Licence: In copyright
Credit: Insanity in every-day practice / by E.G. Younger. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.
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![or chloralamid at night may be useful. In the more strongly-marked cases treatment outside an asylum can only be carried out where the patient is well-to-do in life. If he be of limited means he had better be placed in an asylum. If the former course be adopted, he should be removed from his own home and surroundings, and from town if he be a town-dweller. Bearing in mind the possibility of suicide, he must never be left alone, especi- ally in the early forenoon, on account of the proneness of these patients to attempt suicide in the morning hours. Therefore two trained attendants will be required, besides any member of his family who may elect to keep him company. The principal things to attend to are to give proper and sufficient food, to obtain sleep, and to relieve constipation. Much may be done by persuasion and system in inducing the patient to take food, and here it may be mentioned that in melancholia solid food and plenty of it is much more likely to benefit the patient than a slop diet, however nutritious and concentrated. A glass of stout at mid-day may help, and some spirit and water is often useful at night to induce sleep. Obstinate refusal of food will often disappear after a few days’ complete rest in bed, and such a rest will also greatly add to the patient’s strength, paradoxical though this may appear. Should forcible feeding become neces- sary, the patient will do better in an asylum. Sleep may be induced by warm baths and by a ‘ night- cap,’ as mentioned above. In great contradistinction to cases of mania, where they are injurious, some of the preparations of opium and morphia are often useful in melancholia. Experience has shown that opium does not, as a rule, aggravate the constipation, as might be expected, and that the drug habit does not seem to get formed. The Tur]<ish bath is also of great value. The 4](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b24976519_0053.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
