Cases of periodical jactitation, or chorea / by Robert Watt, M.D.

  • Robert Watt
Date:
1814
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Cases of periodical jactitation, or chorea / by Robert Watt, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    mi mi seductions, whereof these enemies of heaven and earth should hereafter be guilty.” After the jury had spent six hours in deliberation, seven of the miserable wretches, three men and four women, were condemned to the flames, and the sentence faithfully executed at Paisley, on the 10th June, 1697. Though we cannot confidently boast of the pow¬ ers * of medicine in this disease, yet we may flatter ourselves that this narrative may not be without its use, by putting the last hand to the cure of a ma¬ lady of the mind, which in past times has led to such tragical incidents; and we may be permitted to congratulate ourselves on our lot being cast in an age of the world, in which, from the progress of science, even the lowest orders are in a great mea¬ sure delivered from the degrading dominion of a superstition! with which the higher orders, nay, * Since this article was drawn up, it has been suggested by a friend of the author’s that in case of the recurrence of a similar disease in future, some benefit might arise from keeping the pa¬ tient awake as much as might be consistent with safety. He grounds this proposal on the view he takes of the nature of the disorder as consisting in a superabundance of that principle, whatever it is, by which the voluntary action of muscles is sup¬ ported, by the exhaustion of which fatigue is induced, and the re-production of which is effected by sleep. t A similar instance of the correction of popular errors, by the lights of knowledge, may be adduced in the gradual extinc¬ tion of the belief in ghosts, with which the human mind has so long been disturbed. A very ingenious and interesting tract, on this
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