An inquiry concerning the indications of insanity : with suggestions of the better protection and care of the insane / by John Conolly... now reprinted by photolithography with an introduction by Richard Hunter and Ida Macalpine.

  • John Conolly
Date:
1964
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An inquiry concerning the indications of insanity : with suggestions of the better protection and care of the insane / by John Conolly... now reprinted by photolithography with an introduction by Richard Hunter and Ida Macalpine. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    retained by them. I speak here with reference to our prevalent modes of punishment, of putting the prisoner to death, although I am myself among thbse who question the propriety of shortening a man's life under any circumstances; since no mortal judge can presume to say what mental changes the Creator of all men may yet desire to be experienced, even by the vilest criminal, before he goes to his account; and because I believe other punishments might be inflicted, which would equally, by the impression they would make on those likely to imitate the offender's crimes, deter them from such imitation, and would consequently afford to society all the advantage w^hich is pro- posed by the infliction of any punishment at all. It is also not to be forgotten, that idiots are liable to sudden paroxysms of violence, no less than of noisy folly, which they are unable to restrain. During their temporary exciiementj they may destroy any of those confined with them, but with as little malice or consciousness of doing wrong as when they request others to destroy t]ie7n; for an idiot has been known to request another idiot to cut off his head, and the request has been com- plied with, and with the most perfect good-will on both sides. These individuals exhibit an union of such inconsiderate cruelty and depravity with so much apparent cunning and contrivance, so much imprudence with so much design, that every
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