Fourteenth annual report of the directors and physician of James Murray's Royal Asylum for Lunatics. 1841.

  • James Murray's Royal Asylum for Lunatics.
Date:
1841
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Fourteenth annual report of the directors and physician of James Murray's Royal Asylum for Lunatics. 1841. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    to increase and prolong the disease, when it does not speedily render it fatal. The experience of the Bicetre in Paris proved that an increase of the allowance of food considerably diminished the number of deaths. The Directors consider it unnecessary, in this Report, to enter upon a recapitulation of the various interesting and curious cases which present themselves in this Institution of ideal transforma¬ tions into monarchs, generals, and saints ; because, with certain minor differences, the instances which could be presented would not vary greatly from those which have been described on former occasions. Neither will the limits of this Report permit them to do more than take a passing notice of another interesting subject> namely, as to the different studies and occupations and other causes ? which, more than others, predispose to insanity. It is observed by a distinguished writer* that “ insanity, in a large proportion of cases, is to be traced to hereditary predisposition ; and this is often so strong that no prominent moral cause is necessary for the production of the case, and probably no moral treatment would have any effect in preventing it. We must, however, suppose that, when a tendency to insanity exists, there may be, in many cases, circumstances in mental habits, or mental disci¬ pline, calculated either to favour or counteract the tendency.” The statistical information which is collected by the Physician of this Institution, relative to this and other enquiries, although t it does not of course afford the same scope as more extensive Asylums, cannot fail, in the course of a series of years, to be peculiarly interesting. Dr. Pinel, a high authority on the subject of insanity, and who had an opportunity of examining the registers of the Bicetre at Paris, says “ That he found the num- * Dr, Abercrombie on Intellectual Powers.