Volume 3

A narrative of the treatment experienced by a gentleman, during a state of mental derangement; designed to explain the causes and the nature of insanity, and to expose the injudicious conduct pursued towards many unfortunate sufferers under that calamity / [Anon].

  • Perceval, John, active 1840-1860.
Date:
1838-1840
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A narrative of the treatment experienced by a gentleman, during a state of mental derangement; designed to explain the causes and the nature of insanity, and to expose the injudicious conduct pursued towards many unfortunate sufferers under that calamity / [Anon]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    again, or to provoke him to acts of indiscretion, that may be construed into proofs of derangement. I now took up this attitude against my family. I argued that although I was unsettled in my judg- ment and still partially lunatic, it did not give man- kind or them any legal right to exercise a brutal and tyrannical contro] over my will, without respect to the nature of my calamity, and to the degree of restoration I had attained to. Instead of being treated as I was, de haut en bas, with complete con- tumely, no argument or address being made to my understanding, I conceived that my being a lunatic required on the contrary the more scrupulousness on their part, the more caution, openness, and explana- tion. That it was their duty to make my way more straight and clear before me because I was by my disease already sufficiently prone to delusion, and even to unprovoked suspicion. So at least the doctors desire you to believe, but I question if the suspicions of lunatics are not often most sane, and engendered necessarily by the underhand dealings of others towards them. There is a distinction to be made between the suspicions of lunatics and that of lunacy. I considered that though surrender- ed by law to the charge of a physician, it was to be protected, and to be prevented from injuring others, not to lay me open helpless and defenceless to his villanies, and his treachery ; to the violence of his servants, or to experiments of his quackery upon my constitution and feelings under the pretence of