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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    unite tlie difTerent inmates in a common purpose, and to furnish matter for thought and eonversation very widely removed from that which generally obtains among them. The attempt is no longer an experiment. An ordeal of twenty years in tlie great institutions of Morningside, Derby, Montrose, &c., entitle it to be regarded as a discovery in moral science, which must be accepted and acted upon. Under the head of Amusements, although having a higher aim, fall to be enumerated—Dances; Fancy Balls ; Pic Nics; Scientific Excursions; Boating j Curling; Games; Gymnastics; &c. As another mode of employing dormant or valueless energies, of contributing to the amusement of the rest of the population, and of demonstrating how closely the insane mind may, in its operations, approach the standard of health, as well as how widely it may de- part from it, periodicals are produced in asylums, which are edited, composed, corrected, printed, exclusively by inmates. I read regularly ‘York Stars,^ ‘Utica Opals,^ ‘'Morningside Mirrors,'. ‘Perth Excelsiors,'and ‘ New Moons.' They serve as vehicles for the free and undisguised feelings of the writers, whether erroneous or not; they are compounds of the grotesque and the beautiful; they are collections of the impressions of healthy and the new creations of disordered imaginations, of mental portraits, and of all that relate to the present condition and prospects of its contributors, and of the class to which they belong. It is matter for regret that these “ curiosities of literature so rarely afford glimpses into the secret chaos, and incongruities, and rebellious thoughts of the bosom of the writers, or of the ruins of those impaired minds which live upon former acquisitions, which reproduce conclusions, facts, or feelings peculiar to their original character and nature, and present the striking and almost inexplicable spectacle of two currents of reasoning flowing in the same channel, utterly irreconcilable and immiscible,—the one perliaps marked by profound acumen or exquisite beauty, the other l3y grotesque extravagance and egregious absurdity; but that they have in some way realised the purpose of their projectors is to be inferred from the duration of tlie series. The ‘ New Moon' was commenced in 1844. More pretentious works, chiefly poetic, have been published at Hanwell, here, and at Morningside. In the latter asylum there is flourishing a Litei’ary Society, where essays are read, debates and conversations encouraged, under the presidency mid guidance of one of the medical officers, with very happy effect. The power or government by which such communities are ruled should be monarchical. The details, as well as the principles, should emanate from one central will; while much must be left to the sjiontaneous good sense and good feeling of subordinates; these subordinates should be chosen, their views and acts should be in- fluenced, their whole bearing determined, by the supreme official. What may be described as constitutional checks to the exercise of