Practical observations on insanity : in which some suggestions are offered towards an improved mode of treating diseases of the mind, and some rules proposed which it is hoped may lead to a more humane and successful method of cure: to which are subjoined, remarks on medical jurisprudence, as it relates to diseased intellect / by Joseph Mason Cox, M.D.

  • Joseph Mason Cox
Date:
1813
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Practical observations on insanity : in which some suggestions are offered towards an improved mode of treating diseases of the mind, and some rules proposed which it is hoped may lead to a more humane and successful method of cure: to which are subjoined, remarks on medical jurisprudence, as it relates to diseased intellect / by Joseph Mason Cox, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

    193/244 (page 173)
    US where no permanent relief can be effected, and where the symptoms are aggravated bj indulging in improper habits and resisting other remedies ; here the swing may be most efficaciously employed both as a moral and a medical mean. This obser- vation will app]y to some cases of epilepsy, the paroxyms of which have been rendered more mild and less frequent by the daily use of the swing. In one, more particularly, its employ- ment obviously rendered the sensibility more na- tural, and the system more susceptible to powers whose agency it had before resisted, and when- ever the paroxysms are found to observe any re- gularity in their return, the tim.ely employment of the swing is calculated to prevent the attack, and sometimes suspend it even when the usual precursory symptoms were present; I must hov^- ever allow that in epilepsy no permanent advan- tage has resulted from using the swing; but I have had few opportunities of judging fairly, the majority of epileptic cases that have occurred in my practice, since the adoption of this reme- dy, having been of long standing, accompanied by obvious derangement of mind; they were con- sequently almost hopeless. Since publishing the former editions of this