OBSERVATIONS
ON
INSANITY.
OBSERVATIONS
ON
INSANITY.
WITH
PRACTICAL REMARKS ON THE DISEASE,
AND AN
ACCOUNT OF THE MORBID APPEARANCES
ON DISSECTION.
By JOHN HASLAM,
LATE OF PEMBROKE-HALL, CAMBRIDGE,
MEMBER OF THE CORPORATION OF SURGEONS,
AND APOTHECARY TO BETHLEM-HOSPITAL.
| “Of the uncertainties of our present state the most dreadful and alarming is the uncertain continuance of reason.” Dr. Johnson’s Rasselas. |
London:
PRINTED FOR F. AND C. RIVINGTON, NO. 62,
ST. PAUL’S CHURCH-YARD;
AND SOLD BY J. HATCHARD, NO. 173, PICCADILLY.
1798.
TO THE
RIGHT WORSHIPFUL THE
PRESIDENT,
THE WORSHIPFUL THE
TREASURER, AND GOVERNORS
OF
BETHLEM-HOSPITAL.
MY LORDS AND GENTLEMEN,
The following Observations are respectfully submitted to YOUR notice, asthe vigilant and humane Guardians of an Institution which performs muchgood to society, by diminishing the SEVEREST amongst human calamities,
By,
My Lords and Gentlemen,
Your very obedient and humble Servant,
The AUTHOR.
PREFACE.
As the office I hold affords me abundant means of acquiring information onthe subject of mental disorders, I should feel myself unworthy of thatsituation, were I to neglect any opportunity of accumulating suchknowledge, or of communicating to the public any thing which might promiseto be of advantage to mankind. The candid reader is therefore requested toaccept this sentiment, as the best apology I can offer for the presentproduction.
It has been somewhere observed, that in our own country more books onInsanity have been published than in[Pg viii] any other; and, if the remark bejust, it is certainly discouraging to him who proposes to add to theirnumber. It must, however, be acknowledged, that we are but little indebtedto those who have been most capable of affording us instruction; for, ifwe except the late Dr. John Monro’s Reply to Dr. Battie’s Treatise onMadness, there is no work on the subject of mental alienation which hasbeen delivered on the authority of extensive observation and practice.
It