Annual report.

  • Newcastle upon Tyne Borough Lunatic Asylum.
Date:
1885
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Annual report. 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.

    18/40 (page 16)
    in my enquiries into the eausation of insanity (and the com- parative smallness of this Asylum has allowed me to devote more personal attention to this particular subject of study than many others can afford), is that intemperance in drink is not the cause of insanity unless there be some physical ailment or defect for it to work upon. My attention has occasionally, too, been called to a case of the following nature:—A man has practised this degrading vice for a number of years, and has been known to his acquaintances as an habitual drunkard. Then some one, with more influence than others over him, successfully awakens him to a sense of his shame, and points out to him how he is pauperizing his family and lowering them to the depths of misery and privation by his sensuality. He then becomes a total abstainer, and in the course of time he goes insane : and such cases of this kind as have come under my notice are generally incur- able. Mentioning this matter to a friend, who has done much good in advocating total abstinence among the weaker brethren, he suggested that if such a man had not given up drinking he would probably have died; but this is assuming that the advan- tages of continuing to exist are indisputable. Another cause in Table XL is worthy of a passing remark. Of the 44 female admissions as many as 3 are ascribed to sexual excess.'' This being 7 per cent, of the whole number, is very unusual in the statistical tables of this Asylum. It is also noteworthy that general paralysis in the female is gradually on the increase here. In former years it seldom happened that there were more than 1 at a time, and very often not even that, but at the present time of writing there are 5 cases. A table has been appended for the first time to this report, giving the weight on admission and on discharge of the recover- ies. Three of the recoveries were discharged after a period of probation at home, and do not appear in this table of the 24 cases recorded. Only 1 lost weight, while in many of the others