Essay on the Classification of the Insane. By M. ALLEN,
M.D. Dr. ALLEN has had an extensive experience in the management of the insane; 'ming been for upwards of twenty years the medical resident and superintendent of York Asylum, and having, since then, kept an extensive series of private establishments in Essex, whose leading object is to facilitate classification by removing the patients from one house to another according to the requirements of their cases. From a want of method, a deficiency in the ars scribendi, and probably the absence of other gifts, the merit of the Doctor's Essay is not equal to his opportunities. He is diffuse, discursive, and loose ; and though some leading principles may be gained from the text, and many curious facts be gleaned from his appendix of Cases, yet they are shrouded in such an unattractive shape, that many will throw up the task of abstracting them, in disgust.
The principles of Dr. ALLEN'S management appear to consist in firm, humane, and reasonable treatment ; violence never being resorted to, except to confine the arms, in some very peculiar cases. He also practises an extensive system of classification ; experience having taught him that the cure greatly depends on the associates of the patient, some being amused and benefited by the absurdities of patients more insane than themselves, whilst to others the fact of being confined with lunatics would aggravate a wandering of the intellect into incurable madness. The secondary principles deducible from the facts which Dr. ALLEN narrates are various, and all cheering if not new. He has rarely found a patient so insane as not to be capable of useful labour of some kind or other, excepting, of course, those afflicted with laving madness, when the fit was on them. Mad persons of the more educated classes are highly susceptible of points of honour, very punctilious in the forms of politeness, and extremely sensitive of any violation of them towards themselves. When the raging fit comes on maniacs, it seems that it must spend itself somehow; but violent exercise or labour will often divert it from venting itself in furious words or gestures. Many patients are perfectly accessible to reasoning unless upon the subject of their delusion, and are as clear-judging as ever. They are also shrewd in detecting the weak points of their superintendent and keepers ; and whilst nothing is so fatal to their influence and authority as convicted ignorance, nothing more impresses them with confidence in your intelligence than the proof of your " possessing a key to unlock their minds." With regard to study, Dr. ALLEN gives it as his opinion that people are never driven mad by it. There might be a general depression and weakness of the whole nervous system, but not absolute derangement : and rest, diversion, and attention to hygeian rules, were always sufficient to restore health. Students of course frequently become insane, but Dr. ALLEN has always been able to trace the source of the disorder to some causes the very reverse of studious ones. The most general cause of madness, he attributes to ill-balanced mental qualities, stimulated into development by various excitements the origin of both of these he is inclined to trace to domestic strife and spoiling children. Hear this and ponder, parents that are. and people about to settle !
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