The report of the Committee of Visitors and Medical Superintendent of the Devon County Lunatic Asylum.

  • Devon County Lunatic Asylum.
Date:
[1855?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The report of the Committee of Visitors and Medical Superintendent of the Devon County Lunatic Asylum. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    long period, recovery will certainly be postponed, and the Patient will ran great risk of passing into a state of incurable mental infirmity. It may be possible that moral influences have more power in con¬ trolling the excited action of the brain than that of any other vital organ,—than palpitation of the heart for instance, or irritability of the stomach: but they have not so much power in the acute and recent forms of cerebral disease that they can be trusted alone, without the vigorous aid of medicines, baths, diet, and the various other means especially at the command of the Physician. In the earliest stages of sudden, acute, and complicated cases of Insanity, medical treatment is perhaps not less efficacious than in acute diseases of the lungs or heart, and the Physician, who under such circum¬ stances neglects the active employment of medicines, can have little confidence in his professional resources. Such opportunities of treat¬ ment are, unfortunately, of rare occurrence. In many cases the development of Insanity is gradual and progressive, presenting no acute period; in many other cases the acute period is, from various causes, allowed to pass by without the employment of suitable remedies: and in these chronic cases, or the chronic stages of cases, originally acute, (which together embrace the vast majority of all Patients under treatment,) moral influence becomes the invaluable and indispensable ally of medicine. In the treatment of Insanity there are many remedial agents which can scarcely be designated as either altogether medical or moral:—occupation, for instance, produces the beneficial effect of bodily exercise, and moral effects, by diverting the mind from morbid trains of thought;—wholesome and sufficient food produces physical effects, by favouring the alimentation of the body and promoting the due nutrition of the brain, while at the same time it gives rise to feelings of satisfaction and contentment, and thus operates on the moral side. The purely moral agencies may be distinguished into those which are brought to bear upon the indi¬ vidual Patient, and those to which he is subjected, in common with the other Inmates of an Institution. The first comprise the conver¬ sation and behaviour of the Physician, and of those he employs to