Mental health

Disappointment in love...

(ORGAN PLAYING LONG EERIE NOTES)

MIDDLE-AGED, EDUCATED ENGLISHMAN: One Jeremiah Clarke, organist of St. Paul's, abruptly determined to leave the house of a friend he was visiting in the country, to return to London. His friend, observing his dejection and his disappointment in love, furnished him with a horse and a servant to take care of him. A fit of melancholy seizing him on the road, he alighted and went into a field and stood on the bank of a pond, debating with himself whether he should there end his days by drowning or hanging himself on the trees on its margin. He could not determine and therefore made chance his umpire. He threw a piece of money into the air, which came down on its edge and stuck in the clay.

(TRICKLING WATER)

MIDDLE-AGED, EDUCATED ENGLISHMAN CONTINUES: But determination seemed to forbid both methods of destruction and, had his mind not been so disordered, might have brought him consolation. It broke off his purpose for the present. He returned, mounted his horse and rode to London. But alas, the irritation of his mind was too great to be calmed by reason or religion and in a short time, he shot himself. A strong, a general and immediate cause of suicide, doubtless, is a strong wish to get rid of present uneasiness by plunging into the silent and unconscious grave.

 

What Mr Wakefield saw...

(MELANCHOLY PIANO MUSIC)

OLDER EDUCATED ENGLISHMAN: Mr Edward Wakefield of Pall Mall visited Bethlem accompanied by Charles C. Wester, Esquire, MP for Essex, and four other gentlemen. The women's gallery on one side of the rooms contained about 10 patients, each chained by one arm or leg to the wall, the chain allowing them merely to stand up by the bench or form fixed to the wall, or to sit down on it. The nakedness of each patient was covered by a blanket gown only, with nothing to fasten it in front. This constitutes the whole covering. Even the feet were naked. One female thus chained was an object remarkably striking. She had been a governess. One can hardly imagine a human being in a more degraded and brutalising situation. Her conversation was coherent, and she appeared sensible of the mental and bodily condition of those wretched beings who, equally without clothing, were closely chained to the same wall with herself. In the men's wing in the side room, six patients were chained close to the wall, five handcuffed and one locked to the wall by the right arm as well as the right leg. All were naked, except a small run over their shoulders. One had lucid intervals when we saw him. Their mode of confinement gave this room the complete appearance of a dog kennel. While looking at some of the bed-lying patients, a man arose naked from his bed and had deliberately and quietly walked a few paces from his cell door, along the gallery, he was instantly seized by the keepers, thrown into his bed and leg locked without inquiry or observation. The end window toward Fore Street was the chief source of entertainment to the patients. They seem to greatly enjoy the sight of the people walking and to derive great pleasure from our visit.

 

A young lady...

(LYRICAL PIANO)

YOUNG ENGLISH WOMAN: A young lady, aged 15, of hereditary predisposition to insanity, of good family and fortune, and who had been most virtuously educated, manifested symptoms of insanity. Her person and mental faculties, which were of the highest order, were fully developed at the age of 11 when the catamenia first appeared. She was of a violent and haughty temper. Her memory was remarkably strong, but devotion to a great variety of studies had tried her mental powers too much and deranged her general health. The menses became obstructed, there was great irregularity in the circulation. The extremities were always of marble coldness, though the season was warm. At the same time, the heat of the head far exceeded what I ever before remarked in any case. Every means were prescribed to equalise the circulation. At length, symptoms of nymphomania were manifested but unaccompanied by any indecency, either in language or looks. Nor would her medical attendants have suspected it had not the nurse mentioned it. The affection, however, was not permanent, but plainly intermitted. In this case, a distinct sympathy with cerebral irritation was exhibited, for when the determination to the head was marked by the preternatural heat of the scalp and coldness of the extremities, the genital irritation ceased, and when the head was cool, the irritation returned, as if transferred by metastasis. Local abstractions of blood from the head when hot and refrigeration of the shaven scalp or any application restoring warmth to the extremities, as a foot bath of mustard infusion or strong walking exercise, always relieved the cerebral excitation and removed the other distressing symptom. As the equilibrium of the circulation was restored, her general health improved and the catamenia returned. The local irritation then disappeared and in about four months, she quite recovered.

 

This wretched man...

(CROW CALLS, WIND HOWLS, LONG NOTES FROM A CELLO)

MIDDLE-AGED MAN [SCOTTISH ACCENT]: This wretched man, who was executed for the murder of Widow Geddes at King's Cramond, offers a fearful illustration of the influence of temperament. This wretched man entered the cottage of the old woman and shortly after fled from the house, having nearly cleaved her head in two with the edge of a spade. No motive could be adduced to account for the desperate attack, and insanity was pleaded at the trial. It appeared in evidence that Howison was miserably superstitious, feared supernatural enemies and resorted to absurd ceremonies to protect himself against witches, salting his bed and hair, wearing a Bible around his neck, which he never read, without which he asserted he would long ago have been dead. He had a fancy to become a Quaker and attended their meetings for some months but paid no attention to the worship, but muttered to himself, smelt his Bible, pricked himself with pins and needles to draw blood. And he was seen to kneel and invoke the Virgin Mary while he wounded himself in both hands and smeared the door with his blood. He was also subject to false perceptions, and would sit down, brushing away flies for hours from his face when there were no flies. And at night, he had struggles with witches and was heard to cry out, “Hands off!” When apprehended, he insisted on maintaining his innocence, invariably adding, “Nobody saw me do it.”

(WHISTLING WIND)

MIDDLE-AGED MAN [SCOTTISH ACCENT] CONTINUES: When parting from the governor of the jail to proceed to execution he avowed that he felt at that moment a strong impulse to murder him, although he had been most kind to him. He had confessed on the preceding evening that he had committed eight murders, although they had never been heard of, a strong presumption that he laboured under a delusion.

 

A widow lady...

A widow lady, aged 38 – she had born two children; the eldest, now living was fifteen years old; the second was born a few weeks after the death of her husband, seven years ago and survived its birth only a few days. From this time, she suffered greatly – the catamenial period being often attended with most excruciating pain, the general health being materially impaired. When I saw her she was thin, her countenance anxious, and her mind greatly depressed; she complained of low spirits, and the most intense feeling of fear; so much so that she was obliged to burn a nightlight, and could not even sleep from downright terror; the catamenia always lasted profusely for ten days, and again appeared within a fortnight from their cessation … an internal examination gave considerable pain … her bowels were generally confined and she suffered much from flatulence. She had almost constant headache, evidently from weakness and there was dragging pain in the back and loins. I ordered 8 leeches to the groins … the very night after the leeches were applied, she was enabled to sleep comfortably, without fear; her bowels soon became regular.

 

The modern progressive mind...

(ROARING INCINERATOR, INDUSTRIAL MACHINERY, METAL GRINDING)

EDUCATED MIDDLE-AGED AMERICAN MAN: To rush and crowd and cram, with the ambition to see everything, to eat and drink everything and mentally to appropriate everything is to overwhelm and overthrow the reasons with too many conflicting imaginations. It is the ambition of the modern progressive mind to appropriate too great a variety of positive impressions in too short a period of time. There can be no stronger foundation for mania, delusion or insanity. The insane mental activities and mad strife of men in high places and the equal eagerness and restlessness of finely cultivated society women, their blood hot with the consuming oxygen of common air, their brain and nerves quivering to their deepest centres and roots with unremitting industry, most in evil directions, from such, believe me, we derive the immense harvest of great fools, indifferent lunatics and small criminals who infest civilisation and bring the kingdom of darkness on Earth.

**END**