In all hypochondriacal cases, and in obstinate madness, Wesley recommended the following, wherein we see a return to the almost inevitable hellebore: "Pour twelve ounces of rectified spirits of wine on four ounces of roots of black hellebore, and let it stand in a warm place twenty-four hours. Pour it off and take from thirty to forty drops in any liquid, fasting."
Lastly, for all nervous disorders, he recurs to what was his favourite remedy, and says, "But I am firmly persuaded that there is no remedy in nature for nervous disorders of every kind, comparable to the proper and constant use of the electrical machine."
I would direct the reader's attention to the condition of some asylums at the latter end of the eighteenth century, as described by a prominent character and noble philanthropist of that period.
The celebrated John Howard did not confine his attention to prisons, but frequently took occasion to visit asylums in the course of his philanthropic travels; and in his "Accounts of the Principal Lazarettos in Europe, together with Further Observations on some Foreign Prisons and Hospitals, and Additional Remarks on the Present State of those in Great Britain and Ireland" (1789), he contrasts St. Luke's Hospital with a hospital for lunatics at Constantinople, to the advantage of the latter in some respects, although he states that there is very little regard paid to cleanliness or the patients, while the former was neat and clean. Of the Constantinople asylums, he says, "They are admirable structures.... The rooms are all on the ground floor, arched, and very lofty, having opposite windows, and opening under a corridor into a spacious area." In the midst of the neglect of human beings he was astonished to find so much attention paid to cats, an asylum having been provided for them near the Mosque of St. Sophia. Of St. Luke's he says, "The cells were very clean and not offensive. The boxes on which the beds of straw lie are on a declivity and have false bottoms. The cells open into galleries, fifteen feet wide, and on each gallery was a vault, which was not offensive.... Here are large airing grounds for men and women; there is also a new but very inconvenient bath. Here are, very properly, two sitting-rooms in each gallery, one for the quiet, the other for the turbulent; but I could wish that the noisy and turbulent were in a separate part of the house by day and by night.... Several women were calm and quiet, and at needlework with the matron. A chapel would be proper here for the advantage of recovering patients, as I have seen in such houses abroad."
It would seem, then, that although Howard observes, "I greatly prefer the asylum at Constantinople," he must refer to the less important matter of the structure of the building. As also when mentioning St. Patrick's or Swift's Hospital at Dublin, he says he should prefer the Dol-huis at Amsterdam and the hospital at Constantinople, "where the rooms open into open corridors and gardens, which is far better than their opening into passages as here in England."[113]
In his previous work, 1784, Howard observes, speaking of English prisons, "I must add here that in some few gaols are confined idiots and lunatics. These serve for sport to idle visitors at assizes and other times of general resort. Many of the Bridewells are crowded and offensive, because the rooms which were designed for prisoners are occupied by the insane (by the Irish Act, 3 Geo. III., such persons are required to be kept separate). Where they are not kept separate, they disturb and terrify other prisoners. No care is taken of them, although it is probable that by medicines, and proper regimen, some of them might be restored to their senses and to usefulness in life."[114]
We shall see more clearly, as we proceed, what was the condition of the insane in England at the latter part of the eighteenth century.
A time then came—in the year 1792—fraught with an event as important as it was unexpected, the beginning, on a small scale, of the reform which ultimately took place in the condition of British asylums; a reform slowly brought about by means which might have seemed very inadequate for the purpose. But the poet warns us to
"Think naught a trifle, though it small appear;
Small sands the mountain, moments make the year,
And trifles life."
And does not Joseph de Maistre well say, "Aucune grande chose n'eut de grands commencements"—nothing great ever began great?