A letter to the governors of Bethlem Hospital containing an account of their management of that institution for the last twenty years ... with a ... narrative of the confinement of James Norris ... Part 1. / by John Haslam.

Date:
1818
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A letter to the governors of Bethlem Hospital containing an account of their management of that institution for the last twenty years ... with a ... narrative of the confinement of James Norris ... Part 1. / by John Haslam. 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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    Deaii Sir, I return you your books, with many thanks for the perusal of ^rour excellent remarks, and which I assure you have given me great satisfaction, and some very useful information. I remain, Dear Sir, Your’s very sincerely, Powis Place, ■ J. LEWIS, December 18, 1805. This letter is a decisive proof that ray best exertions were contributed to tlie accomplislmient of that great design, which ought to have rendered your new hos- pital the model of succeeding establishments for the treatment of menial disorder. Its ample dome might have been omitted, and its stately columns sacrificed to the conveniences of interior construction. Reflect- ing minds would have been more satisfied that it should have been the quiet and modest relreat of “ severest woe,”—than the ostentatious blazori of nar tional degradation. Had you conceived it m cessary to rear your edifice on the wisdom of preconcerted arrangements, the improvements I had projected would have displayed an asylum purely charitable, in which medical skill, and experience of the human mind would have co-operated with benevolence for the restoration of reason;—an asylum calculated, by prompt assistance, to meet and alleviate the exigencies,