A letter to the Metropolitan Commissioners in Lunacy : containing some strictures on the Act of Parliament, and observations on their report / by J. Haslam.

  • John Haslam
Date:
1830
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A letter to the Metropolitan Commissioners in Lunacy : containing some strictures on the Act of Parliament, and observations on their report / by J. Haslam. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    27/30 page 23
    endured, they would be painfully aware of this hopeless difference. During a period of nearly forty years, the treat¬ ment of insanity has been my constant and pro¬ fessional occupation, and it has uniformly occurred, that when persons not medically educated have attempted to meddle with the regulation and care of lunatic patients, their interference has always been detrimental. Their career has usually com¬ menced by deploring the imperfection of the pre¬ vailing system, complaining of undue restraint, and when they have discovered the intractable nature of Madness, a disease that yields not to persuasion, and despises the terrors of the law, they have had re¬ course to those unjustifiable severities that science has proscribed, and at which humanity revolts. In these times, when the seeds of knowledge have taken root, and the germs of future promise are expanding, it is to be hoped that the strides of mis¬ chievous authority will not trample on the expected harvest. In these times every department of the healing art is strenuously co-operating to reduce the bulk of misery and disease: and these endeavours are promoted by superior education, increased faci¬ lity of instruction, and unremitting devotion to the
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3