Eleventh annual report of the trustees of the State Lunatic Hospital at Worcester. December, 1843.

  • State Lunatic Hospital at Worcester.
Date:
1844
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Eleventh annual report of the trustees of the State Lunatic Hospital at Worcester. December, 1843. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    causes are more or less connected with this great evil, which not only produces pecuniary embarrassments, but domestic afflictions, family trouble, disappointments of various kinds, and that poverty, which, in Europe and in large cities in this country, brings many under the influ¬ ence of this great calamity. In my report of the last year, I showed, by dividing the cases arising from intemperance into four equal parts, that the first admitted had 81 from intemperance, and the last quarter admitted had 38. In all, the percent, was 14^. This year the cases have been 14 of 220, which is - 6f per cent, not half what it was the eleven years previous. One fact is to be considered ; the first cases of insanity that came into the hos¬ pital were brought from the jails and other public receptacles of poverty and wretchedness, and contained a large proportion of persons who were the victims of this habit. The number of cases of insanity from religious causes has increased the past year in most of the institutions in this country. In this hospi¬ tal, 28 cases of 220 are supposed to have arisen from this cause, 15 of which were attributed to the Miller excitement, and much larger pro¬ portions are ascribed to the same cause in some of the New England institutions. It is rare that a popular religious error has produced so much excitement in the community and rendered so many insane. This is not surprising as the subject is momentous, the time fixed for the final consummation of all things so near at hand, and the truth of all sustained by unerring mathematics. The believers in the second advent who have become insane, are subjects of the highest excitement; they are full of ecstacy and think of nothing but being soon transported to all the enjoyments of heaven. But there is another class who have not embraced the doctrine, but who have feared it might be true, who have distracted their minds by puz¬ zling over it, thinking about it, and dreading its approach, who have sunk into deep and hapless melancholy, which it is a hard task to re¬ move. Wc find that many of the religious melancholics of the season, who have not apparently been made insane by this cause, have been more or less disturbed by the contemplation of it. Two patients were brought to the Jiospital in one day, who, laboring under the delusions connected with this subject, finally concluded that they were inspired, and should hereafter live miraculously, and refused to eat or drink for several days. Early last winter many cases from this cause came under our care. If they were recent, and not greatly exhausted, they recovered favor-