The moral treatment of the insane : a lecture / by W.A.F. Browne.

  • William A. F. Browne
Date:
1864
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The moral treatment of the insane : a lecture / by W.A.F. Browne. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    21/32 (page 21)
    as trained assistants^ under the direction of the physician or governor—a practice which Gnislain characterised as “ a beautiful aspect of Catholicism.'’^ Tlie corps of nurses in certain of the London hospitals, and above all the Anglican sisterhoods, are ap- proximations to this arrangement; and, to whatever extent modified by the spirit of our institutions, it is most desirable that a staff somewhat resembling the Sisters of Charity, draAvn from the educated classes, actuated by a religious motive, if not by a vow or by some pure and lofty object, could be enlisted in a cause where the highest attributes of the Christian character, the best sympathies of our nature, would find exercise and reward. It is somewhat interesting that,—at the very time when the neces- sities of vast armies in the Crimea unequivocally developed as prin- ciples what had long lurked in the human heart as hopes and aspii’a- tions, that a higher motive than gain is required to secure suitable nurses for the sick and the wounded, and that the educated and even tlie refined mind is a more useful instrument amid dangers and disease and difficulty than ignorant obedience,—there was made in a remote province the first attempt to educate the attendants upon tlie insane, to expose and explain the nature of their duties, and to raise them at once to a due appreciation of their responsibility, and to a capacity to discharge the duties imposed. A course of lectures was delivered in which mental disease was viewed in various aspects, in which the relations of the insane to the community, to their friends, and to their custodiers, were traced; in which treatment, so far as it depends upon external impressions, the influence of sound minds, of love, and fear, and imitation, was discussed; and in which it was attempted to impart attraction by illustration and narrative, and to convey instruction by examples drawn from actual cases. Tlie grand objects were first to impress the understanding and to rouse tlie affections by the demonstration that mental aberration was a malady, a misfortune, a misery, which was to be relieved; which it was so far within the power of every kind word and consoling look to mitigate; and that it w'as not a brutal passion that was to be opposed, a perversity that w^as to be resisted or resented, or a strife that was to be prosecuted until victory w^as obtained. I have seen a nun at Nantes rush between twm infuriated male lunatics, appa- rently in a death struggle. They flew asunder before that venerated functionary, the one sulkily, the other fell on his knees ! Secondly, to distinguish the various forms imder wltich alienation might be presented; what w'as to be apprehended or Jioped in each ; what was to be guarded against, and what might be accoin])lished by a^ judicious selection and adaptation of the means of alleviation, lo illustrate the tact acquired by thorough knowhidge of character, and the adroit use made of even mental defects by attendants in averting evil Pinel may be ([noted—