Observations on the nature, kinds, causes, and prevention, of insanity / by Thomas Arnold.

Date:
1806
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on the nature, kinds, causes, and prevention, of insanity / by Thomas Arnold. 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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    At Argos liv’d a citizen well known, Who long imagin’d, that he he^rd the tone Of deep tragedians on an empty stage, And sat applauding in ecstatic rage j In other points a person who maintain’d A due decorum and a life unstain’d, A worthy neighbour, and a friend sincere, Kind to his wife, nor to his slaves severe. Nor prone to madness, tho’ the felon’s fork Defac’d the signet of a bottlcrcork; And wise to shun (well knowing which was which) The rock high pendent, and the yawning ditch. He when his friends, at much expcnce and pains, Had amply purg’d with ejlebore his brains. Come to himself—“ Ah ! cruel friends !” he cried. Is this to save me ? Better far have died Than thus be robb’d of pleasure so refin’d, “ The dear delusion of a raptur’d mind.” Francis’s Horace, Seistsitive insanity is exactly discrir; minated, and properly placed. The absence of phrenitic symptoms distinguishes it from phrenitic insanity: a degree, and often a great degree, of rationality, on every other subject but that of the peculiar ideal delirium in which it consists, distinguishes it from in- coherent insanity : from maniacal insanity it is readily discriminated by the nature of the delirium : and as the perceptions of sense are in