Eighth annual report of the county and city of Worcester Pauper Lunatic Asylum.

  • Worcester Pauper Lunatic Asylum
Date:
1861
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Eighth annual report of the county and city of Worcester Pauper Lunatic Asylum. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    89/102 page 89
    i agents. In 10 of the cases no particulars of their antecedents > could he obtained. 65 per cent, of the admissions were thus | induced by physical and 28 by moral causes. In 32 persons ll hereditary predisposition was known to exist, rendering the i person more easily affected by the changes and difficulties of i life, or a constitution was trasmitted to them of such a quality, I as rendered bodily illness, fatigue, or excitement, able to over¬ power them, which in a person of more perfect development might have been followed by no such results. In 14 cases ij previous attacks of insanity were thought to have contributed in .] giving a predisposition to their present seizures, hut in all except 13 of these individuals other causes were found co-operating towards the same result. In 31 instances altogether had previous attacks occurred, but in the remainder of these suffi- :i cient grounds for their present seizure were ascertained 3 independently of this, although probably it rendered the attack i more easy of aggression. In the list of the physical causes 12 i were ascribed to intemperance, acting alone or in combination with other means, as smoking, dissipation, falls on the head, and reverses. It was thus an active agent in nearly 10 per cent, of the entire known number of attacks. Epilepsy induced mental disturbance or incapacity in 11 cases. Paralysis was followed by mental incapacity in 5, superannua¬ tion of old age appeared the cause in 2, the puerperal state, and change of life, was the ostensible reason in the instances of 3 women, 5 were the effects of rheumatic and other forms of fever, 5 of disease of the heart, with complications affecting the lungs and kidneys, 7 were ascribed to general bad health, 3 to the fatigue and anxiety consequent on nursing sick friends, and 7 to malformations which existed from the time of birth. Of the chief moral influences, anxiety, induced by various circumstances, appeared in 9 cases, disappointments of various kinds had been sustained by 7 persons, grief for the loss of
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