The moral treatment of disease / [James Foulis Duncan].

  • James Foulis Duncan
Date:
1845
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The moral treatment of disease / [James Foulis Duncan]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    on his mind which it would be well for me to find out and attempt to remove. Accordingly I took the trouble of making some enquiries into his case; and for this purpose called at his father’s residence, who was a dyer in Moore-street, where I learned that he had been a disobedient, ill-conducted son, having stolen and pawned various articles that had been left by his father’s cus- tomers to be dyed, and that his father had completely cast him off. This was the second time he had been obliged to take refuge in the workhouse. On the first occasion his mother used to visit him, and bring him little presents, and through her intercession he was taken out, and brought back to his father’s. Here he again misconducted himself, and was, in consequence, thrown out upon the world. On his admission to the North Union Workhouse, (for he had been in the South Union before,) he was completely abandoned by his friends, and this neglect preyed upon his mind, and induced the state I have alluded to. In consequence of my representations, his mother and sister called occasionally to see him, and there was a slight but temporary amendment. In a short time he became much worse. Nothing could rouse him from a continual lethargy : he scarcely ever spoke, and when he did, it was in an indistinct, unintelligible whisper. He lost the use of his limbs, and became bedridden. His appetite failed, and his stomach became so irritable as to reject'every kind of food that he was induced to take. A great deal was done for his relief, and various expe- dients resorted to, in order to bring about a change in his condition, but all in vain. I was fully convinced all the while that there was no organic mischief at the bottom of these symptoms, and that he only wanted the will and the energy to be perfectly well. I knew that any