Insanity : its classification, diagnosis, and treatment / by E.C. Spitzka.

  • Spitzka, E. C. (Edward Charles), 1852-1914.
Date:
1883
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Insanity : its classification, diagnosis, and treatment / by E.C. Spitzka. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    the parts involved should be given to every person to whom forced feeding is intrusted; with this, and experience ac- quired under skilled guidance, he may be safely relied on to carry out forced feeding himself, and without any other aid than that of another and older attendant. It is unnecessary to specify here the hygienic require- ments of the insane, which are those of hospital patients generally. Patients who are anaemic, arid particularly those whose temperature is subnormal, should be in warmer apartments than ordinary hospital patients, or those whose disorder is of a sthenic type. In this climate a temperatures of from 65° to 68° Fahrenheit, and in some cases even higher, is necessary in the wards where demented and melancholic patients are congregated. CHAPTER VII. The Psychical Treatment and Management of the Insane. The subject of the psychical treatment of insanity in its widest sense comprises the prophylactip treatment of the insane predisposition. This vast subject it is impossible to treat of in a manual, and the writer contents himself with expressing his opinion that in the future certain educational means will be recognized to be as essential for the diverting of the mmd inclined to perversion into healthier channels, as the methodical training of certain muscles is essential in preventmg and remedying certain of the malformations which come under the cognizance of the orthopoedist The physician is ordinarily called upon to treat the tully developed disease, and the question of most pressing importance which presents itself is whether the patient can be treated at home, or whether it is necessary to send him to an asylum. In the case of primary deterio- ration of stuporous insanity, and of the earlier phase ot syphilitic dementia, this question may be frequently de- cided in favor of home treatment, provided all the conven- lences for psychical and physical treatment are within the reach of the family. In most other forms of insanity the physician risks very little by positively recommending asy-