Morbid appetites of the insane / by W.A.F. Browne.

  • William A. F. Browne
Date:
[1875]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Morbid appetites of the insane / by W.A.F. Browne. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    been identified with Satanic possession; it lias been traced!- back to our brute nature, and paraded as a proof of our descent 1. and evolution from some less-gifted animal. We conceive thatlf another explanation less remote and recondite, and more ini harmony with the history of each individual, is accessible, audit that a brief narrative of some even of the most hideous formal^ in which alienation may present itself may develop this, and It may at the same time serve to warn the sanguine that com-l- paratively little has been accomplished in the amelioration of In mental disease; that they should not be misled by the frae-l; tional good which has been done, nor withdrawn from their contemplation of the enormous amount that remains undone, as a stimulus and reward to coming Psychologists. PHVTOPHAGES. Structural arrangements and the astute vigilance of trained attendants have suppressed much of the violence, the vagaries.* and absurdities of the chronic insane, but they have failed, and must, perhaps, always fail, in frustrating the grotesque devices by which perverted appetites and aptitudes are manifested or gratified since the abandonment of a mask or a chain. Many patients display a taste and a talent for deception' and evasion, and derive pleasure from eluding or defeating the! provisions instituted for the purpose of making them humani and happy. Many years ago we had as a patient an officer in the navy who was partially demented and incoherent, but whcj retained the language and many of the habits of his formei condition. The contraction of his fingers indicated that he hac suffered from hemiplegia, but his firm and rounded form, his blooming and smiling features, showed that he was robust anc well-nourished. He often wrote with chalk or some substitute on the pavement, and while tracing his gigantic letters he assumed the quadrupedal position which might have betrayed tc certain theorists a relic of his origin from animals of a lowei grade. He had another peculiarity which seemed to corroborate this fanciful idea. His lips were repeatedly noticed to be green, and particles of grass suggested the suspicion that he chewed and perhaps swallowed the herbage in the airing ground. He was watched and detected in devouring considerable quantities of the grass and in making what might have served as a meal for one of the herbivora. This man had abundance of plain food, lacked not tobacco, and indulged in this practice in ordei to administer, it was at the time conjectured, to a depraved taste, or to allay the cravings of morbid hunger. We have since met with many instances of similar depravation, where - V. ■ h :.