Account of the rise and progress of the asylum, proposed to be established, near Philadelphia : for the relief of persons deprived of the use of their reason : with an abridged account of the Retreat, a similar institution near York, in England.

Date:
1814
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Account of the rise and progress of the asylum, proposed to be established, near Philadelphia : for the relief of persons deprived of the use of their reason : with an abridged account of the Retreat, a similar institution near York, in England. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    more appropriate system of treatment, than that usually practised, might be adopted ; and where, during lucid intervals, or the state of convales- cence, the patient might enjoy the society of those who were of similar habits and opinions. It was thought, very justly, that the indiscrimi- nate mixture, which must occur in large public establisments, of persons of opposite religious sentiments and practices ; of the profligate and the virtuous ; the profane and the serious ; was calculated to check the progress of returning rea- son, and to fix, still deeper, the melancholy and misanthropic train of ideas, which, in some des- criptions of insanity, impresses the mind. It was believed also, that the general treatment of insane persons was, too frequently, calculated to depress and degrade, rather than to awaken the slumbering reason, or correct its wild hallucina- tions. In one of the conversations to which the cir- cumstance before-mentioned gave rise, the pro- priety of attempting to form an Establishment lor persons of our own Society, was suggested to William Tuke, whose feelings were already much interested in the subject, and whose perse- vering mind rendered him peculiarly eligible to promote such an undertaking. After mature re- flection, and several consultations with his most intimate friends* on the subject, he was decid- edly of opinion, that an Establishment for the insane of our own Society, of every class in re- gard to property, was both eligible and highly de- * Among the most early and strenuous friends of this Establishment, I wish to particularize the name of the ex- cellent. Lindley Murray ; to whose steady endeavours, for promoting its welfare, the institution is much indebted