Remarks on insanity / by George Parkman, M.D.

  • Parkman, George, 1790-1849.
Date:
[1818?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Remarks on insanity / by George Parkman, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

    13/18
    To ascertain existence of insanity or feint of it, unless the examiner's object be hid, the enquiry must be extensive. A physician in this town asked me to see a female in his house, whose conduct was strange. He doubted whether her strangeness was involuntary, or assumed since some domestic crosses. I went to her chamber on pretence of seeing the house with a view of hireing it. Being left with her, I asked why she put her hands to her head ? She believed she had lost her head ! From such expressions, and from her general air, I concluded she was insane or knew how to feign insanity. The first was true. RESTRAINTS. When restraints are easy and exclude idea of escape, irrita- tion, revenge and despair, consequent to painful restraint, are prevented, and the sufferer is impressed with the advisable- ness of submission, and with respect for Directors able to accomplish judicious measures. Each patient's situation and relations in life are to be considered. Whatever peculiar mea- sures are advisable are to be executed with a persuasively com- manding tone of conscious power, and without a chance of ex- citing ludicrous ideas. See also Management of Lunatics, &c. p. 2b-2— 26-3 Properly constructed double apartments for each patient present most efficient and easy means of requisite general restraint and quiet. See plate described, ibid. p. 27—30. In Mass. asylum for insane persons the window-sashes are ash,—glass, 6 in. by 8, 24 panes,—stiles and top-rail 2 in. sq.—bottom-rail 2| by 2,—meeting-rail It by 2,—intermedi- ate bars 2 by 1. Upper sash falls, lower sash rises 7 inches. Room-doors are fastened by a mortice or box-lock or bolt, kept in its place by a spring, and moved by an arm attached to the tumbler which is turned by a square socket perforating it to receive the key ; the box is 3 in. sq. 1 in. thick. I know no sure proper means of confining the upper extremi- ties of ingenious patients, perseveringly impatient of restraint, but a canvass-strait-jacket, the lower parts of the arrn-pockets sewed very strongly, the back held together by buckles and wide straps, the bottom secured round each thigh by a strap or string. The following means may be exactly proportioned (o ex- travagance or resistance, and are less heating and irritating.— To confine the fingers, thick leather mittens without thumbs, the palms covered with sole-leather, the mittens secured round