Thirty-sixth annual report of the directors of James Murray's Royal Asylum for Lunatics, near Perth. June, 1863.

  • James Murray's Royal Asylum for Lunatics
Date:
1863
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Thirty-sixth annual report of the directors of James Murray's Royal Asylum for Lunatics, near Perth. June, 1863. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    69/112 (page 63)
    are altogether adapted to the healthy and strong. Hence a consider- Sick Dietaries, able number of our dietaries are equivalent to the “ Low,” “ Rice,” and other diets of the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, whereof panado, or the farinacea and milk constitute the type, bulk, or basis. While, in respect of solid nutriment, there is in such cases a large subtraction from the quantities specified in our Printed Dietary Tables, there is a considerable and frequently an expensive addition in the form of Dietetic medicines, such as wines and spirits, porter, tea, coffee, &c. Not less important perhaps than the physical, is the mental, con-Mental changes i •, . •, .... in relation to dition ot such a community as ours m relation to its food. Digestive Digestion. difficulties probably as frequently arise from the state of the brain as from that of the stomach or the food. Among the healthy sane, it is too familiar to require exposition or demonstration here how easily and materially digestion is affected or perverted by simple emotional disturbances : by mental exhaustion,—business cares,—family disquie-Mental Anxiet^ tudes,—by the general mental condition implied by such expressive terms as “ worry,” “ anxiety,” “ weariness of spirit.” How suddenly and frequently do we all see capricious appetite, or depraved appetite, or want of appetite result from the simplest emotional causes: phenomena indeed which are among the most common and striking examples of the “Influence of the mind over the body.” There is perhaps no single greater enemy to healthy digestion than Mental Anxiety, not only on account of the impairment of the function of innervation directly, and of nutrition indirectly, thereby produced, but from its importance as a direct destroyer or waster of tissue. Professor Haughton found mental anxiety more exhaustive of tissue as well as of physical energy, than either physical or mental work. So destructive indeed is its influence that he speaks of it as “ that most “ fatal of all diseases to which man is liable—anxiety of mind—a “ vague and unscientific expression, which, however, denotes a most “real disease.”* If then it be the case that, among the sane, diges-Insanity in tive derangement, and with it an incapacity to assimilate certain kinds r®ktio?to Nutrition. •or amount o± food result from mental causes or nervous influences of p> slight and transient kind j how likely is it that such derangement do a greater extent—that digestion and assimilation still more depraved in character should be the rule and not the exception among the insane, where it may be presumed there is a disturbance of the dynamical equilibrium of the brain and general nervous system, the physiological actions or functions whereof are depressed or excited, perverted or interfered with in so many forms and degrees. SomePecu]iaritieg of forms and phases of insanity are intimately associated with, and mavthe Insaneaa to • t J Food. even in some cases be said to be characterised by, peculiarities of * Natural Constants of the healthy Urine of Man, ol. citat., page 34,