Thirty-first annual report of the trustees of the State Lunatic Hospital, at Worcester. October, 1863.

  • State Lunatic Hospital at Worcester
Date:
1864
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Thirty-first annual report of the trustees of the State Lunatic Hospital, at Worcester. October, 1863. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Husbands become insane, and morbidly suspicious in reference to their wives, and wives in reference to their husbands ; their * minds are sometimes disordered in relation to certain others, to friends, acquaintances, even strangers. In regard to those who are the subjects of these diseased sus¬ picions, fears, aversions, or undue confidence, the emotions take precedence of observation and reason, and become the founda¬ tion of all other ideas. The lunatic first suspects or confides, hates or loves, and then his excited imagination invents, shapes, measures, or colors facts to suit and substantiate the precon¬ ceived opinion, and the subordinated reason moulds the whole to harmonize with morbid feeling ; while, in regard to other persons, these disordered men and women may be entirely sane. In the same manner, certain ideas, places, and associations disturb and craze some, who, elsewhere, and in other connec tions, and with other subjects, are calm, clear-minded, and able to direct their moral and mental powers with discipline, to the ordinary course of thought, and the usual affairs of life. INSANE NEED .VARIED MANAGEMENT. In view of these diversities of powers in health and disease, and of the manifold varieties of capacities, of thought, labor and enjoyment that are left still sound in the insane, and of their varied liabilities to suffering or torpor, if misused or neglected, it is the first and most important business of the manager of a hospital to thoroughly analyze the mental condition of his patients, and ascertain wherein, and to what extent, they are unsound, what elements are disordered, what ideas, emotions, circumstances, or persons, disturb or depress them, what ele¬ ments in them are yet healthy, and what they can do or bear without, faltering. This is not only the first work of the superintendent, but it must be continued and renewed, day by. day, to meet the patient’s varying conditions, and enable him so to arrange and measure out his treatment as to avoid every disturbing cause and keep the excited and diseased elements dormant, the healthy elements active, and the patient sound in as many of his powers, and as large a part of the time as possible. Some .lunatics do this by their own self-analysis and self-dis¬ cipline. They know their own weak points, and carefully avoid
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