166 On Insanity. [April, 



medical superintendents, a few alienist physicians, and protected by 

 the inertia of the English mind and by a good amount of the " rest 

 and be thankful." 



It is quite time to survey the curious opinions that have retarded 

 the correct treatment of the insane, to notice what relation the 

 increase of the disease bears to physical rather than to intellectual 

 strain, and to show how unsatisfactory are the results of the great and 

 expensive Asylum system in this country. 



Probably there is no subject upon which non-professional people 

 are more ignorant than that of mental alienation. There is nothing 

 which speaks more loudly to their fears, and they consider insanity 

 the direst calamity that can afflict humanity. It is usually looked 

 upon as a mental death, as a condition which taints the family for 

 generations, and which, if remedied for a time, is constantly on the 

 point of recurrence. The curability of madness, and indeed its 

 recognition as a disease within the ministry of man, are matters 

 productive of much discussion amongst well-educated people, and 

 there does not appear to have been much advance made by the 

 public mind towards exact knowledge upon them. 



There is nothing more evident than the thorough desire to do 

 evil which is evinced by the majority of madmen, and the exceptions 

 are so rare that they are popularly ascribed to the unusual amiability 

 of the afflicted. Simple delirium which accompanies many ordinary 

 complaints is constantly cited as a phenomenon which permits our evil 

 nature to become manifest in spite of ourselves, and the indefinite 

 nature of the current ideas upon the character of mental aberration 

 influenced by these thoughts receives greater eccentricity when 

 arguments are founded upon the ravings of the sufferers from 

 delirium tremens. The horrible visions, the malicious mischief, 

 the foul language, and the abject fear of the images floating before 

 the eyes, so commonly illustrated by ordinarily quiet men under the 

 influence of poisoning by stimulants, taken into consideration with 

 the usual phenomena of insanity, present a series of dilemmas to 

 those who will not hear of any intimate connection between the 

 mind and the material body. Out of these difficulties there has ever 

 been an easy path ; but it is to be hoped that it will soon be closed 

 by that Christianity which prefers to accept the conscientious 

 labours of truth-loving men as its supports rather than incompre- 

 hensible dogmas. The bridges over the old road out of the dilemma 

 were witchcraft, and the action of the moon and the devil. The first 

 of these has broken down, and the influence of the idea of absolute 

 possession by evil spirits has almost ceased, but not quite, to operate. 

 Amongst the uneducated labourers of some of the eastern counties 

 witchcraft is still an object of terror, and only a few years since, a 

 crazy woman was considered " bewitched," and had to be protected 

 from the violence of her fellow- villagers by the law. 



