CHAP. V.
CAUSES OF INSANITY.
When patients are admitted into Bethlem Hospital, an enquiry is always made of the friends who accompany them, respecting the cause supposed to have occasioned their insanity.
It will be readily conceived, that there must be great uncertainty attending the information we are able to procure upon this head: and even from the most accurate accounts, it would be difficult to pronounce, that the circumstances which are related to us, have actually produced the effect. The friends and relatives of patients are, upon many occasions, very delicate concerning this point, and cautious of exposing their frailties or immoral habits: and when the disease is connected with the family, they are oftentimes still more reserved in disclosing the truth.
Fully aware of the incorrect statement, frequently made concerning these causes, I have been at no inconsiderable pains to correct or confirm the first information, by subsequent enquiries.
The causes which I have been enabled most certainly to ascertain, may be divided into Physical and Moral.[14]
Under the first, are comprehended repeated intoxication: blows received upon the head; fever, particularly when attended with delirium; mercury, largely and injudiciously administered; cutaneous eruptions repelled, and the suppression of periodical or occasional discharges and secretions; hereditary disposition, and paralytic affections.
By the second class of causes, which have been termed moral, are meant those which are supposed to originate in the mind, or which are more immediately applied to it. Such are, the long endurance of grief; ardent and ungratified desires; religious terror; the disappointment of pride; sudden fright; fits of anger; prosperity humbled by misfortunes:[15] in short, the frequent and uncurbed indulgence of any passion or emotion, and any sudden or violent affection of the mind.
There are, doubtless, many other causes of both classes, which may tend to produce this disease. Those which have been stated, are such as I am most familiar with; or, to speak more accurately, such are the circumstances most generally found to have preceded this affection.