A report on the recent progress of psychological medicine and mental pathology / by C. Lockhart Robertson.

Date:
1848
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A report on the recent progress of psychological medicine and mental pathology / by C. Lockhart Robertson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    In recent cases of mania, the warm hath, with cold lotions applied to the head, is often of great value in procuring sleep. “ It will generally,” says Dr. Williams, ‘‘be found a very powerful means of diminishing cerebral con- gestion, and allaying irritation in maniacal cases In some cases the culd bath, if judiciously used, may prove very serviceable; and many patients who have suffered from partial or complete vigilantia have enjoyed profound sleep after immersion in the cold bath.” 53. Chloroform.—“This remedy, says Dr. Skae,* “was used by me im- mediately after the discovery of its amesthenic agency; and a number of observations were soon afterwards made with it—some of them in the presence of Professors Christison ami Simpson. We found that it produced the same physiological effects upon the insane as upon the sane; and that the most vio- lent and excited were almost immediately put into a state of calm and profound repose by its influence. As a curative agent, it has, as yet, been of no benefit in the treatment of the cases in this asylum, although I am not without hopes that in a certain class of cases it may he of use. I have, however, found it extremely serviceable for many minor purposes; such as the administration of food t by means of the stomach-pump, and of enemata, and in the perform- ance of various necessary operations.” [We recently saw the application of this agent in a most violent case of mania, in the Bethlehem Lunatic Hos- pital. It had, in this case, on several occasions, been had recourse to, but in eaeli the previous symptoms recurred as soon as the physiological etfects of the drug passed off.] II. DEMENTIA. The medical treatment of dementia resolves itself into an application of the principles of medicine to the physical symptoms of the case. HI. PARTIAI, INSANITY. 54. Melancholia.—Dr. Seymour has devoted the third chapter of his recent workj to a consideration of the medical treatment of this variety of partial insanity, which he regards “as the most usually amenable to remedies.” The remedy which Dr. Seymour lauds so highly in the treatment of melancholia is morphia. “ During fifteen years,” he says, “ I have been anxiously watching the result of cases of melancholia treated on this system ; upwards of seventy cases have recovered during that period of time, and 1 consider no case to he called a recovery unless tw o years, at least, of unabated health have elapsed • since the treatment concluded. In nearly twenty cases the treatment has failed, or only given temporary relief The preparation (continues Dr. Seymour) which I have preferred, and, with two or three exceptions, I have always used, is the acetate of morphia. The mode of preparation—the solution : forty drops of the solution which I have generally employed contain one grain of the alkaloid salt. It has generally been, in mild cases, my prac- tice to begin by a quarter of a grain every night in solution; then, after a • Physicians’ Annual Report to the Managers of the Royal Edinburgh Asylum, 1847. f in all probability the loss of sensation which accompanies the use of chloroform might greatly mask the ordinary symptoms which would indicate the passage of the cesophagus tube into the air-passages ; and without great precaution a fatal accident might happen, which has taken place in careful hands without chloroform—the injection of the nutriment into the air-passages. t Thoughts on the Nature and Treatment of several Severe Diseases of the Human Body. By Edward J. Seymour, m.d., &c. vol. i. London, 1847-
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