Book Description

"Contains the best and most practical account of insanity that we are acquainted with....The malady which forms the subject of this volume is peculiarly interesting. The frequency of its occurrence, and the derangement of civil association which it occasions, render an acquaintance with its characteristics essential to people of every condition....The author, in his capacity of apothecary to the Bethlem Hospital, has long enjoyed extensive opportunities of investigating the complaint, and he possesses many requisites for such an undertaking. In the present edition, Mr. Haslam has declined giving a definition of madness, and in this we think he is perfectly right. Although medical practitioners may determine that a person is mad, it would be utterly impossible to comprise, in a few words, the characteristic signs of a complaint which appears in such various forms....Mr. Haslam has related several interesting cases of insanity, with the appearances on dissection. In all these the brain showed unequivocal marks of organic disease. He divides the causes of insanity into physical and moral." -Select Reviews "Haslam...express a decided opinion that insanity is not a 'disease of ideas,' and is among the first who, in modern times, has ventured to regard it as connected with disease of the brain or its membranes." -The Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal "The last work of any practical value which has been written in England....Dr. Haslam's work is one of the most valuable hitherto produced in this country, on a subject remarkable for the mediocrity of those who have written on it in all countries...the student...will find some really useful information on the symptoms of the disease, on its causes, its probable duration, its chances of cure, the mode of managing a patient with regard to liberty or confinement; and the value of the different medicinal remedies employed in the course of Dr. Haslam's own extensive practice." -The Quarterly Review "Haslam was the first to describe general paralysis of the insane, a disease which is probably the most highly evolved form of mental breakdown, and at the opposite pole to the primary defects of idiocy and imbecility." -The Lancet