72 OBSERVATIONS ON INSANITY 



der the existing modes of management, about one half of the insane 

 patients are cured ; that insanity conduces materially to the shortening 

 of life ; and that the autumn and winter usually prove by far the most 

 fatal seasons to lunatics — a fact which shows the necessity of always 

 protecting them effectually from the ungenial influences of the atmos- 

 phere and its sudden alternations. 



Mr. Browne adds to the foregoing propositions, a train of highly 

 valuable observations on the diseases wherewith lunatics are apt to be 

 affected ; on the proportions of furious, paralytic and epileptic, fatu- 

 ous and idiotic, dirty and noisy, and suicidal madmen ; on lucid inter- 

 vals and relapses ; on complete isolation, early confinement, and em- 

 ployment as a means of cure ; on the proportion of lunatics that may 

 be employed ; on the kinds of occupation to be adopted ; on its safety ; 

 and on its share in promoting the cure. 



Never was there a more faithful or a more frightful representation 

 of concentrated horror delineated by the hand of man, than is the 

 picture of " What Asylums were," as exhibited in Mr. Browne's 

 third Lecture : but thanks, immortal thanks be to the new philoso- 

 phy of mind, for the blaze of divine enlightenment, wherewith it is 

 now reviving and purifying these heretofore misused establishments. 

 Until this burst forth, as Mr. B. declares in terms of perfect truth 

 and eloquence, a thick and almost impenetrable veil was cast over the 

 workings of the " mind diseased ;" a sort of awe and sacredness was 

 attached to the person of the maniac, as one on whom had fallen the 

 hand of his Creator, visibly and fearfully, and in a peculiar manner ; 

 the precincts of his prison-house were regarded as holy and interdict- 

 ed ground ; and the secrets of that mysterious dwelling remained 

 untold, or were whispered in accents of dread and reverence ; but the 

 day-spring of knowledge which is fast diffusing its cheering light on 

 every the most distant land, has visited even the benighted sky of a 

 mad-house, and fallen with healing energy on the hearts of those 

 whose doom, in other days, must have been imprisonment, solitude, 

 and despair. Pass we now, from this to a brightening scene. 



" What Asylums are," as a topic of discourse, engages Mr. 

 Browne's attention throughout his fourth Lecture ; and, at the outset, 

 he candidly admits that great improvements have been effected in the 

 internal economy of these institutions. He then ascribes this result 

 partly to selfish motives, partly to the prevalence of sounder views of 

 the nature and treatment of mental disorders, and chiefly, so far as 

 the metropolitan establishments are concerned, to the dread of parlia- 

 mentary investigations, and the surveillance and remonstrances of the 



