231 On the Employment of the Insane. 232 have been previously accustomed to labour, ❘ attend him; but two keepers would be may be brought to consider the being permitted to work as a privilege, and a pleasing proof of confidence. When I took pauper lunatics, the male patients who were not in a state to be trusted with the use of a spade or hoe, had to spend much of their time in what we call Bedlam; viz. a day-room and yard with a high wall annexed; upon which we fix an odium, so that the being in it is considered as a punishment and disgrace. Those, on the contrary, who promised to be good, and were thought fit to be trusted, were permitted to work in the garden; a spot of ground commanding the most beautiful and extensive prospects; and while I have often been astonished at the visible good effects of this practice, and at the little danger attending it even from those in a high state of maniacal excitement, I have drawn this conclusion from it, that the working classes, if properly treated in other respects, and furnished with regular employment when fit for it, are much easier of cure than those of a higher class. But under a system of employment for the working class of patients, the higher classes find amusement in overlooking them, and are frequently induced to assist voluntarily; and indeed my peas and beans are generally got and shelled by gentlemen patients. Female patients of all classes will generally find employment in needle-work, music, &c. for the higher classes, and the lower in the getting up of linen, knitting, sewing, mending, and in household work. Activity is the life of recovery in mental affections; inaction, and the power of habit, is the death of all hopes of recovery. Upon the working classes regular employment has the best physical and moral effect; but I should doubt the good moral effect of it upon those unwilling to work, and who had not been accustomed to it. The best instructions for a single case I ever heard of, were given by the late Dr. Mason Coxe. Having given directions for the medical treatment of a gentleman | deranged, he said, " and let him walk every day at least four miles from home, and back, and if possible let him never go twice the same road." I take it for granted that the gentleman was not kept in his own family, for it is impossible to do justice to the curative means, while those under this disease remain in their own families, or under any family intercourse. But however excellent in itself the treatment of the gentleman above alluded to might be, it was too expensive for general practice; he would require two keepers to sufficient for twenty patients in their walking excursions, or working parties; and where all the patients are under the curative process, and are such subjects as to give any hopes of cure, they are ten times better in company of each other than alone. Under proper management, they will sympathize with each other, counteract each other's hallucinations, and contribute towards the recovery of each other; particularly if hope is cherished by numbers being frequently discharged perfectly recovered. I am aware that I am falling into a repetition of what I have said before; but next to our spiritual affairs, it is a subject of all others that most merits " line upon line, and precept upon precept;" and while I contend that hospitals might be so constituted as to give the best chance of recovery and comfort to insane patients, I feel well assured, that many of our large asylums afford a much worse chance of recovery or comfort than the same patients would have found even in their own families, or parish workhouses under the care of their respec respective parish apothecaries. And judging of asylums for the insane in the united kingdom, in the aggregate, I do believe that they do more harm than good; and that a much larger proportion of those who are visited by the disease, would recover, if there were not one of these institutions. I must repeat, that it is much to be lamented, that those who have taken upon them to legislate upon the subject ject of mental derangement, should have been so totally devoid of information as to what is obviously required for the best treatment of it. In consequence of which, the very, worst system that human folly could devise has been established by law, and has the sanction of public opinion to a very considerable degree; namely, irksome confinement in a state of inactivity, -a system, too, causing five times the expense of the best, and ten times the trouble. As for the working classes visited by insanity, if they were taken in time, had a gentle and proper, but persevering medical treatment, a wellregulated diet, and regular employment whenever in a fit state for it, with the occasional relaxations of amusements, very few would long remain under the disease. Patients of the higher classes require a more discriminating and varied moral treatment; and walking exercise should be substituted for the labour of the working class, and none under the influence of mental disease should ever use a horse or carriage, either of which does injury; nor should exercise be taken so as to heat or fatigue the body. One of our most learned writers upon insanity leaves his readers without any instructions as to the cure, and makes of it a great mystery; but I do not think there is any mystery either in the disease, or the best system of treating it, and I believe that I can safely appeal to the good sense of my readers, for their approval of the plainness of what I recommend, namely, kind and attentive management, a gentle medical practice, calculated to abate and keep in a temperate state the nervous system, and constantly to divert, and impress the thoughts by strong and pleasurable sensations. And, as I have often said before, I feel fully convinced of the curable nature of the disease in almost every instance, if put under proper treatment while in its incipient or recent state; and not only this, but I do believe the human mind to be susceptible of considerable improvement while under the influence of insanity, the complaint being simply a diseased excitement of the involuntary thoughts and imaginations. In the best attempts to cure it, the mental energies and reasoning powers are fully exerted so as to lead to their improvement, and fresh accessions of knowledge may be obtained; indeed, I have known many instances of the moral and mental condition of those who had been visited by insanity, being much more respectable after than it ever was before; and those who recover under the best system of treatment are in little danger of relapsing. It is true, that recoveries in appearance sometimes take place under the severe antiphlogistic treatment, and without any favourable change in the constitution; but these may be considered as only temporary, and such may, and often do, relapse; and it is also true, that a single attack does prove a predisposition to the disease, and therefore relapses are to be apprehended. But in my practice I have only known them to occur in the proportion of one to twentyfive patients, and much the greater number I consider as more safe from a second attack, than they ever could have been from a first, because better acquainted with the nature of the disease and the means of preventing it. And if the treatment of the insane could be put upon a better footing as a public measure, both as to the care and the cure of the afflicted, the disease would most certainly occur less frequently; for a great number of cases arise solely from the horrors of the malady, and the sufferings under it, and an extreme dread of 111. VOL. X. " them; and what can be more horrifying to the thoughts, than the prospect of being immured in a large madhouse, along with the most afflicted of our fellow beings? Some time ago, a learned commissioner came from France, and travelled through a great part of England, to see our public asylums, and learn our treatment of the insane. Had we not better send a commission to France for a like purpose? This I can truly say, that if called upon to describe an institution for the best means of curing and making comfortable the insane, I should only have to transcribe the description of one from a French writer. The French, no doubt, suppose, from our having so many insane, and so many asylums for the insane, viz. more than a hundred, that we must be well acquainted with the best treatment, but a conclusion the very opposite might be drawn from the number of our asylums; for if insanity had been properly treated generally for the last twenty years, the number of lunatics would not have been one-fourth of what it is, and of course so many madhouses would not have been wanted. It must appear, that our magistrates have been misled by the County Asylum law, which, however well intended, is liable to the imputation that has been cast upon it, of being principally designed to sweep out of sight all those unfortunate fellow beings, whose diseases have rendered them obnoxious and disgusting to those not afflicted in the same way; and we therefore find those afflicted with paralysis or epilepsy, dangerous idiots, criminal lunatics, and incurable pauper lunatics, under the same roof, in frightful numbers, and in close confinement, without exercises employments, or hope, to enlighten the cheerless gloom. Still the attempt to make these poor creatures comfortable is highly laudable: it is however a question, whether they are more comfortable than they would have been in their respective parishes, or previous places of confinement, though at less than half the expense. But the great evil of the system is, the attempt to cure, and exclusive monopoly of the fresh cases of pauper lunacy, by which such numbers are deprived of the timely means of recovery elsewhere. or An institution for the best purposes of curing nervous and mental diseases, should have convenient buildings, upon an elevated and healthy situation, quite free from the smoke of a large town, commanding views of various and striking objects, particularly of a road much travelled. It should have an enclosure of land fully sufficient for the Q 235 Bishop Heber's Observations on the Natives of India. regular employment, in husbandry and gardening, of all the inmates able and willing to work; and with a sufficiency of grass land for cows to give a full supply of milk for all the patients, milk being an excellent article of food for lunatics. No patient should be admitted but for the purpose of cure, and none to remain past a limited time. 236 BISHOP HEBER'S OBSERVATIONS ON THE NATIVES OF INDIA. 1 (Extracted from his Indian Journal.) Two observations struck me forcibly: first, that the deep bronze tint is more naturally agreeable to the human eye than the fair skins of Europe, since we are not displeased with it even in the first instance; while it is Without employment, or varied exer- well known, that to them a fair complexion cises, it is impossible to tell when patients gives the idea of ill health, and is that sort are perfectly recovered from a mental of deformity which in our eyes belongs to complaint. They may be brought into a an Albino. There is, indeed, something in calm state by coercion alone, and, with the a negro which requires long habit to recon. functions of thought quite erroneous or cile the eye to him; but, for this, the fea- torpid, they may be roused to give rational tures and the hair, far more than the answers; but so soon as restraint is com- colour, are answerable. The second obserpletely taken off, and the thoughts are left vation was, how entirely the idea of indeto their own associations and former habits, licacy, which would naturally belong to the disease reassumes its former ascendancy, such figures as those now around us if they and they are found to be no better, but were white, is prevented by their being of indeed worse, being less likely to recover; a different colour from ourselves. So and from this cause it is, that so many are much are we children of association and discharged as recovered, who are not re- habit, and so instinctively and immediately covered. To judge of convalescence cor- do our feelings adapt themselves to a total rectly, we must be made acquainted with change of circumstances; it is the partial the voluntary actions, as well as with the and inconsistent change only which affects language; for the latter may be quite cor- us. rect, while the former shall betray the mental complaint. As first impressions are of great importance, and as a journey will generally cause lucid intervals for lunatics, all fresh patients brought to an hospital for cure, should be received with the utmost courtesy as rational beings, examined as if solely under a medical disease, hopes of cure should be given, kind treatment promised, and they should be admonished to take their food and medicine without giving trouble, and to be active and regular as possible in some useful employment or exercise: it being always understood, that the difficulty of managing lunatics does not arise from their want of knowledge, or powers of reason, but from their being deranged, and acting partially, and only at intervals. The superintendant of an hospital for the cure of insanity, should be fully competent both in the medical and moral treatment, and should deport himself so as to merit the love and respect of the patients; but he should never betray the least vacillancy in his conduct, or ever compromise his authority. There is no mystery in all this; and if insanity is a nervous disease, which it certainly is, there is nothing stated but what it may require for the best chance of curing it. THOS. BAKEWELL. Spring Vale, Staffordshire, The great difference in colour between different natives struck me much of the crowd by whom we were surrounded, some were black as negroes, others merely copper-coloured, and others little darker than the Tunisines, whom I have seen at Liverpool. Mr. Mill, the principal of Bishop's college, who, with Mr. Corrie, one of the chaplains in the company's service, had come down to meet me, and who has seen more of India than most men, tells me that he cannot account for the difference, which is generally throughout the country, and every where striking. It is not merely the difference of exposure, since this variety of tint is visible in the fishermen, who are naked all alike. Nor does it depend on caste, since very high-caste Brahmins are sometimes black, while Pariahs are comparatively fair. It seems, therefore, to be an accidental difference, like that of light and dark complexions in Europe, though where so much of the body is exposed to sight, it becomes more striking here than in our own country. Most of the Hindoo idols are of clay, and very much resemble, in composition, colouring, and execution, though of course not in form, the more paltry sort of images which are carried about in England for sale by the Lago di Como people. At certain times of the year, great numbers of these are in fact hawked about the streets of Calcutta in the same manner, on men's Hindoo and European. But if heat produces one change, other peculiarities of climate may produce other and additional changes, and when such peculiarities have three or four thousand years to operate in, it is not easy to fix any limits to their power. heads. This is before they have been consecrated, which takes place on their being solemnly washed in the Ganges by a Brahmin pundit. Till this happens they possess no sacred character, and are frequently given as toys to children, and used as ornaments of rooms, which when hallowed they could not be, without giving great offence to every Hindoo who saw them thus employed. I thought it remarkable, that though most of the male deities are represented of a deep brown colour, like the natives of the country, the females are usually no less red and white than our porcelain beauties as exexhibited in England. But it is evident, from the expressions of most of the Indians themselves, from the style of their amatory poetry, and other circumstances, that they consider fairness as a part of beauty, and a proof of noble blood. They do not like to be called black; and though the Abyssinians, who are sometimes met with in the country, are very little darker than they themselves are, their jest-books are full of taunts on the charcoal complexion of the "Hubshee." Much of this has probably arisen from their having been so long subjected to the Moguls and other conquerors, originally from more northern climates, and who continued to keep up the comparative | may have changed him into the progres fairness of their stock by frequent importation of northern beauties. India, too, has been always, and long before the Europeans came hither, a favourite theatre for adven.. turers from Persia, Greece, Tartary, Turkey, and Arabia, all white men, and all in their turn possessing themselves of wealth and power. These circumstances must have greatly contributed to make a fair complexion fashionable. It is remarkable, however, to observe how surely all these classes of men in a few generations, even without any intermarriage with the Hindoos, assume the deep olivetint, little less dark than a negro, which seems natural to the climate. The Portuguese natives form unions among themselves alone, or, if they can, with Europeans. Yet the Portuguese have, during a three hundred years' residence in India, become as black as Caffres. Surely this goes far to disprove the assertion which is sometimes made, that climate alone is insufficient to account for the difference between the negro and the European. It is true, that in the negro are other peculiarities which the Indian has not, and to which the Portuguese colonists shew no symptom of approximation, and which undoubtedly do not appear to follow so naturally from the climate as that swarthiness of complexion which is the sole distinction between the I am inclined, after all, to suspect that our European vanity leads us astray in supposing that our own is the primitive complexion, which I should rather suppose was that of the Indian, half-way between the two extremes, and perhaps the most agreeable to the eye and instinct of the majority of the human race. A colder climate, and a constant use of clothes, may have blanched the skin as effectually as a burning sun and nakedness may have tanned it; and I am encouraged in this hypothesis by observing, that, of animals, the natural colours are generally dusky and uniform, while whiteness and a variety of tint almost invariably follow domestication, shelter from the elements, and a mixed and unnatural diet. Thus while hardship, additional exposure, a greater degree of heat, and other circumstances with which we are unacquainted, may have deteriorated the Hindoo into a negro, opposite causes sively lighter tints of the Chinese, the Persian, the Turk, the Russian, and the Englishman. PROTESTANT AND PAPAL ACCOUNT OF THE IT is well known that Charles II. when on "The King went through the agonies of death with a calm and a constancy that amazed all who were about him and knew how he lived. This made some conclude that he had made a Will, and that his quiet was the effect of that. Ken applied himself much to the awaking the King's conscience. He spoke with a great elevation, both of thought and expression, sion. like a man inspired, as those who were present told He resumed the matter often, and pronounced many short ejaculations and me. 239 Protestant and Papal Account of the Death of Charles II. 240 prayers, which affected all that were pre- | had kept so secretly, that no person whatever sent, except him that was the most concerned, who seemed to take no notice of him, and made no answers to him. He pressed the King six or seven times to receive the Sacrament; but the King always declined it, saying he was very weak. A table with the elements upon it, ready to be consecrated, was brought into the room; which occasioned a report to be then spread about, that he had received it. Ken pressed him to declare that he desired it, and that he died in the communion of the Church of England. To that he answered nothing. Ken asked him if he desired absolution from his sins. It seems the King, if he then thought any thing at all, thought that would do him no hurt. So Ken pronounced it over him: for which he was blamed, since the King expressed no sense of sorrow for his past life, nor any purpose of amendment. It was thought to be a prostitution of the peace of the Church to give it to one, who, after a life led as the King's had been, seemed to harden himself against every thing that could be said to him. Ken was also censured for another piece of indecency. He presented the Duke of Richmond, Lady Portsmouth's son, to be blessed by the King. Upon this, some that were in the room cried out, the King was their common Father. And upon that, all kneeled down for his blessing, which he gave them. The King suffered much inwardly, and said he was burnt up within; of which he complained often, but with great decency. He said once he hoped he should climb up to Heaven's gates; which was the only word savouring of religion that he was heard to speak. knew any thing of it... "He continued in an agony till Friday at eleven o'clock, being the sixth of February 1684-5; and then died in the fifty-fourth year of his age." TH The chaplain of the Bishop of Ely, who was in the King's chamber at the time, wrote thus to a brother clergyman the next day : 1 "Ely House, Feb. 7, 1684-5. REV. SIR, "Yesterday noon, I doe believe the most lamented Prince that ever satt upon a throne, one of the best of Kings, after near five days sickness, left this world; translated doubtless to a much more glorious kingdome then all those which he has left behind him now bewailing of their losse. 'Twas a great piece of Providence that this fatal blow was not so sudden as it would have been, if he had dy'd on Munday, when his fitt first took him: as he must have done if Dr. King had not been by, by chance, and lett him blood. By these few dayes respitt, he had opportunity (which accordingly he did embrace) of thinking of another world; and wee are all prepared the better to sustain so great a loss. He showed himself, throughout his sickness, one of the best natur'd men that ever lived; and by abundance of fine things he said in reference to his soul, he showed he dyed as good a christian: and the physicians, who have seen so many leave this world, doe say, they never saw the like as to his courage, so unconcerned he was at death, though sensible to all degrees imaginable, to the very last. He often in extremity of pain would say he suffered, but thanked God that he did so, and that he suffered patiently. He every now and then would seem to wish for death, and beg the pardon of the standers by, and those that were employed about him, that he gave them so much trouble: that he hoped the work was almost over: he was weary of this world: he had enough of it; and he was going to a better. "He gathered all his strength to speak his last words to the Duke, to which every one hearkened with great attention. He expressed his kindness to him, and that he now delivered all over to him with great joy. He recommended Lady Portsmouth over and over again to him. He said he had always loved her, and he loved her now to the last; and besought the Duke, in as melting words as he could fetch out, to be very kind to her and her son. He recommended his other children to him; and concluded, 'Let not poor Nelly starve;' that was, Mrs. Gwyn. But he said nothing of the Queen, nor any one word of his people, or his servants; nor did he speak one word of Religion, or concerning the payment of his debts, though he left behind him about ninety thousand guineas, which he had gathered, either out of the privy purse, or out of the money which was sent him from France, or by other methods; and which he | with a prosperous reign. He recommend "There was so much affection and tenderness express'd between the two Royal brothers, the one upon the bed, the other almost drowned in tears upon his knees and kissing of his dying brother's hand, as could not but extremely move the standers by. He thank'd our present King for having always been the best of brothers and of friends, and begg'd his pardon for the trouble he had given him from time to time, and for the several risks of fortune he had run on his account. He told him now he freely left him all, and begg'd of God to bless him |