On the State of Lunacy and
the Legal Provision for the Insane
ON THE
STATE OF LUNACY
AND THE
LEGAL PROVISION FOR THE INSANE,
WITH
OBSERVATIONS ON THE CONSTRUCTION AND
ORGANIZATION OF ASYLUMS.
BY
JOHN T. ARLIDGE, M.B., A.B. (Lond.),
LICENTIATE OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS; ASSOCIATE OF KING’S
COLLEGE, LONDON; PHYSICIAN TO THE WEST OF LONDON HOSPITAL;
FORMERLY MEDICAL SUPERINTENDENT OF ST. LUKE’S
HOSPITAL, AND PHYSICIAN TO THE SURREY
DISPENSARY, ETC.
LONDON:
JOHN CHURCHILL, NEW BURLINGTON STREET.
1859.
PRINTED BY TAYLOR AND FRANCIS,
RED LION COURT, FLEET STREET.
TO
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
THE EARL OF SHAFTESBURY,
CHAIRMAN OF THE COMMISSION OF LUNACY,
WHOSE LONG-CONTINUED AND UNTIRING EFFORTS IN BEHALF OF THE
INSANE
HAVE EARNED FOR HIM THE HIGHEST ESTEEM AND ADMIRATION
OF ALL WHO FEEL INTERESTED
IN THE WELFARE OF THAT CLASS OF THE AFFLICTED,
THIS TREATISE
IS, BY PERMISSION,
RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED BY HIS LORDSHIP’S MOST OBEDIENT
HUMBLE SERVANT,
THE AUTHOR.
PREFACE.
The writer of a book is usually expected to show cause for itsproduction,—a custom which, however commendable as a sort of homage tohis readers for challenging their attention to his lucubrations, mustoften put the ingenuity of an author to the test. Indeed the writer ofthis present treatise would feel some embarrassment in accounting for itsproduction, did he not entertain the conviction that he has, in howeverimperfect a manner, supplied a work on several important subjects whichhave never before been so placed before the public, and which, moreover,occupy just now a most prominent position among the topics of the day.
In the last Parliament, up to the period of its dissolution, a SpecialCommittee of the House of Commons was engaged in examining into thecondition of lunatics and the laws of lunacy; and the present Governmenthas re-appointed the Committee, in order to resume the inquiry preparatoryto the introduction of new enactments into the Legislature. The subjectstreated of in the following pages relate to the same matters which haveengaged the attention of Parliament, and elicited the special inquirymentioned, viz. the present state of Lunacy and of the legal provision forthe Insane with reference to their future wants.
[Pg vi]In order to a better appreciation of the existing provision for theinsane, and of its defects, the author has introduced certain preliminarychapters on the number of the insane, on the increase of insanity, on theinadequacy of the existing public provision for the insane, and on thecurability of insanity. In reviewing the character and extent of theprovisions for the insane, the course adopted has been to regard them inreference to their effects on recovery, and to discover the conditionsinimical to it, whether without or within asylums. Hence the evils