Ancestors of the Insane

Ancestors of the "Archives".

In Europe and America specialist physicians, national societies, and journals devoted exclusively to the medical care of children were well established by the end of the last century. In Britain a few physicians would give an opinion on a sick child while retaining their interest in the medicine of the adult. In 1896 an attempt was made to start an AngloAmerican journal of children's diseases t...

General Paralysis of the Insane

It is a singular fact that, notwithstanding the deeply interesting nature of the subject, only one monograph on the General Paralysis of the Insane (the treatise by Dr. Winn) has appeared in this country; whilst on the continent, not less than five monographs have been published during the last thirty years. Dr. Winn's treatise, published in 1848, and previously printed as an original article i...

The bones of the insane

This article examines alienist explanations for fracture among British asylum patients in the late nineteenth to early twentieth centuries. A series of deaths in asylums came to light in the 1870s which, in placing the blame for such incidents on asylum staff, called for a response from the psychiatric profession. This response drew upon other medical fields and employed novel pathological tech...

Insane Delusions

General Paralysis of the Insane

calculated 31 general paralytics to 334 insanes, or 9 2 per cent. According to Bayle (1855), the proportion of paralytics in the asylums of Paris was 1 in 4; but Baillarger, on the other hand, gives for Bicetre and Salpetriere together the proportion of 1 in 16. . j When we examine the assigned causes of this mysterious disease, the reason of its unfreqnent appearance in Indian asylums i9 not e...