Thirty-seventh annual report of the Suffolk Lunatic Asylum : December, 1874.

  • Suffolk Lunatic Asylum.
Date:
[1875]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Thirty-seventh annual report of the Suffolk Lunatic Asylum : December, 1874. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    of June. He is now at large again, occasionally suppressing and occasionally exhibiting symptoms of mania. The failure to detect the true state of a patient’s mind, or to discover what would shew the latent mischief of the brain, is not very uncommon. Symptoms not obvious to the ordinary observer or even suspected by him, may be discovered by careful examination made with the requisite knowledge of the manifestations of gradual and insidious disease of the brain. To those unaccustomed to insane people a few rational answers might indicate sound mind; but the psychological physician, who is in possession of the habits and peculiar turn of the patient’s thoughts, would lead him to disclose them; or by a continuance of careful examination find that they would spontaneously break forth. There is not always moreover a well defined line of demarcation between reason and irrationality; one does not necessarily exclude the other: frequently it is very much otherwise : there is what may be called a mixed condition, which may render the question difficult to solve either way. An individual may be deran¬ ged in his actions feelings and thoughts, and yet entertain a consciousness of it, and stifle and struggle for a time against its prevailing influence, and be able to keep it very much under control. A beautiful illustration of this, as men¬ tioned by Dr. Haslam, is contained in Dr. Johnson’s Hasselas, where the astronomer is admired as of sound intellect and great acquirements, by Imlac who is himself a philosopher and a man of the world. His intercourse with the astronomer is frequent, and he always finds in his society information and delight. At length he receives Imlac into the most unbounded confidence, and imparts to him the momentous secret. u Hear Imlac what thou wilt not without difficulty credit. I have possessed for five years the regulation of weather, and the distribution of the seasons. The sun has listened to my dictates, and passed from tropic to tropic by my direction. The clouds at my call have