The cottage system and Gheel : an asylum tract / by John Sibbald.

  • Sibbald, John, 1833-1905.
Date:
1861
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The cottage system and Gheel : an asylum tract / by John Sibbald. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    of success wliich has attended the experiment there must greatly influence our opinion of its suitability for adoption elsewhere, so that a short space devoted to this inquiry will lay the best founda- tion for a discussion of the general question. Many notices of Gheel are to be found in recent medical litera- ture, but the attention of the scientific world was first directed to it by Esquirol, who, in his Maladies Mentales, records a visit made by liim in 1821. It was not, however, until the publication of the observations of MM. Guislain and Morean (de Tours), and the reports of M. Ducpetiaux, that its peculiarities received anything hke general attention. The writings of these gentlemen, and the more recent labours of MM. Parigot, Bulckens, and De Mundy, have brought the subject fully before the Belgian government and people; and Drs. EoUer and Droste have addressed themselves to the German pubhe. The interest of the Trench public has also been powerfully excited by the writings of M. Jules Duval, whose recently published work contains a most interesting account of the toum and its inhabitants.* Dr. Galt has written frequently and well for the purpose of laying the subject before the American people. In this country. Sir Andrew Halliday, Drs. Gumming, Webster, Browne, and Coxe have published notices of the system; and in the number of tins Journal for April, 1858, Dr. Henry Stevens records liis observations made during a visit to the locahty. The allusions to Gheel occurring in many recent writings make it appear that its history is sufficiently familiar to aU. But I beheve that English writers have not given the details in such a manner as to make a complete appreciation of the present state of things easily attainable. The social economics of the place are so pecuhar, indeed altogether swi generis, that a knowledge of the train of circumstances which developed them is essential to tins end. The early history of every locahty is mixed up with much that has no more sohd foundation than the imaginations of the monkish chroniclers; and Gheelese annals form no exception to the rule. Yet it is probable that there is good ground for beheviug in the more important incidents preserved in its legendary lore. In the seventh century, when Christianity first penetrated into that portion of ancient Gaul wliich now forms the kingdom of Belgium, a church was erected in the desert region lying to the north of the modern Brussels, and now known as the Campine or Kempen Land. This church was dedicated to St. Martin, the apostle to the Gauls; and a few huts, erected by the Cliristians who gathered round it, formed the nucleus of the present town of Gheel. Among those who settled in this little colony were the daughter of an Irish prince and a missionary named Gerrebert who had converted her to Chris- * ‘ Gheel, ou ime Coloiiie d’Alienes, vivaiit en famille et eii liberie,’ par Jules Duval. Paris, Guiilauiniii et Cie.