Essay on the Classification of the InsaneAllen, M. (Physician)
Science
Essay on the Classification of the Insane
Allen, M. (Physician)
Mental illness
She is at present in a state of imbecility of mind, and she looks a
quiet, timid, silent, motionless, stupid creature, sitting continually in
the same posture, like one _almost_ shivering with cold. Although
extremely peaceable and timid, yet her mind is irritable, wanting,
however, courage for retaliation, so that when provoked, she looks angry,
but walks away: she never speaks unless spoken to, and then her answers
are short, but mostly correct, though it is evidently all force work.
This has been for years her state, or rather debility, with scarcely any
perceptible changes, except that her mind appears gradually sinking. She
was formerly more conversable, and would have done something at her
needle, but at present she is always idle, and has latterly, from
inaction, become less cleanly in her person.
OBSERVATION XIV.
Her habits of saving (if the report be true) prove her love of money, the
loss of which would of course, be felt in proportion as she valued it;
and, with her exceedingly susceptible and delicate mind, it must have
been overpowering; hence, as in all hereditary cases, there was something
discoverable in the natural disposition which rendered the exciting cause
more efficient, and we find benevolence, caution, and consciousness
large, and self-esteem and combativeness defective.
_No._ 28.—_Admitted_ 1806.—_Aged_ 23.
There is nothing on record, but I have been informed that the cause was
religious controversy, resulting from association with the followers of
Johanna Southcote. {195} He was the son of a respectable country wright
and joiner, and had a decent ordinary education.
[Picture: No. 28 page 195]
His present state of mind presents a strange mass of confusion from which
nothing can be drawn or collected, except that from his fondness for
drawing houses, and different things connected with building, and from
his muttering to himself (for he declines all conversation with others)
something about measurement, the square being so much, &c. some traces of
his former habits of life, may be remarked and determined: the strange
and absurd material views of the coming new order of things, betray the
view which did (and I am told, still,) belong to that sectarian delusion.
He is chiefly distinguished by his unsocial habits, and by the singular
practice of always cramming a part of his meat, and sometimes other
things, into his ears, shoes, breeches, and different parts of his dress.
_No._ 29.—_Admitted_ 1808.—_Aged_ 47.
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