A treatise on medical jurisprudence of insanity : containing chapters on imbecility, nervousness, mental deficiency, drunkenness, delirium, and mental diseases in general / By Isaac Ray ... With an introductory essay by D. Spillan.

  • Ray, Isaac, 1807-1881.
Date:
1839
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on medical jurisprudence of insanity : containing chapters on imbecility, nervousness, mental deficiency, drunkenness, delirium, and mental diseases in general / By Isaac Ray ... With an introductory essay by D. Spillan. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    When, in addition to this, it is considered that no plan of inquiry is laid down for them to pursue, nor _asingle hint to guide them in their examination ; that they are left to summon only what witnesses they please, and with as much or as little publicity as they please, we are forced to believe that it is not in human nature, that such power should escape frequent and flagrant abuses.* Temporary confine- quires, and therefore the term of imprisonment, for which justices should have the power to commit, should be limited to a few weeks or months. If it be deemed necessary that this term should be pro- tracted, it should be only by order of the judge of probate or one of the justices of the courts of law, whose duty it should be to examine the circumstances of the case, and if he decide in favour of farther imprisonment for another term which should be fixed by law, to ascertain by proper inquiries from time to time, whether any change in the mental condition of the patient will warrant his release before the end of such term. * Tt is stated in the first annual report of the Trustees of the State Lunatic Hospital of Massachusetts, that under a similar provision of law then in force in that state, an idiot had been committed who could neither stand nor walk, who was unable to extend the lower limbs from the closest possible con- traction towards the body, and who had but little muscular strength even in his arms. Reports and other documents relative to the State Lunatic Hospital, p. 42.