Seventh annual report of the trustees of the State Lunatic Hospital at Worcester. December, 1839.
- State Lunatic Hospital at Worcester
- Date:
- 1840
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Seventh annual report of the trustees of the State Lunatic Hospital at Worcester. December, 1839. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![Our own experience, in a great number of such cases, has not con¬ firmed the impression of friends. The periodicity of insanity is one of the inexplicable phenomena of disease, and, like epilepsy, the law in each case seems to be applicable to itself and no other. One case has paroxysms every other day, another every other week ] one has one insane week in a month ; another has a paroxysm of excitement one month, and a period of gloom and depression on the alternate month; another case will have semi-annual occurrences, and many have an attack of excitement every year, every two years, and sometimes regu¬ lar attacks at longer intervals. In such instances, it is often the case that some exciting cause has a iranifest agency in producing the dis¬ ease. It is far from being the fact that such cases have any thing like regular intervals, especially those in whom the lucid interval is pro¬ longed to months and years. Some exciting cause, as a family afflic¬ tion, reverse of fortune, the loss of a friend, the anxiety and care ex¬ cited by sickness or trouble, and perplexity of any sort renews the insanity. It is true of insanity, as of many other diseases, that one attack in¬ creases the susceptibility to another, and a slighter cause will induce the disease at each successive attack, till it is scarcely possible to ascertain the agency of any cause in producing the paroxysm. The number of periodical cases now in the Hospital, in which the paroxysms occur at short intervals, is very large. One man \idiS five or six periods of excitement every year, and this has been the case with him for ten or more years. The most efficient remedies have been faithfully tried with him, with very little effect, and no essential benefit. After the paroxysm is over he is happy, active, pleasant and rational, for some weeks, then he becomes depressed and spiritless, says noth¬ ing, has no ambition to move, nor interest in any thing that can be presented to bis mind. This is his state of horror ; he will, when ex¬ cited, recount with stirring eloquence his sufferings during this short period of depression, for his excitements are to him a paradise, in the comparison. From this gloom he suddenly breaks forth into the most outrageous mania, breaking every thing about him, tearing his clothes, destroying his bedding and disturbing every one within the reach of his voice, for days and weeks together. The transition from depression to excitement is sometimes so sudden, that he goes to his bed calm and wakes before midnight a perfect madman ; generally, however, there are indications of an approaching paroxysm a day or two previous to its occurrence.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b30317988_0082.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
