SKETCH OF PROF. LARDNER VANUXEM. 833 



unlikely that under new surroundings and appropriate treatment 

 the passive subject will soon be restored to the normal state. 

 But even admitting that under ordinary circumstances the dan- 

 ger of communicating insanity from the insane to the sane is 

 slight, I shall think that this paper has fulfilled its purpose if it 

 does aught to encourage the early treatment of the insane in hos- 

 pitals especially designed for the care of such cases. Only those 

 who are familiar with the fact appreciate the danger from de- 

 layed treatment, and realize how the chances for recovery dimin- 

 ish as the months pass by without hospital aid. From a careful 

 analysis of the cases with which I have had to do during the last 

 decade, the incontrovertible fact is shown that from six to eight 

 persons recover when placed under treatment within the first 

 three months from the beginning of the attack, where only one 

 recovers when hospital treatment is delayed a year. This fact 

 alone suggests in no uncertain tone the early removal of the 

 patient from the influence of home and friends, even though 

 " communicated insanity " should be considered merely a figment 

 of the alienist's brain. 







SKETCH OF PROF. LARDNER YANUXEM. 



LARDNER VANUXEM was born in Philadelphia, July 23, 

 1792, and died at his home near Bristol, Pa., January 25, 1848. 

 His father was James Vanuxem, a shipping merchant of Phila- 

 delphia, formerly of Dunkirk, France a man eminent in busi- 

 ness and highly esteemed as a citizen and in social and domestic 

 life. His name was originally written Van Uxem ; the form was 

 changed by him partly for convenience in writing, but largely 

 because he had become a great admirer of his adopted country 

 and wished to remove the foreign stamp from his cognomen. 

 James Vanuxem's wife, Rebecca, was a daughter of Colonel Elijah 

 Clark, of New Jersey. Of their fifteen children Lardner was the 

 eighth. Seven of these lived to long past middle life, and two of 

 them to ninety and over. His maternal grandmother's name was 

 Lardner. 



Of the early educational course of the subject of this sketch 

 there is no record, and no one living has any knowledge. It is 

 thought that he was for a time a student in the Pennsylvania 

 University, but this can not be verified. He entered his father's 

 counting-house as a young man, but business proved very dis- 

 tasteful to him, his mind having been drawn previously to the 

 cultivation of chemistry and mineralogy. He soon determined to 

 give up all connection with business and devote himself to sci- 

 ence. Accordingly, his father gave him the advantage of a three 



VOL XLVI. 63 



