Lunacy versus liberty : a letter to the Lord Chancellor, on the defective state of the law, as regards insane persons, and private asylums for their reception : with remarks, original and select, including the author's own case, and others / by William Griggs.

  • Griggs, William, late Patient at Kensington House.
Date:
1832
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Lunacy versus liberty : a letter to the Lord Chancellor, on the defective state of the law, as regards insane persons, and private asylums for their reception : with remarks, original and select, including the author's own case, and others / by William Griggs. 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.

    17/22 (page 15)
    in my hearing, at Epsom Races, the year Cad land beat Colonel. I was standing among a group of the good people of Surry, when one of them observed, as the horses were coming in, see how yon jockey be flogging the Colonel. I am glad of it/' re- torted another, wh}^ should not Colonel be flog- ged as well as Private. Sambo might say, doctor no floggee, him no feel for others. If I were to make choice of a doctor, I should choose a fine healthy-looking man —a skilful anato- mist—one who could tell you the number of de- grees of each element your amalgamated body was composed of—that if any truant atom has escaped from you, could immediately detect and replace it. Such a man would deserve the name of doctor; in place of which, we have a parcel of pale-faced apothecaries, half a dozen in a street, blinding you nightly with their cursed bulls' eyes—writing up Surgeon and A-coach~here—how they get their di- ploma needs no comment. Pretty fellows these to rob men of their liberty. Perched up in their cabs, these Brooks' looking medical nabobs drive about, seeking whom they may devour. I should like to give them my advice gratis. Before any person is confined as mad, let them be fairly proved to be so. Have the Commissioners power or not to discharge whom they please in these private madhouses? If they have not the power, then give them that power. If they have, when and where did they exercise it ? Diogenes must put two lights in his lanthorn, before he could find a keeper, (however humane he might be disposed), who would say the patient is quite well, take him home. The brightest gem in this country is trial by jury. Let these poor unfortunates have their jury to de- cide their cases ; then, if jurymen would but be ho- nest, they will have nothing to fear. Let them have this before they are consigned to indefinite miserable solitude.