Sixth annual report of the directors and physician of James Murray's Royal Asylum for Lunatics. 1832.

  • James Murray's Royal Asylum for Lunatics
Date:
1833
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sixth annual report of the directors and physician of James Murray's Royal Asylum for Lunatics. 1832. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Insanity may arise either from phisical or from moral causes. It has been often observ¬ ed that there is no passion in the human heart which more frequently peoples a mad-house than inordinate pride. The mania arising from this source generally discovers itself by the patient assuming the character of a King, a Prince, a Nobleman, or some other distin¬ guished personage, and in such cases there is generally “a method in his madness,” for his conversation and demeanour are found to be in perfect keeping with the character as¬ sumed. Several patients of this description are now in the Asylum. Of these, the first in imaginary dignity is an old soldier, who was severely wounded in the head, and who fancies himself a Duke, and Commander of the Forces, and struts about with all the im¬ posing air of nobility. He is haughty and re¬ served, keeping aloof from the other patients, and scarcely deigning to speak to those around him. The Asylum is his palace, and he has contrived to convert a common hat into an imaginary coronet. To see the marks of care upon this man’s brow, while he walks in so¬ lemn mock-nobility, apparently overwhelmed with his grandeur, and the extent of his com¬ mand, might easily lead one to believe that wealth and consequence, even in imagination, as in reality, are not always productive of