme danger. ’’—Des Maladies Mentales, Tome 1, p. 44.