A treatise on the nature, symptoms, causes, and treatment of insanity : with practical observations on lunatic asylums and a description of the Pauper Lunatic Asylum for the county of Middlesex, at Hanwell, with a detailed account of its management / by Sir W.C. Ellis.

  • Ellis, W. C., Sir (William Charles)
Date:
1838
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on the nature, symptoms, causes, and treatment of insanity : with practical observations on lunatic asylums and a description of the Pauper Lunatic Asylum for the county of Middlesex, at Hanwell, with a detailed account of its management / by Sir W.C. Ellis. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

    175/362 (page 161)
    U.'l of his mind, and almost all the powers of his body. Insanity, arising- from coup-de-soleil, evidently proceeds from a physical cause acting' immediately on the brain. Such cases are not very common in this country. Coup-de-soleil more frequently causes frenzy and death than insanity : diseased action of the brain is, however, very frequently brought on by long-continued exposure to heat and the rays of the sun; but not in so sudden a manner as when it takes place immediately from coup-de- soleil. Whenever disease of the brain does occur from this cause, no time should be lost in the vigo- rous application of the foregoing remedies. We have reason to believe that diseased action in the brain, arising from this cause, proceeds much more rapidly than from most others. As far as my expe- rience extends, I have not seen any advantage arise from the use of blisters upon the head, especially during the paroxysm ; they appear rather to create irritation than to allay it; and they prevent, by their application, the use of ice or cold water, which has often the most salutary and instantaneous effect. It has not unfrequently occurred to us, that when the diseased action has existed to such an excess, as to have prevented the patient sleeping for several days and nights, upon the head being shaved and cold applied to it, at the same time that warmth has been used to the extremities, he has almost instantaneously fallen asleep. If the disease M