A letter to the governors of Bethlem Hospital containing an account of their management of that institution for the last twenty years ... with a ... narrative of the confinement of James Norris ... Part 1. / by John Haslam.

Date:
1818
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A letter to the governors of Bethlem Hospital containing an account of their management of that institution for the last twenty years ... with a ... narrative of the confinement of James Norris ... Part 1. / by John Haslam. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    afforded; that they ought to be cheerfully and readily furnished with every clue which can lead to a right judgment of the case, by detecting and exposing the subject on which the mind is disordered, instead of having information withheld, under any pretence, and especially for the purpose of defeating the applica* tion. It is unquestionably right that dangerous maniacs should not be permitted to remain at large: but it is surely of at least equal importance to the community, and particularly to the sane part of it, that thej/ should not be liable to improper confinement —either as to cause, severity, or duration.* Istronglj/ suspect that, in many instances, the confinement has proved its own justification by producing madness where before there existed only a disposition to it, or at most only its slightest shades: indeed it seems to me so probable an effect, as that I should scarcely wonder if it constantly occurred, whenever the temper was at all irritable. I observe in your relation of Matthews’s case, that whatever was the nature of his delusion, when first taken into Bethlem, the train of disturbed ideas on which the proof of his subsequent insanity appears chiefly to rest, is at least evidently connected with his detention there, if not actually caused by iV.t London Wall was the supposed residence of his tor- * This is a generous presumption that we have no law on the subject of Lunacy. t As Mr. Smith was unacquainted with the nature of his delu- sions when first admitted into Bethlem, it is but natural that he should conclude them to have been produced by his confinement. F
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