Annual report of the Royal Edinburgh Asylum for the year 1848.

  • Royal Edinburgh Asylum.
Date:
1849
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Annual report of the Royal Edinburgh Asylum for the year 1848. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    lUtfO'seriefl. considerably below the average. In this table the per oentage of cures is 85, being- above the average, and bringing- the gene¬ ral results of the two years very nearly to the average results of treatment in such cases. The proportion of cures in cases of Monomania and Dementia is increasingly larger compared with former years, being 56.5 per cent, of the former, and 24 per cent of the latter, to the cases- of this kind respectively admitted during the year. Of the cases discharged cured, many present themselves to* my mind as worthy of comment, and very interesting in a prac¬ tical point of view, but as any essay of this kind would be mis¬ placed here, 1 shall confine my remarks to one or two of general interest. Of the cases of Mania discharged cured, no less than four presented the disease in a well marked periodical and remittent form. In one of them the attack recurred with the utmost regu¬ larity every 28 days;—the gentleman recovered his entire sanity in about 8 days, and remained perfectly sane until the recurrence of the paroxysm. The period of recurrence was so well marked that the attendants could foretell the precise day when he would be ill, and when his violence would require his removal from the convalescent to the refractory ward. In each of these cases a variety of remedies were tried for the purpose of averting the recurrence of the attack, but without any marked benefit; and if 1 were to attribute recovery in either of them to the means employed, it would be to the strenuous exercise of self-control on the part of the patients themselves, to which they were en¬ couraged by every persuasive motive. One of the most interesting cases which left the House, was that of a gentleman, who, on his admission, presented, in a well marked degree, all the features of that most hopeless and distres¬ sing disease—the General Paralysis of the Insane. The imperfect articulation of words, the staggering gait, and the peculiar de¬ lirium of ambition and wealth so characteristic of this disease, were all present. These symptoms developed themselves simul¬ taneously after some previous indications of approaching in¬ sanity, but without being preceded by any symptoms of an affection of the brain. Contrary to all expectation, and to genera] experience in such cases, in a few months he was restored to a state of perfect sanity of mind, and although the