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.

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    engaging the attention where they neither instruct nor elevate, cannot be doubted. They constitute great discoveries in moral medicine, but the course now under consideration had a higher range and more systemaiic object. The endeavour was to combine information and amusement with the exposition of delusion and hal- lucination. It thus happened that, in listening to an explanation of the physiology of the external senses, the causes of fallacy to which they were exposed from the derangement of the organs, or from external circumstances; and of the various intentional deceptions, illusions, and impostures which are recorded, and are matter for every- day observation,—individuals might hear a refutation of their own erroneous convictions, a lucid dissipation of their fears, an exorcism of their familiar s])irits; and that an explanation of the real nature of the mirage, or of the giant of the Brocken, and of the whisper of the Memnon, or of the gallery of St. PauFs, might lessen the power of the visions and voices which assail the audience. This plan con- sisted in one of the medical officers answering popularly the question How do we see ? demonstrating the organs of the sense, the laws by which images reach the retina, impressions reach the mind; in another, devoting his attention to the things we see, their forms, hues, and most striking qualities, the modes in which their minute structure may be seen, and the instruments by which vision is aided ; and that a third directed attention to the atmosphere, through wliich and by which these colours and forms reach the eje, embracing various atmospherical and astronomical phenomena. Such an undertaking must fail in accomplishing all that is desirable, for it is certain that hallucinations depend upon physical causes which no demonstration can remove; but it may have succeeded in raising the general tone, and enlarging the scope of reflection, and placed the mind in a better condition to bear, if it could not cast out, its errors. The similarity between the education of the young and unde- veloped mind, and the restoration or reconstruction of the infirm and diseased mind, and the tendency which intellectual training has to impart strength, and order, and precision to the faculties, has led to the introduction of education as an element of moral treatment. The substitution of some safe and useful occupation, which might at once amuse and instruct, for the frivolous games, or the idle, and it may be incoherent conversation in which vacant hours are spent, was an additional inducement to make such an attempt; for, while the inexpediency of long sustained attention in any, but especially in the enfeebled mind, is obvious, as being, in truth, an effort to iii- terru[)t concentration by concentration, and while amusements of all kinds are, in suitable circumstances, rccomnrended, the same, or probably more favorable results will accrue from any engagement, provided the mind enter upon it willingly, be divcrtcil Croni sorrow- ful or painlnl impressions during its continuance, and experience