A selection of papers and prize essays on subjects connected with insanity / read before the Society for Improving the Condition of the Insane.

Date:
1850
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A selection of papers and prize essays on subjects connected with insanity / read before the Society for Improving the Condition of the Insane. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    mind and its operations, to ascertain if it be a disease of the < brain and nervous system, or whether that incorruptible and immaterial essence, entilichia or soul, be capable of such per- version • and perhaps we may long and ignorantly speculate on the latter question. We see the mind built up by instruction, termed education, which is conveyed through the organs of perception, and also by the individual’s thoughts or reflections, if he be capable of such exertion. We are not deficient of voluminous treatises on the powers and faculties of the human mind, which have been the especial and fanciful creations of their authors, but its real physiology has not hitherto been investigated. We are overwhelmed with systems of scholastic metaphysics, but the exposition of the nature of the human mind has not yet been developed; and it is by such elucidation that the treatment of insanity will become a science, and not, according to its present practice, continue a trade, with inade- quate and declining emoluments. If the numbers of insane persons have extensively increased, the medical practitioners who treat this malady have been abundantly augmented, which ought to lead to the hope, if not expectation, that some efficient method of treatment would have been discovered as the result of their conjoined wisdom and experience. Those who have preceded us in this department of practice, have not bequeathed to the present generation any valuable legacy of successful remedies, they have eulogised certain substances and compo- sitions, but in succession they have disappointed the expecta- tions of those Avho employed them, and most of them are at present discarded! The different European nations have not been more successful than ourselves in their therapeutics. With much labour and disappointment I have perused their principal treatises and dissertations. France* has thrown but little light on this obscure subject, and the extensive domain of Germany, notwithstanding their accuracy and minuteness, have not attained any superiority of medical treatment. It is perhaps unnecessary to range further in search of remedial improve- ments. If we, with the other civilised nations of Europe, have not advanced in our medical treatment of this disorder, it must be acknowledged that our moral management of insane persons is vastly superior, and displays an enlightened system of mild, humane, and, at the same time, efficient treatment, to prevent the * Vide the estimate of this disease in that kingdom.