Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles

If, gentlemen, History be correctly defined as Philosophy teaching by examples, I do not know that I could take any subject for my Address more profitable or fitting than the Pr...

Before presenting official evidence of the gradual progress in the condition of the insane in England, we must interpose in our history a brief reference to the development of w...

There were in England, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, private asylums for the insane, the beneficial treatment pursued in which was loudly vaunted in the public ear...

The chief point of interest in the subject to which this chapter has reference, centres in the questions where and what was the provision made for the insane in England at the e...

Among our Saxon ancestors the treatment of the insane was a curious compound of pharmacy, superstition, and castigation. Demoniacal possession was fully believed to be the frequ...

legislation in the British Isles--brought in by the Lord Advocate of Scotland (Mr. Colquhoun), Mr. W. Dundas, and General Wemyss, and which received the royal assent, after seve...

Physicians, licensed and were bound to visit these houses yearly, and, if they found anything improper, were directed to state to the College what they had discovered, had never...

Scotland, it may be well to record the most important provisions. These were to apply to persons detained by judgment prior to the Act 20 and 21 Vict., c. 71. The lunatic depart...

We have already intimated that the treatment adopted at the Retreat, and made known to the public by various writers and by many visitors, but more especially by the "Descriptio...

Attention has of late been freshly drawn to this unfortunate class. We propose in this chapter to give some particulars respecting their past history, their numbers, their locat...

An Act was passed in regard to criminal lunatics in the year 1800 (39 and 40 Geo. III., c. 94). It was partially repealed in 1838 (1 and 2 Vict., c. 14); that is to say, so far...

I have already spoken of the singular tradition which for so long a period invested the Glen-na-galt, near Tralee, with the character of possessing healing virtues in madness. T...

(5 and 6 Vict., c. 123; 18 and 19 Vict., c. 76). The subsequent Act of 1867 (30 and 31 Vict., c. 118) provided for the appointment of the officers of district asylums, and amend...

Of the relations of lunatics to that Court which Dickens describes as having its decaying houses and its blighted lands in every shire, its worn-out lunatic in every mad-house,...

by insane persons. Two justices were authorized, acting with the advice of a medical man, to commit to jail any person apprehended under circumstances denoting derangement of mi...

be to fill hospitals for the insane with unpromising cases, at a considerable increase of expenditure, to the exclusion of others more urgent or more hopeful. The answer to this...

Our reference in a previous chapter to the singular superstitions connected with the treatment of the insane in Scotland, renders it unnecessary to do more than point out in thi...