Total abolition of personal restraint in the treatment of the insane. A lecture on the management of lunatic asylums, and the treatment of the insane; delivered at the Mechanics' Institution, Lincoln, on the 21st of June, 1838; with statistical tables, ... / by Robert Gardiner Hill.

Date:
[1839]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Total abolition of personal restraint in the treatment of the insane. A lecture on the management of lunatic asylums, and the treatment of the insane; delivered at the Mechanics' Institution, Lincoln, on the 21st of June, 1838; with statistical tables, ... / by Robert Gardiner Hill. 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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    those instances it must depend on some organic conformation or constitution, which is trans- mitted from sire to son; and from the accurate investigations and experiments made of late years, little doubt remains that the brain is the organ in question. Hoio^ indeed, a certain conformation of brain is connected with certain mental capacities or mental delusions, or how certain modes of life and conduct conduce to bring about that state of brain in those here- ditarily predisposed to it, and even in others not so inheriting that predisposition, remains a subject of curious and not unprofitable specu- lation. But to return to my narrative. His malady first shewed itself in January, 1831. He had then been long given to habits of in- toxication, indulging freely in the use of ale and ardent spirits. Foreseeing clearly the effect of these habits, as respected his fortune and means of livelihood, he had a terrible dread of impending poverty; and so horribly did this prospect haunt his imagination, that unable to discontinue those pernicious habits, the dire effects of which he so keenly and remorsefully anticipated, he attempted self- destruction by knocking his head violently against a wall. He was, however, discharged on trial on the 24th of October, 1834, having