Eighth annual report of the managers of the State Lunatic Asylum : made to the Legislature February 27, 1851 / New York State Lunatic Asylum at Utica.
- New York (State). State Lunatic Asylum
- Date:
- 1851
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Eighth annual report of the managers of the State Lunatic Asylum : made to the Legislature February 27, 1851 / New York State Lunatic Asylum at Utica. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![insanity, it seems proper to report them as dying of mania rather than of “ marasmus.” These twelve deaths were all old cases, whose last hope of restoration had long since departed, whose existence for years had been at best but a living death, a protracted dying, and for a continuation of which their most devoted freinds could have no longings. Three died of acute mania, a very small mortality in proportion to the number admitted with this form of disease. No class of pa¬ tients give us more anxiety, and no deaths, except by suicide, are more painful. These three cases were males, one of whom arrived after a fatiguing and exciting journey by railroad, in a state of intense excitement, which had existed for a few days, during which the pa¬ tient had taken but little food or sleep, his physical powers far ex¬ hausted, and in spite of every effort to subdue it, the raving and delirium continued with increased intensity, while the bodily strength failed until death closed the scene on the seventh day after admission, the body crushed and prostrated by the ungovernable power of its own machinery. The second was a case of less intensity of excite¬ ment, and more protracted. The third was a case of paroxysmal insanity, long a resident in the institution, whose attacks were grad¬ ually becoming more and more intense. These cases might be said to die from exhaustion, but we think acute mania better expresses the cause of death. Thirteen died of dysentery ; a larger number than from any other disease, though it was at no time epidemic in the institution. We include under the head of dysentery, a form of disease very unlike dysentery of private practice and of general hospitals, but which we believe is common in asylums, and which we do not recollect to have seen called by any other name. It occurs in chronic cases whose powers of life have been long gradually sinking, and in recent cases who have become much exhausted by protracted excitement. With¬ out premonitory symptoms or exposure to known exciting causes, the patient is suddenly seized, and generally in the night, with bloody discharges, scanty and gelatinous, or more frequently copious and serous, with no heat of skin or abdomen, nor pain or thirst, or loss of appetite or strength. Death supervenes a few days after the attack. ! We have witnessed but little benefit from remedies in this form of [Senate, No. 42.] 2](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b30317484_0019.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
