Observations on Insanity: With Practical Remarks on the Disease and an Account of the Morbid Appearances on DissectionHaslam, John
Science
Observations on Insanity: With Practical Remarks on the Disease and an Account of the Morbid Appearances on Dissection
Haslam, John
Mental illness
It has been for many years the practice of Bethlem Hospital, to administer
to the curable patients four or five emetics in the spring of the year;
but, on consulting my book of cases, I have not found that patients have
been particularly benefited by the use of this remedy. From one grain and
half to two grains of tartarized antimony has been the usual dose, which
has hardly ever failed of procuring full vomiting. In the few instances
where the plan of exhibiting this medicine in nauseating doses was
pursued for a considerable time, it by no means answered the expectations,
which, by very high authority, had been raised in its favour. Where the
tartarized antimony, given with this intention, operated as a purgative,
it generally produced beneficial effects.
CAMPHOR.--This remedy has been highly extolled, and doubtless with reason,
by those who have recommended it. My own experience merely extends to ten
cases, a number from which no decisive inference of its utility ought to
be drawn. The dose was gradually increased from five grains to two drams
twice a day; and in nine cases the use of this remedy was continued for
the space of two months. Of the patients, to whom the camphor was given,
only two recovered: one of these had no symptoms of convalescence for
several months after the use of this remedy had been abandoned; the other,
a melancholick patient, certainly mended during the time he was taking
it; but he was never able to bear more than ten grains thrice a day. He
complained that it made him feel as if he was intoxicated.
COLD BATHING.--This remedy having for the most part been employed in
conjunction with others, it becomes difficult to ascertain how far it may
be exclusively beneficial in this disease. The instances where it has been
separately used for the cure of insanity, are too few to enable me to draw
any satisfactory conclusions. I may, however, safely relate, that, in many
instances, paralytic affections have in a few hours supervened on cold
bathing, especially where the patient has been in a furious state, and of
a plethoric habit: in some of these cases vertigo has been induced, and in
others a considerable degree of fever. If I might be permitted to give an
opinion on this subject, the benefit principally derived from this remedy
has been in the latter stages of the disease, and when the system had been
previously lowered by evacuations.
Blisters have in several cases been applied to the head, and a very
copious discharge maintained for many days, but without any manifest
advantage. The late Dr. JOHN MONRO, who had, perhaps, seen more cases of
this disease than any other practitioner, and who, joined to his extensive
experience, possessed the talent of accurate observation, mentions, that
he "never saw the least good effect of blisters in madness, unless it was
at the beginning while there was some degree of fever, or when they have
been applied to particular symptoms accompanying this complaint[10]."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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