What the doctor thought / by Sir James Crichton-Browne.

  • James Crichton-Browne
Date:
1930
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: What the doctor thought / by Sir James Crichton-Browne. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    his amusement to watch insects. The sight of spiders fighting would make the tears roll down his cheeks with laughter, a trait which Dugald Stewart in his Scottish Commonsense Philosophy thought very decidedly indicated a tendency to insanity and accounted for his unacceptable doc¬ trines. Spinosa died of consumption at forty-five. “ DELUSIONS THAT DO SO EASILY BESET US ” 1877.—Dr. M., an able but highly conscientious and nervous medical practitioner, a year ago lost his wife, who had been his stay and counsellor during many years of happy married life. She had been suffering for some time from diabetes, and, under the advice of several of his medical brethren whom he had consulted, was being treated by codeia as well as dietetically. In the autumn he took her for a change to the country, where she suddenly developed diabetic coma, and in those days, when there was no insulin, rapidly sank and died. His grief and agitation were extreme, and these soon took shape in delusions. He got it into his head that he had poisoned her by giving her an overdose of codeia or by some crystals he had introduced into a gasogene from which she had drunk, and a fortnight later he was convinced that by his negligence in not taking necessary pre¬ cautions she had been buried alive. So intense did his remorse become that he swallowed 40 grains of codeia, which, however, made him violently sick, so that he was none the worse. He was, of course, placed under treatment, and, when I saw him three months later, his grief had been assuaged