Abstract
The Journal of Mental Science, October 1874.—This number opens with the address of Thomas Laws Rogers, M.D., president at the annual meeting of the Medico-Psychological Association, Aug. 6, 1874. His object was to procure a fixed meaning for the terms “restraint” and “seclusion,” and the clear sense and practical aim of his remarks present a sharp contrast to the rather wandering discussion which followed.—Dr. J. Batty Tuke has a paper on a case in which the clinical history and postmortem examination will, he thinks, support its being designated one of syphilitic insanity.—Dr. Daniel Hack Tuke writes about the Hermit of Red-Coat's Green, and finds him insane, an opinion from which there is little room for dissent. Probably also it would have been well had he individually “been put under the protection of the Lord Chancellor and the inspection of his visitors;” it “would have been better for the neighbourhood, better for his family, and better for the Hermit of Red-Coat's Green himself” But could not those very considerations be urged, and often with greater force, in favour of a curtailment of the liberty of thousands of frivolous, reckless, immoral persons, who are a far greater pest to their family and neighbourhood than poor Lucas was after he became the hermit?—Dr. H. Hayes Newington contributes a thoughtful paper On different forms of stupor.—In an interesting article on the mental aspects of ordinary disease, Dr. J. Milner Fothergill obtrudes his materialism in a way that will be distasteful to many, while to others the thing itself will appear shallow. Thought “is the product of the combustion of what was originally food.” The brain of “Robbie Burns transmuted his oatmeal porridge into Tarn O'Shanter”—In reviewing Dr. Maudsley's “Responsibility in Mental Disease,” Mr. J. Burchell Spring, chaplain to the Bristol Lunatic Asylum, while doing justice to the ability of the work, seems to have the advantage of the author in matters of history. He very cleverly cuts away the ground from under Dr. Maudsley's rather uncalled-for assertion that the brutal treatment of the insane “had its origin in the dark ages of Christian superstition”
Article PDF
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Scientific Serials . Nature 11, 19 (1874). https://doi.org/10.1038/011019a0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/011019a0