Commentaries on the Causes, Forms, Symptoms, and Treatment, Moral and Medical, of Insanity

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T. and G. Underwood, 1828 - Diseases - 716 pages
2000, gift of the South Carolina State Hospital.

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Page 436 - Between the acting of a dreadful thing And the first motion, all the interim is Like a phantasma, or a hideous dream : The genius, and the mortal instruments, Are then in council; and the state of man, Like to a little kingdom, suffers then The nature of an insurrection.
Page 27 - Go — you may call it madness, folly ; You shall not chase my gloom away. There's such a charm in melancholy, I would not, if I could, be gay.
Page 427 - I afterwards continued in attendance. The history of the case was this : — The patient was a cavalry officer of rank, aged thirty-five, and had particularly distinguished himself at the then recent battle of Waterloo. On that occasion he had two horses killed under him, and was himself wounded in four places : he was first struck on the crown of his helmet by the splinter of a shell, which wounded the scalp and stunned him; he was next shot through the fleshy part of the thigh by a grape shot,...
Page 39 - I do not recollect," he says, " an instance of insanity implying a religious source in any person stedfiist to his ancient opinions. Wherever it was suspected to emanate from such a cause, it was clearly to be traced to circumstances which had diverted the lunatic from the authority of primary principles, to the adoption of new tenets, which he had not comprehended, and therefore had misapplied. The maniacal action appeared always to originate during the conflict in deciding between opposite doctrines,...
Page 37 - ... of the room, and called on her dear mother and father to pray to the Lord to help them, for that they could not see the danger they were in. I got her out of the meeting as soon as I could, but she had lost her cloak, bonnet, handkerchief, and pattens, and was extremely disordered in her dress. She had been moving from one part of the meeting to the other, and, in her unbounded zeal, had dropped her clothes, and they were trodden under foot. My daughter's conduct, alter attending the Revival,...
Page 601 - It is described as seldom failing to produce copious evacuations in the most obstinate cases, provided that, on increasing the velocity of the swing, the motion be suddenly reversed every six or eight minutes, pausing occasionally, and stopping its circulation suddenly : the conscience is, an instant discharge of the contents of the stomach, bowels, and bladder, in quick succession. Should the stomach only be acted upon, a purge should be afterwards given.
Page 33 - Enthusiasm and insanity bear such close affinity, that, the shades are often too indistinct to define which is one and which the other. Exuberance of zeal on any subject, in some constitutions, soon ripens into madness : but excess of religious enthusiasm, unless tempered by an habitual command over the affective passions, usually and readily degenerates into fanaticism; thence to superstition the transition is in sequence ; and permanent delirium too often closes the scene.
Page 1 - Madness is one of the curses imposed by the wrath of the ALMIGHTY on his people for their sins ; and deliverance from it is not the least of the miracles performed by CHRIST.
Page 37 - I spoke a few words to pacify her, and she went to bed. The next night she said she was better, but she appeared very low. On Wednesday night, on coming home, she said to me, ' I am tempted to murder my mother !' I said, I was surprised she should think of murdering me ; and she said,
Page 68 - Gal! was requested to say, from the organs exhibited in a certain bust, what was the predominant propensity, or faculty of the individual. He pronounced the original must be a great poet. His attention was directed to a second bust. He declared the latter to be that of a great mathematician. The first was the bust of Troughton, the eminent mathematician ; and the second that of •Sir Walter Scott ! ' Talent, the phrenologist asserts, is relating with the ample development of the cerebral mass.

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