Observations on Madness and Melancholy Part 1

Observations on Madness and Melancholy.

by John Haslam.

Preface.

_The alarming increase of Insanity, as might naturally be expected, has incited many persons to an investigation of this disease;--some for the advancement of Science, and others with the hope of emolument._

_More than ten years having elapsed since the publication of the "Observations on Insanity," a trifle, which the Profession has held in greater estimation than its intrinsic merits could justify: the present work is modestly introduced to the public notice, as a corrected copy of the former, with considerable additions, which the extensive scope of Bethlem Hospital would have furnished more liberally to a more intelligent observer._

_To have taken a comprehensive survey of the human faculties in their sound state; to have exhibited them impaired by natural decay, and transformed by disease, would have implied an ability to which I cannot pretend; would have required many volumes to unfold, and perhaps more patience than any rational experience could have attributed to the reader.

The contents of the following pages are therefore to be considered as an abbreviated relation, and condensed display of many years observation and practice, in a situation affording constant opportunities and abundant supplies for such investigations._

_It is natural to presume, that amongst my professional acquaintance the subject of Insanity must have been frequently introduced as a topic of discourse; and I am ready to acknowledge, that I have often profited by their remarks and suggestions: but I should be ungrateful were I not to confess my particular obligations to my esteemed friend, Anthony Carlisle, Esq. Surgeon to the Westminster Hospital, for many corrections, and some communications, which I shall ever value as judicious and important._

BETHLEM HOSPITAL, NOV. 21, 1808.

CHAPTER I.

DEFINITION.

There is no word in the English language more deserving of a precise definition than madness: and if those who have treated on this subject have been so unfortunate as to disagree with each other, and consequently have left their readers to reconcile their discordant opinions; yet it must be confessed that considerable pains have been bestowed, to convey a clear and accurate explanation of this term. Although this contrariety of sentiment has prevailed concerning the precise meaning of the word madness, medical pract.i.tioners have been sufficiently reconciled as to the thing itself: so that when they have seen an insane person, however opposite their definitions, they have readily coincided that the patient was mad.

From this it would appear that the thing itself, is, generally speaking, sufficiently plain and intelligible; but that the term which represents the thing is obscure. Perhaps, we might be somewhat a.s.sisted, by tracing back this word, in order to discover its original meaning, and shewing from its import the cause of its imposition.

If the reader, as is now the custom, should turn to Johnson's Dictionary for the meaning and etymology of this word, he will find that the Doctor has derived it both from the Anglo-Saxon gemaad and the Italian _matto_; but without giving any meaning as the cause of its employment.

The word is originally Gothic, and meant anger, rage, [Gothic: Mod].

[Mod]. It is true that we have now controverted the o, into a, and write the word mad: but mod was anciently employed.

"Yet sawe I MODNESSE laghyng in his _rage_."

_Chaucer. Knight's Tale, fol. 1561, p. 6._

There is so great a resemblance between anger and violent madness, that there is nothing which could more probably have led to the adoption of the term. Dr. Beddoes, who appears to have examined the subject of insanity with the eye of an enlightened philosopher, is decidedly of this opinion, he says, HYGEIA, _No. 12, p. 40_, "Mad, is one of those words which mean almost every thing and nothing. At first, it was, I imagine, applied to the transports of rage; and when men were civilized enough to be capable of insanity, their insanity, I presume, must have been of the frantic sort, because in the untutored, intense feelings seem regularly to carry a boisterous expression."

MAD is therefore not a complex idea, as has been supposed, but a complex term for all the forms and varieties of this disease. Our language has been enriched with other terms expressive of this affection, all of which have a precise meaning. Delirium, which we have borrowed from the latin, merely means, _out of the track_, de lira, so that a delirious person, one who starts out of the track regularly pursued, becomes compared to the same deviation in the process of ploughing. _Crazy_, we have borrowed from the French _ecrase_, crushed, broken: we still use the same meaning, and say that such a person is crack'd. Insane, deranged, or disarranged,[1]

melancholic, out of one's wits, lunatic, phrenitic, or as we have corrupted it, frantick, require no explanation. _Beside one's self_ most probably originated from the belief of possession by a devil, or evil spirit.

The importance of investigating the original meaning of words must be evident when it is considered that the law of this country impowers persons of the medical profession to confine and discipline those to whom the term mad or lunatic can fairly be applied. Instead of endeavouring to discover an infallible definition of madness, which I believe will be found impossible, as it is an attempt to comprise, in a few words, the wide range and mutable character of this Proteus disorder: much more advantage would be obtained if the circ.u.mstances could be precisely defined under which it is justifiable to deprive a human being of his liberty.

Another impediment to an accurate definition of madness, arises from the various hypotheses, which have been entertained concerning the powers and operations of the human mind: and likewise from the looseness and unsettled state of the terms by which it is to be defined.

Before treating of the intellect in a deranged state, it will perhaps be expected that some system of the human mind, in its perfect and healthy condition, should be laid down. It will be supposed necessary to establish in what sanity of intellect consists, and to mark distinctly some fixed point, the aberrations from which are to const.i.tute disease.

To have a thorough knowledge of the nature, extent, and rect.i.tude of the human faculties, is particularly inc.u.mbent on him who undertakes to write of them in their distempered state; and, in a legal point of view, it is most important that the medical pract.i.tioner should be enabled to establish the state of the patient's case, as a departure from that which _is_ reason.

The difficulty of proposing a satisfactory theory of the human mind, must have been felt by every person, who has touched this delicate string since the days of Aristotle, and failure must be expected in him who attempts it: yet the endeavour is laudable, and miscarriage is not linked with disgrace. Every contribution, to ill.u.s.trate what are the powers of mind we possess; how we are acted upon by external circ.u.mstances in the acquisition of knowledge; and concerning the manner in which we use this knowledge for the purposes of life; ought to be candidly received.

Enquiries of this nature have been usually conducted by commenting on the numerous and discordant authorities which have treated on metaphysical subjects; these persons, however they may differ on many points, appear to be pretty generally agreed, that the human mind possesses certain faculties and powers; as imagination, judgment, reason, and memory. They seem to consider these, as so many departments, or offices of the mind, and therefore cla.s.s men according to the excellence or predominance of these powers. One man, is said to be distinguished by the brilliancy of his imagination; another, by the solidity of his judgment; a third, by the acuteness of his reason; and a fourth, by the prompt.i.tude and accuracy of his recollection.

As far as I have observed respecting the human mind, (and I speak with great hesitation and diffidence,) it does not possess, all those powers and faculties with which the pride of man has thought proper to invest it.

By our senses, we are enabled to become acquainted with objects, and we are capable of recollecting them in a greater or less degree; the rest, appears to be merely a contrivance of language.

If mind, were actually capable of the operations attributed to it, and possessed of these powers, it would necessarily have been able to create a language expressive of these powers and operations. But the fact is otherwise. The language, which characterizes mind and its operations, has been borrowed from external objects; for mind has no language peculiar to itself. A few instances will sufficiently ill.u.s.trate this position. After having committed an offence it is natural to say that the mind feels contrition and sorrow.

Contrition is from _c.u.m_ and _tero_, to rub together, which cannot possibly have any thing to do with the operations of the mind, which is incapable of rubbing its ideas or notions together. Contrition is a figurative expression, and may possibly mean the act of rubbing out the stain of vice, or wearing down by friction the prominences of sin.

If we were to a.n.a.lyze the word Sorrow, which is held to be a mental feeling, we should find it to be transferred from bodily sufferance: for the mind, is incapable of creating a term correctly expressive of its state, and therefore, it became necessary to borrow it from _soreness_ of body.--_See Mr. Tooke's Diversions of Purley, vol. ii. p. 207_, where _sore_, _sorry_, and _sorrow_ are clearly made out to be the same word.

It is customary to speak of a man, of accurate perceptions, and of another, who has grand and luminous conceptions of human nature.

Perception, from _per_, and _capio_ to take, seize, grasp, through the medium of the organs of sense, being implied. But to take, seize, and grasp are the operations of the hand, and can only, by extreme courtesy, be attributed to mind.

Mr. Dugald Stewart, the most thoughtful and intelligent of modern metaphysicians, has said, "By conception I mean that power of the mind which enables it to form a notion of an absent object of perception, or of a sensation which it has formerly felt."--_Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind, 8vo. p. 133._

This definition means merely memory; and by perusing attentively the whole chapter the reader will be convinced of it. Conception, from _c.u.m_ and _capio_, has been applied to mind from the physical sense of embracing, comprehending, or probably from the notion of being impregnated with the subject. It may be remarked, that these three terms, by which conception has been explained, have been all applied to mental operation.

The words reason and reasoning, I believe, in most languages, strictly imply numeration, reckoning, proportion; the Latin _ratio_, _ratiocinor_, _ratiocinator_ are sufficient examples. A curious coincidence between the Latin _ratio_ and the Gothic _rathjo_, together with some pertinent and interesting observations, may be seen in Ihre's Glossarium Svio-gothic.u.m, _p._ 393, _art._ Raekna. As we now acknowledge the science of number to be the purest system of reasoning, a system, on which all persons agree, and so unlike medicine, politics, and divinity, concerning which there is a constant, and hostile variety of sentiment, it adds some force to the argument. Indeed, Mr. Locke, who almost personifies reason, after having painfully sifted this matter, appears to be much of the same way of thinking: he says, "Reason, though it penetrates into the depth of the sea and earth, elevates our thoughts as high as the stars, and leads us through the vast s.p.a.ces and large rooms of this mighty fabrick, _yet it comes far short of the real extent of even corporeal being_; and there are many instances wherein it fails us: as,

"First: it perfectly fails us where our ideas fail: it neither does, nor can extend itself farther than they do, and therefore, wherever we have no ideas our reasoning stops, and we are at an end of our reckoning: and if at any time _we reason about words, which do not stand for any ideas_, it is only about those sounds, and nothing else.

"Secondly: our reason is often puzzled, and at a loss, because of the obscurity, confusion or imperfection of the ideas it is employed about; and there we are involved in difficulties and contradictions. Thus, not having any perfect idea of the least extension of matter, nor of infinity, we are at a loss about the divisibility of matter; _but having perfect, clear, and distinct ideas of number, our reason meets with none of those inextricable difficulties in numbers, nor finds itself involved in any contradictions about them_."--_Works. 4to, vol. i, p. 431._

It can scarcely be necessary, longer to fatigue the patience of the reader, by reverting to the etymology of those terms, which have been considered as significant of mind and its operations. Every one will be able sufficiently to develope imagination, reflection, combination, [as applied to ideas, importing the amalgamation of _two_ into one]

abstraction, [_vide Mr. Tooke, from p. 15 to 426, vol. ii._] and a variety of others; and to shew, that they have arisen from physical objects, and the circ.u.mstances which surround us, and are independant of any operation which mind has elaborated.

But as madness, by some, has been exclusively held to be a disease of the imagination, and by others, to be a defect of the judgment; considering these as separate and independant powers or faculties of the intellect; it is certainly worth the trouble to enquire, whether such states of mind did ever exist as original and unconnected disorders. With respect to imagination, there can be but little difficulty; yet this will so far involve the judgment and memory, that it will not be easy to inst.i.tute a distinction. If a cobbler should suppose himself an emperor, this supposition, may be termed an elevated flight, or an extensive stretch of imagination, but it is likewise a great defect in his judgment, to deem himself that which he is not, and it is certainly an equal lapse of his recollection, to forget what he really is.

Having endeavoured to give some reasons for not according with the generally received opinions, concerning the different powers of the mind, it may be proper shortly to state, that, from the manner in which we acquire knowledge, the human mind appears to be composed of a sum of individual perceptions: that, in proportion as we dwell by the eye, the ear, or the touch on any object (which is called attention,) we are more likely to become acquainted with it, and to be able to remember it. For the most part, we remember these perceptions in the succession in which they were presented, although, they may afterwards, from circ.u.mstances, be differently sorted.

The minds of ordinary men are well contented to deal out their ideas, in the order in which they were received; and, not having found the necessity of bringing them to bear on general subjects, they are commonly minutely accurate in the detail of that which they have observed. By such persons, a story is told with all the relations of time and place; connected with the persons who were present, their situation, state of health, and a vast variety of a.s.sociated particulars; and these persons, however tedious, generally afford the most correct account. On the other hand, those who are men of business, and have much to communicate in a given s.p.a.ce, are obliged to subtract the more material circ.u.mstances from the gross narrative, and exhibit these as the sum total. It is in this way, that words, originally of considerable length, have been abbreviated for the conveniency of dispatch, and from this necessity short hand writing has been employed.

As the science of arithmetic consists in addition to, or subtraction from, a given number; so does the human mind appear to be capable solely of adding to, or separating from, its stock of ideas, as pleasure may prompt, or necessity enforce.

Language, the representative of thought, bears the same construction; and it is curious to remark in the investigation of its abbreviations, that those words, which serve to connect ideas together, (_conjunctions_) and which have been supposed to mark certain operations of intellect, postures of mind, and turns of thought, have merely the force and meaning of to add, or to subtract.

Insanity is now generally divided into Mania and Melancholia, but formerly its distributions were more numerous. Paracelsus, speaking of this disease, says, "Vesaniae hujus genera quatuor existunt: primi _Lunatici_ vocantur: secundi _Insani_: tertii _Vesani_: quarti _Melancholici_, Lunatici sunt qui omnem suum morb.u.m ex Luna accipiunt, et juxta eam sese gerunt ac moventur. Insani sunt, qui malum id ab utero materno hauserunt, veluti haereditarium, uno subinde insaniam in alterum transferente. Vesani sunt, qui a cibis ac potibus ita inficiuntur ac taminantur, ut ratione sensuque priventur. Melancholici sunt, qui ex intimae naturae vitio a ratione deturbantur, et ad vesaniam precipitantur." Paracelsus, however, thinks that a fifth genus may be added. "Ad quatuor hac genera genus insuper aliud quodammodo annumerari potest, videlicet _obsessi_, qui a diabolo variis modis occupari solent."--_Paracelsi Opera, folio, tom. i.

fol. 572._

The idea of being besieged, beset, or possessed by the devil was formerly a very favourite notion, and is derived to us by an authority we are taught to reverence: indeed it is still the opinion of many harmless and believing persons, some of whom have bestowed considerable pains to convince me that the violent and mischievous maniacs in Bedlam were under the dominion of this insinuating spirit. They have employed one argument which would seem to have considerable weight, namely, that the most atrocious crimes are stated in our indictments (much to the credit of human nature) to have been committed by the instigation of the devil: and they have also endeavoured to explain, how a late and eminently successful pract.i.tioner, by an union of the holy office with consummate medical skill, was enabled to cure nine lunatics out of ten, which certainly has not hitherto been accounted for.

Paracelsus, who contemplated this subject with uncommon gravity and solicitude, is of opinion that the devil enters us much in the same manner as a maggot gets into a filbert.--_Vide Fragmentum Libri Philosophiae de Daemoniacis et Obsessis, tom. ii. p. 460._

To conclude this part of the subject, and to exhibit the state of belief at that period, I shall take the liberty of extracting a portion from the 11th chapter of Dr. Andrewe Boord's Extravagantes, which "doth shewe of a Demoniacke person, the which is possessed of or with the devyll or devylls.