"In the autumn Lord Chatham's health grew stronger. Judging from the event, we may conclude that the morbid humours had begun to leave his nerves, and to concentrate for a fit—so long intermitted and so much needed—of his hereditary gout. He was still entirely shut out from his friends, and still unable to transact any business, but he could bear to hear it mentioned, and could form some judgment of its tenor. In this situation his mind, not yet restored to its full vigour, brooded over suspicions and discontents, for which the behaviour of his colleagues afforded him no just foundation."[109]
Lord Chatham now resigned the Privy Seal (October, 1768), which he had held since July, 1766. "Until towards the middle of March, 1767, he had been truly and in effect Prime Minister; since that time he had been—nothing."
Lord Chatham's derangement was, however, at last dispelled. We find that "a few weeks only after Lord Chatham's resignation, his gout, so long interrupted, but for some time past giving symptoms of approach, returned. Bowed down as he was by a far more grievous malady, it proved to him a healing visitation. It raised his drooping spirits and strung his feeble nerves. The clouds which had obscured that great intellect wholly passed away. Never indeed did his splendid eloquence or his wise and resolute counsels shine forth more brightly than during the next following years."
It was in the year 1775 (November 29) that, on the American war question, Lord Chatham emerged from his retirement—a year after the Lunacy Act had passed.
Thirteen years later, his Sovereign fell a victim to the same disorder, and it is probable that the attention thus drawn to the malady exerted a beneficial influence upon public feeling, in the interests of those labouring under the same affliction. The clerical and medical doctor, Willis, who was at that time seventy years of age, was called in to attend George III. in 1788. The King had had, as early as 1765, a slight attack, but the fact was carefully concealed. Willis's treatment consisted in bark, blistering, and an occasional dose of calomel.[110] It is not necessary to enter here into the differences of opinion which arose as to the conduct of the case, between himself and his colleagues, Warren, Reynolds, and others. In February, 1789, the royal patient had progressed so favourably that he was able to write a sensible letter to Pitt, and on April 23rd of the same year he went to St. Paul's to offer thanks for his recovery, amid a vast and enthusiastic multitude, thereby running a great risk of a relapse. However, he had no return of the complaint till 1801, when he recovered rapidly. In 1804 he again became insane, and again recovered, the death of the Princess Amelia in 1810 causing the attack from which he never recovered. The subject of insanity was therefore brought before the public again and again, for some thirty years—longer, indeed, if we include Lord Chatham's derangement—and brought before them in a way which excited their commiseration in a marked degree.
It is worthy of notice that mechanical restraint was applied by Willis to the King. "Nothing," observes the late Dr. Ray, "can more strikingly indicate the change that has occurred since that time in respect to the means of managing the insane, than the fact that for two or three months the King was frequently subjected to mechanical restraint. There was nothing in his condition which could be considered at the present time a sufficient reason for its application."[111]
It may be observed here that John Wesley prescribed at this period for madness, as well as for irreligion.[112] One of his remedies was that the patient should be exclusively fed on apples for a month—a regimen which recalls the starving treatment of epilepsy prescribed, at a recent date, by Dr. Jackson, of Boston. Wesley's prescriptions for "lunacy" and "raving madness" are given with almost as much confidence of success as those we have cited from the Saxon leech-book.
"For Lunacy:
1. Give decoction of agrimony four times a day.
2. Or, rub the head several times a day with vinegar in which ground ivy leaves have been infused.