Observations on madness and melancholy : including practical remarks on those diseases together with cases : and an account of the morbid appearances on dissection / by John Haslam.

Date:
1809
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on madness and melancholy : including practical remarks on those diseases together with cases : and an account of the morbid appearances on dissection / 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.

    43/362 page 31
    DEFlNltlON. tenance would recal the idea [or name] of some particular person. I have known many cases of patients who insisted that they had seen the devil. It might be urged, that in these instances, the perception was vitiated; but it must be observed there could be no perception of that, which was not present and existing at the time. Upon desiring these patients ' to describe what they had seen, they all represented him as a big, black man, with a long tail, and sharp talons, such as is seen pictured in books; a proof that the idea was revived in the mind from some former im- pressions. One of these patients however carried the matter a little further, as she solemnly declared, she heard him break the iron chain with which God had con- fined him, and saw him pass fleetly by her window, with a truss of straw upon his shoulder.
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