Brand's lunacy case : a full report of this most interesting and extraordinary investigation including copious animadversions on the principal actors in this drama : to which are added may [i.e. many] other important and highly affecting cases, together with the history of the horrors practised in private mad-houses, and the frightful power delegated to the mad-doctors of the 19th century, with the number of pauper lunatics in England : the late Lord Chancellor, and Mr. Sugden : the author's reply to Councellor [sic] Austen : extracts from Observations on insanity, comprising the symptoms & treatment of that malady / by Charles Dunne.

  • Dunne, Charles.
Date:
1831
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Brand's lunacy case : a full report of this most interesting and extraordinary investigation including copious animadversions on the principal actors in this drama : to which are added may [i.e. many] other important and highly affecting cases, together with the history of the horrors practised in private mad-houses, and the frightful power delegated to the mad-doctors of the 19th century, with the number of pauper lunatics in England : the late Lord Chancellor, and Mr. Sugden : the author's reply to Councellor [sic] Austen : extracts from Observations on insanity, comprising the symptoms & treatment of that malady / by Charles Dunne. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    acljutors obstinately refused his liberation ; and till an action was brought, and his sanity shewn in court to the conviction of the judge, no hope of escaping from his confinement was afforded him.* The case of Mr. Davies, the merchant in the cityf, already noticed, and fresh in the minds of Englishmen, requires no observation here; it has marked an indelible infamy on the front of its authors never to be effaced. We beg, however, to observe, that of all diseases real madness is the most to be lamented, as shewing human nature in its degraded state ; and levelling even the monarch himself with the lowest rank of the creation.— Certain peculiarities attend this distemper different from most others :—it transforms the very feelings and affections of the individual—every thing is seen and felt through a new and false medium. His nearest and dearest ties, contrary to what nature inculcates in every breast, instead of being the ob- * King versus Elliot and his wife, Hicks’s Hall, November, 1821.—The defendants in this prosecution were indicted for a conspiracy against Anne Daentry, the aunt of the wife. This old woman, being possessed of some property, had been induced to leave her own house and reside with them. In order to come at her effects, they contrived, by the assistance of an apothecary, who gave a certificate, to get her confined in a mad-house at Hoxton. Here she continued a considerable time, till she was fortunate enough, by her cries from an upper window, to attract the notice of a passenger who knew her, and gave information where she was. To the conviction of the court, her sanity was proved by a numerous acquaintance, who all came forward on the occasion, and stated, from their knowledge of her, that she never had laboured under any malady of the kind. The name of the apothecary who gave the certificate for the reception and detention of Anne Daentry in a mad-house, was Mr. Parkinson, of Hoxton. The opinion of the Jury, and the strong evidence in respect to the sanity of this person, ought, cerlainly, to make this gentleman leel awkward on the occasion. What renders it worse, is, that Mr. Parkinson acknowledges he was attendant apothecary to the mad-house ; consequently he must have had opportunities of seeing this person in every state which could lead him to the full knowledge of her sanity or not. Mr. Parkinson’s judgment seems to have been deficient on this occasion, for he had not made a distinction between the violence attending bad usage and the real stale of mental derangement. In this conclusion, from the evidence on the trial, we are certainly warranted. f It is true, that in the memorable South Sea year, so famous for the good fortune of some, and the ruin of others, furnishes us, with a striking example, that madness is as often the effect of immoderate joy, as of anxiety and griel:— for it is well known that many city merchants, desperate adventurers, who became enriched from that scheme, soon afterwards, as well as those that were ir It i mnf a! 11 Koootvin t li ^ imvinfon Al n rrinn_l1AnflP