Suggestions for the future provision of criminal lunatics / By W. Charles Hood.

  • Hood, William Charles, Sir, 1824-1870.
Date:
1854
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Suggestions for the future provision of criminal lunatics / By W. Charles Hood. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    i proceed upon the same principles as if we were legislating] for professedly sane persons : because the mind is never totally eclipsed, there is always some lingering ray of light which the intact re- flection may seize upon with instinctive truthfulness. !For this reason, Peuchtersleben advises physicians not to enter into any unnecessary discussion with their insane patients, and acutely observes :— The previously educated lunatic often penetrates deeper, at least for the moment, into the mind of one who engages in argument with him, than the latter does into his; so that it appears almost as if the under- standing of the lunatic were less affected by in- sanity, than the reason of many sane persons by passions and prejudices. * furthermore it should be remembered,—and I am satisfied of the fact,— that Criminal Lunatics are more difficult to manage than other lunatics : there is more irritability of temper, and general restlessness about them; they are cognizant of the offences they have committed, and being under the impression that they will never re- cover their liberty, they are less disposed to be con- tented or happy. They are also conscious that they are separated into, and form a distinct class of pa- tients, and this very circumstance establishes a species of fraternity among them : for they are in constant * Feuchtersleben Principles of Medical Psycliology, by Messrs, Lloyd and Babington. Printed for the Sydenham Society, Lon- don, 1847. P. 358.