cured a commission in the army, and had been in that he was an elegant scholar, and of

India

fascinating manners.

Sir William reports, that he left the asylum quite well; and procured a situation, which he retained for some years.

What the sequel of this case might have been, if it had fallen under less tender and merciful hands, it is impossible to affirm. The continued operation of want and misery would probably have rendered it permanent. The supposition, that it was incurable, would then have realised itself.

CHAPTER XII.

RECAPITULATION.-Omissions supplied.—" Critical terminations of Insanity."-Use of nauseating remedies in the physical treatment of Insanity.-Use and abuse of employment in its mental treatment.-Relative importance of physical and mental treatment.-Caution against making the Brutal state a ground of exculpation.-Success in the treatment of Idiocy, how most likely to be attained.-Views of Dr. Gooch.

To recall attention to the prominent features of an essay, which professes to be elementary, may appear superfluous. I will, however, risk this imputation for the sake of clearness, and at the same time anticipate my reader in noticing some omissions.

It has been assumed, that there are some deviations from health, in which mental phenomena predominate. These have been considered under three heads, with the designations of Insanity, Brutality, Idiocy.

In the consideration of Insanity, a suspension of the will has been laid down, as its essential distinction, both in relation to the sane state of the human mind, and in relation to the two other heads of the above class. Again, the suspension of will, which belongs to Insanity, has been distinguished from that which occurs in dreams, and in inflammation of the brain.

Brutality and Idiocy have been arranged in the category of mental disease in reference to a deficiency or abolition of an essential property of the human mind. The defect in the first case belongs to the emotive department, in the second case, to the intellect.

We have prosecuted our inquiry into Insanity, first among its moral causes or preventatives; secondly, among those, which are derived from the intellect and we have ventured to lay down certain passive states of the emotive department as principally concerned in bringing it into action. To the active moral principles, we have attributed no such efficiency and to the intellectual properties generally we have attributed an influence antagonist to Insanity.

We have considered the imagination, as it regards this subject, in its reference to the intellectual and the emotive departments. In the

first point of view, we have esteemed it generally beneficial, in the second, namely in its influence on the emotive department, generally mischievous.

We have next endeavoured to describe an attack of Insanity, and to follow it through three stages, calling attention to the fact, that its moral symptoms are the earliest in occurrence. We have given separate consideration to its most fearful accompaniments, the tendencies to suicide and to homicide.

With respect to the first of these tendencies we have pointed out the habits of mind which lead to it without any assumption of mental disease; and we have also viewed it in its relation to the actual presence of insanity.

In estimating the relations of insanity to physical phenomena, we have omitted to notice a topic of extreme importance, which has been brought forward most ably by M. Esquirol; we will advert to it in his own terms, namely, as "the critical terminations of Insanity." Among these, however, M. Esquirol classes some phenomena, which give the term an unusually extensive meaning. The occurrence of spontaneous salivation; of eruptive complaints in persons previously * Vol. i. p. 336-397.

subject to them; of copious diarrhoea; of corpulency in persons previously rendered meagre by the complaint; of suppressed hemorrhages; and above all of the suppressed catamænia, are the heads most worthy of notice in this general use of the term. The extreme importance of the uterine relief has, perhaps, occasioned less importance to be attached to the diminution and reappearance, or to the sudden increase of other secretions and excretions.

The treatment of the insane state or the insane predisposition consists in a series of moral and medical measures, which are next considered. The points of view, in which insanity is contemplated in relation to treatment, or in other words, the division which may be made of it into species, corresponds in our scheme with the diversities of temperament; by which word we mean certain combinations of physical and moral properties, which are most frequently observed to exist in nature, and have been so designated.

In describing medical treatment I have to regret a very important omission; namely, the use of nauseating remedies in this disease. The large doses in which ipecacuanha and the tartrate of antimony are borne by the patient, without exciting the effort to vomit, and the decisive effect