Volume 2

An inquiry concerning the indications of insanity, with suggestions for the better protection and care of the insane / By John Conolly.

  • John Conolly
Date:
1830
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An inquiry concerning the indications of insanity, with suggestions for the better protection and care of the insane / By John Conolly. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    36/530 page 8
    mental disorders, and by acting under the phy- sician or medical superintendent, most materially assist him. Opportunities would then be afforded of trying every variety of medical and of mental or moral treatment, and particularly of practising all those methods of influencing the mind, which, separately slight, are, in connection, very availing ; and being only practicable at favourable moments, not only require great discretion, but a degree of superintendence which is at present impossible. We should then see how much could really be done in these affections, and should hear no moré of mistakes which have from time to time afforded so much matter for litigation, so much personal uneasiness, and, in some cases, so much oppression and fraud. : Every man is interested in this subject; for no man can confidently reckon on the continuance of his perfect reason. Disease may weaken, accident may disturb, anxiety may impair it; and if every departure from sound mind may subject the person so affected to an indiscriminate treatment, in- cluding deprivation of property and personal liberty, ~ no man can be sure that he may not, with a full consciousness of his sufferings and wrongs, be one day treated as if all sense and feeling were in him destroyed and lost;—torn from his family, from his home, from his innocent but — eccentric pursuits, and condemned, for an. inde-
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3