"jatise on insanity, 
 G. Griires
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 V 
 f I 
 
 If 
 
 A SECRET WORTH KNOWING. 
 
 A TREATISE 
 
 ON 
 
 INSANITY 
 
 THE ONLY WORK OF THE KIND- IN THE UNITED STATES; 
 
 OR, PERHAPS 
 
 IN THE KNOWN WORLD 
 
 FOUNDED ON 
 
 GENERAL OBSERVATION AND TRUTH. 
 
 There are other Medical books which treat on Insanity, but comparatively few to 
 the population, and none written by an Insane man. This contains a short History 
 of the Author's case giving the General Causes which produced the Disease on him 
 individually, Manner of Treatment and Termination. Giving the only Treatment by 
 which a Cure may fce effected, the Manner of Detecting the Disease, arid the Duties 
 of Sane Parents towards the Insane offspring of their bodies; with some General 
 Remarks upon Idiotism, the Jurisprudence of Insanity, Suicide, &c. 
 
 BY G. GRIMES., 
 Sin inmate of tfje SLunatic i3slum of ^Tennessee. 
 
 
 THIRD EDITION. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 WILLIAM H. GRAHAM, TRIBUNE BUILDINGS. 
 
 1847.
 
 DISTRICT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 
 FOR MIDDLE TENNESSEE DISTRICT. 
 
 BE it remembered that, in conformity to an Act of Congress of the United States of America, entitled 
 "An act to amend the several acts respecting Copy -rights," on the 23d of June, 1845, and in the 69th year of 
 the Independence of the United States, GREEN GRIMES, of said District, hath deposited in this office the 
 title of a book, the right whereof he claims as proprietor, and which is aa follows, to wit "A Secret 
 Worth Knowing A Treatise on Insanity ; giving the General Causes, Treatment to effect a Cure, Ju- 
 risprudence of Insanity, Suicide," &c.. &c. JACOB M'GAVOCK, 
 
 Clerk of said Court
 
 
 
 LUNATIC ASYLUM, NASHVILLE, Tenn., / 
 17 tk May. 1845, $ 
 
 This is to certify that Mr. G. GRIMES is now an inmate of this Institution, and has 
 been since June, 1842 ; that since he has been here ho has written a book styled 
 "A Secret Worth Knowing A Treatise an Insanity," and other subjects therein 
 contained ; and that his condition is as represented in said book. We furthermore 
 certify that it was written in the officers' room of said Institution, and that the manu- 
 script is original, from undar his own hand and pen. 
 Given under our hands the day and date above written. 
 
 JNO. S. M'NAIRY, 
 
 Practising Physician of the Lunatic Aylum. 
 CHARLES HARRISON, 
 
 An Officer of the Asylum. 
 DAVID R. DANIEL, 
 
 Agent of the Asylum. 
 GEORGE W. MURPHEY, 
 
 An Officer of the Asylum. 
 
 R. C. K. MARTIN, ^ 
 JNO. M. HILL. [ 
 JNO. D. KKLLEY. [ 
 
 j. r. v/. PKOWN. j
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 IN laying this work before the public, I have but two motives in 
 view, one of which is to enlighten the people on what I conceive to 
 be one of the most important subjects in the world, especially to the 
 young and rising generation, and those and the friends of those 
 who now are, or may become, mentally diseased, and which I con- 
 ceive to be a duty due them from me. 
 
 I have written it upon a pure conviction, believing that it will be 
 a good family guide for parents, guardians and young students of 
 medicine, and, in fact, I will venture to say, that any reader will be 
 able to receive good advice from it. 
 
 The minister of the Gospel would doubtless contend that the 
 ministry was the most important subject in the world. The editor 
 of a public press would contend with the minister that the editorial 
 department, and the freedom of the press, was a subject of much 
 greater importance. The financier would, perhaps, equally contend 
 with the minister and the editor that the subject of finance was of 
 still more importance. The merchant would contend that the 
 mercantile business was also a very important subject. The lawyer 
 would also contend that the practice of law was a subject of great 
 importance. The mechanic, perhaps, might say that the subject of 
 mechanism was one of vast importance, and the farmer, as a matter 
 of course, would equally contend with all, that agriculture was a 
 subject of still much greater importance, as the fruits of the earth 
 are requisite to sustain life.
 
 VI PREFACE. 
 
 I might extend inferences through the different and variegated 
 pursuits of life, and I am free to allow every one the liberty of 
 exercising their various opinions upon the importance of the leading 
 subjects of the day ; but, in the meantime, I hope they will be equally 
 free to extend towards me the liberty of contending with all, that 
 I believe the subject of insanity to be one of the greatest importance 
 in the world ; arid it is a point given up by all men, with few excep- 
 tions, that the discovery of the healing arts, and more especially 
 that of detecting and healing the awful malady termed insanity, is 
 the most important, and should stand number one among all other 
 subjects. 
 
 In the first place, that I may be able to throw all the light that 
 I am in possession of, I shall be compelled to give a short detail of 
 my own case, and in doing this I will have to make use of initials 
 in lieu of individual names to unfold it, to which I hope no person 
 will take exception, as it is not my design to personate or try to 
 blast the prospects of any lady or gentleman, but desire that the 
 book, upon its own merits, shall rise or sink. 
 
 The other motive that I have held in view is, to enable me to 
 raise some small means, by which I may be able to reasonably feed, 
 clothe and educate my children. Relative to the plausibility of the 
 motives, I leave the reader to judge. 
 
 In giving you a statement of my own case, I will have to com- 
 mence at quite an early period of my life ; I will even begin at my 
 birth. Some persons may object to be governed by this book upon 
 the ground that it is written by an insane man ; but for that very 
 reason they should not hesitate to be governed by it, as it is reason- 
 able to suppose that a man who is diseased, knows more about that 
 particular disease than one who is not. 
 
 1 have been credibly informed that it is rumored in some parts 
 of the country that I have compiled this work for the benefit of 
 some other individuals, and that the manuscript is not my own 
 production. In contradiction of this report, I can safely assert that 
 no man on earth has any interest in it or the proceeds, except to
 
 PREFACE. m 
 
 receive the usual pay for services in the publication, and to agents 
 for vending, etc. ; and as to its not being original, I give a certificate, 
 on a preceding page, from the practising physician, officers and 
 trustees of the Lunatic Asylum, from under their own hands, signed 
 officially, who are knowing to the facts, which certificate is sufficient 
 to convince any rational mind that the rumor is utterly false. 
 
 The following editorial notice appeared in the Baltimore Patriot 
 of the 4th of November, 1846. 
 
 "A TRKATISE ON INSANITY, &c. The author, Mr. G. Grimes, who for a number 
 of years, was an inmate of the Lunatic Asylum in Tennessee, and who has fortunately 
 been cured of his malady, placed in our hands a volume of nearly one hundred 
 pages, written upon the subject of insanity. Having experienced all the ills and 
 horrors incident to a derangement of the mental faculties, he has therefore been 
 enabled to write practically, and develope many mysteries, heretofore unknown, as 
 regards insanity. The book before us is full of interest, and well worthy a perusal. 
 The author was once a successful merchant in the West, and is known by gentlemen 
 of this city with whom he had been in the habit of dealing. He bears visible marks 
 on each side of his neck of an attempt at suicide in his period of derangement."
 
 THE AUTHOR'S CASE. 
 
 THE writer was born in Orange county, State of North Carolina, 
 on the 12th of February, 1809. My father emigrated to Maury 
 county, Tennessee, in the fall or winter of 1811, at which time I 
 was about two years old. He was one among the first settlers in 
 that part of Tennessee : he was not rich, neither was he poor, but in 
 ordinary circumstances ; he was well enough off to live free of 
 embarrassment. He purchased one quarter-section of land, lying 
 twelve miles south-west of Columbia, on the waters of Big Bigby, 
 and within one mile of the town of Mount Pleasant, then a cane-brake 
 in the wild, howling wilderness, and inhabited by red men and the 
 wild beast of the forest. 1 was the youngest son of eleven in 
 succession, two of whom died young ; I had two sisters, who were 
 the first and second born. It was my misfortune to be bereaved of 
 my maternal parent at twelve years of age ; I was then loved by all 
 who knew me ; my sisters and elder brothers were all grown to be 
 men and women, and were becoming incumbent with the cares of 
 the world and their families, except one, the next youngest brother 
 to me that was then living. He, as a matter of course, was my 
 favorite brother, as we were the only two left at home, and were play 
 and school-fellows. 
 
 When I was about fourteen years of age, my father, as is usual 
 with most men, married a second wife, and brought my brother and 
 myself a step-mother, who, in about a year afterwards, drove my 
 brother from my embraces to seek a home among strangers. He 
 
 bargained to live with a Parson S , then a stationed preacher 
 
 and teacher of the Cherokee, Chickasaw, or Choctaw Indians I do 
 not remember which and on his way to the Agency, in crossing 
 Bear Creek, twelve miles west of Colbert's Ferry, on Tennessee river, 
 he came to a premature death by drowning. I hope his spirit has 
 taken its heavenly flight; I loved him well, for he had always 
 acted the part of a brother towards me. I loved him as dearly as 
 I did my own life. There are brothers in the flesh, and there are 
 brothers indeed he was my brother indeed. Hence upon this loss 
 I became partially insane ; the disease assumed the character of 
 moral insanity melancholy depression. 
 
 9
 
 10 THE AUTHOR'S CASE. 
 
 In a short time afterwards my clothes were thrown out of my 
 own father's house, and I driven from his mansion and embraces to 
 seek a home among strangers before I was of an age sufficient to 
 act for myself. I never would have left his fireside if I had not been 
 driven from it by one. who should have looked upon me with a 
 mother's eye, and assisted in properly raising me. But! was driven 
 from the mansion of those whose duty it was at that time to 
 protect me. 
 
 I went to my eldest brother for advice and protection ; he was the 
 eldest and I the youngest. Who should a boy go to for advice but a 
 brother ? He refused me advice telling me that I was a worthless 
 fool, and ordered me off to take care of myself, stating that he did 
 not care what became of me. I then went to another brother and 
 made the same application, and expressed a desire to make his house 
 my home. I met with the same refusal, but not in the same abrupt 
 language. This brother promised me that if I became incapable of 
 taking care of myself at any time in the course of my life, he would 
 act in the capacity of a father towards me instead of a brother ; but 
 my great misfortune was that he never complied with that promise 
 until it was forever too late. I became weary of seeking a home 
 among brothers hence I was at a loss to know what course to 
 pursue, having thus been driven from the embraces of those whom 
 I loved above all others. However, being possessed of enterprise 
 and an energetic spirit, I concluded in my own mind to become a 
 mechanic; so I set about learning the trade of a dresser and builder 
 of stone, which I followed, together with farming on a small scale, 
 for something like seven years. In justice to my father, I must here 
 say, that in the division of his property he gave me an equal portion 
 with my other brothers, or perhaps more than some of them. But 
 my advice to him then was to keep his property in his own hands 
 and take care of his insane son. My portion yielded me some five 
 hundred dollars, the principal part of which 1 expended in trying 
 to have myself healed the best way I knew how. 
 
 At about sixteen years of age I had become convicted of sin, and 
 convinced of the necessity of an interest in the atonement of a 
 crucified Redeemer. I attended the first camp-meeting ever held 
 at English's camp-ground, near Shilo meeting house, in Maury 
 county. I became awfully convicted during the three o'clock ser- 
 mon, on a Sunday evening. It was a remarkable circumstance, 
 and if it will not be an intrusion upon the reader I will give a short 
 and comprehensive account of my conviction and conversion, as I 
 conceive that the subject of religion was one of the subjects that 
 produced fanaticism. 
 
 Five other young persons and myself went to the spring to get 
 some cooling refreshment that flows from the bowels of the earth. 
 While at the spring a friend and acquaintance of mine made a 
 profession of religion in the woods and came to his tent shouting. 
 Some one of the company inquired what caused the noise. I
 
 CAUSE AND TREATMENT. 11 
 
 wickedly replied that I supposed another dog had professed religion. 
 We walked up to his tent, when he took me *y the hand and 
 exclaimed: "Young man, without religion you are forever lost!" 
 I saw a perceptible change in his countenance and expression from 
 what was usual with him. It struck my heart with terror, and I 
 turned and walked across the camp-ground to a brother's tent. I 
 thought every step I made would be the "last ; it seemed as if the 
 ground would open and swallow me up ; everything looked dull 
 and dreary ; the way of life to me seemed to be hedged up and 
 impassable. I, however, made out to get to the tent, and, like Saul 
 of Tarsus, fell flat on my face upon the ground. I lay for a while 
 in this position, then turned upon my back. Every sin that is 
 usual for boys to run into, and that I had been guilty of, came across 
 my mind and bore me to the earth as with the burthen of a heavy 
 yoke. I thought I was on the brink of an awful precipice, ready to 
 plunge into irrecoverable woe at the touch of the brittle thread of 
 life. I lay in this condition for the space of three or four hours, and 
 I could not have got upon my feet to have saved my life. All at 
 once, as quick as thought, this heavy load of sin and guilt was 
 removed, and I, lifted up by a higher power than man, placed upon 
 my feet. A brilliant light shone in my soul, and my first exclama- 
 tion was, " Glory be to him that ruleth on high !" Every thing 
 wore a different aspect the people looked lovely, and I thought 
 even the trees of the forest were making their obeisance to the 
 Creator of the world. Things I once loved I now hated, and things 
 I once hated I now loved : in short, I loved every body and every- 
 thing but sin, and above all I loved Him who had so mercifully 
 pardoned my sins, and given me this foretaste of Heaven. The 
 change was just as perceptible to me as the ink on this parchment 
 now is to the reader. I saw with the eye of faith, not with the 
 natural eye, the image of the Son of God clothed in a white robe, 
 with the injunction, "Follow thou me, and I will make thee a 
 fisher of men." I do not pretend to say that I heard these words 
 spoken with my natural ears, but these impressions were at that 
 time made on my mind. A new song was put into my mouth 
 even praises to the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of 
 the world. 
 
 I love to see the glowing sun 
 
 Light up the deep blue sky, 
 Along the pleasant fields to run, 
 
 And hear the brooks flow by. 
 
 How fresh and green the trees appear ; 
 
 What blooming flowers I find : 
 O, surely God hath placed them here 
 
 To tell us he is kind. 
 
 To Jesus let all children come, 
 
 For he hath said they may ; 
 His bosom then will be their home, 
 
 Their tears He'll wipe away.
 
 12 THE AUTHOR'S CASE. 
 
 The beasts that on the herbage browse 
 
 All thank him different ways, 
 And little birds upon the boughs 
 
 Sing sweetly to his praise. 
 
 Shall I alone forget to thank 
 
 The God who made us all ? 
 I'll kneel upon this mossy bank 
 
 And on my Maker call 
 
 Though I am but a little boy, 
 
 Yet I to God belong ; 
 His works are full of love and joy, 
 
 And He will hear my song. 
 
 If such a change as the one above alluded to be religion, I once 
 had it. Some of my readers might come to the conclusion that if I 
 ever had religion I have it yet. I will give my views more fully in 
 the latter part of my book on this subject, under the head of " The 
 Possibility of Apostacy." All the men in the world cannot convince 
 me, upon mature reflection of the matter, (since my mind has been 
 a little more composed than it was in 1842,) but what I was once a 
 converted man of God. I know all about religion, still I fear I know 
 nothing about how I lost sight of this good spirit. God only knows 
 I can't tell. However, I was taught to believe in the impossibility 
 of Apostacy, which I conceive to be a dangerous doctrine to preach 
 to a young convert. It is best to encourage them to prove faithful 
 until death, that they may receive a crown of life. 
 
 At about seventeen years of age I became anxious to connect my- 
 self with a religious family. Having been driven from the embraces 
 of my own relatives, I thought it advisable to form a connexion with 
 religious people that I might receive religious instruction. Hence I 
 married the daughter of an old minister of the Gospel, hoping to re- 
 ceive the advice of a father both temporally and spiritually, which I 
 did receive at his hands for a few years ; but when I became more 
 insane (the disease assuming the character of monomania, originat- 
 ing from moral insanity in the latter part of 1832, at which time I 
 was living on Cathey's creek, in Maury County, and about twenty- 
 three years of age,) he unfortunately took the wrong view of my 
 condition, and began to cease giving me parental advice, and com- 
 menced abuse, turning his kind treatment into evil treatment, which 
 made me sink into a further state of despondency. During the seven 
 years above alluded to, and within about two years after I was 
 married, I was violently attacked with bilious or nervous fever. I 
 sent for a physician within twenty-four hours. His course of treat- 
 ment was to take one quart of blood from the arm, give a severe 
 emetic, sixty grains of calomel, and twelve calomel pills, all in the 
 space of thirty hours, which was sufficient to kill a man in health. 
 From that attack I never fully recovered, though I have no doubt 
 the physician prescribed the course that he thought the most advi- 
 sable. It perhaps would not be amiss to remark here that two
 
 CAUSE AND TREATMENT. 13 
 
 years out of the seven I lived the life of an overseer, or manager of a 
 
 plantation, for a Judge K , then residing in Maury County. I 
 
 found in him a gentleman, but my employment an unpleasant busi- 
 ness. During all this time I was a member of the Methodist Epis- 
 copal Church, and a part of the time a class-leader living in the 
 enjoyment of religion and in the favor of God. 
 
 Isaac was ransomed while he lay 
 
 Upon the altar bound ; 
 Moses, an infant, cast away, 
 
 Pharaoh's own daughter found. 
 
 Joseph, by his false brethren sold, 
 
 God raised above them all ; 
 To Hannah's child the Lord foretold 
 
 How Eli's house should fall. 
 
 David the lordly lion slew, 
 
 And o'er Gath's champion trod ; 
 Josiah from his boyhood knew 
 
 His father David's God. 
 
 Children are thus Jehovah's care, 
 
 Thus youth may seek his face, 
 Since his own Son he did not spare 
 
 With him he gives all grace. 
 
 Grace, like the young of whom we read, 
 
 In him to put our trust, 
 ( Who proves in every time of need 
 As merciful as just. 
 
 Lord, while like them our course we run, 
 
 Be our Almighty friend, 
 And in the footsteps of thy Son, 
 
 Conduct my readers to the end. 
 
 Would no Pharaoh's daughter or Joseph's brethren wear the 
 laurels of finding me when a boy ? 
 
 We will again return to temporal matters. I defy man to pro- 
 duce one dollar of an unpaid debt that I contracted during this 
 seven years of my life. I worked hard, day in and day out, and 
 though I was not growing rich, I was living comfortably and doing 
 well enough, had I have had sense enough to have known it. I 
 would advise all young men to remain in the occupation to which 
 they are brought up. 
 
 The reader will understand that I was laboring under moral 
 insanity and monomania during these seven years. George Wash 
 ington, the Father of his country and first President of the United 
 States, and one of the signers of the Constitution, and Thomas 
 Jefferson, the third President of the United States, and the framer 
 of the Constitution, positively declared that no man should be pun- 
 ished for any crime he might commit when in a state of insanity. 
 They furthermore declared that the insane shall be reasonably 
 fed, clothed and furnished with medical aid at the expense of their
 
 14 THE AUTHOR'S CASE. 
 
 respective States. This one clause was sufficient of itself to have 
 immortalized those two noble spirits. Would to God their successors 
 in office had followed in their footsteps, and carried out the principles 
 of their illustrious predecessors. 
 
 At the end of these seven years above alluded to, I had a suffi- 
 ciency of household and kitchen furniture to live comfortably, a few 
 hundred dollars in cash, and cash claims on solvent men, that I had 
 earned by my trade, and my stock consisted of four head of young 
 horses, about fifty to sixty head of stock hogs ; a small stock of 
 cattle, principally milch cows, a small stock of sheep, about one 
 hundred and fifty barrels of corn, with other provender, plenty of 
 poultry, etc., and a good trade which I was master of, and was 
 indebted about fifty dollars. On this I had a wife and three small 
 children to support. 
 
 I had a friend X , then living in the town of Mt. , in 
 
 the State of T , who was raised behind a merchant's counter, 
 
 and then engaged in the mercantile business with a Mr. B. My 
 
 friend X had been, so far as I knew, a warm friend of mine 
 
 from our first acquaintance in boyhood. I was his true friend at the 
 time, and thought him to be mine, though I sometimes had fears of 
 his friendship. He proposed to me to sell all the property I could 
 spare and vest the proceeds in a small stock of goods, and open a 
 business at some country stand that I might select telling me that 
 it was the only business and the only road that led to fortune and 
 fame. Allured by the hope of wealth, and charmed by the voice of 
 fame, and he representing himself to be solvent, (though he was 
 insolvent, but kept his condition concealed from me,) and promising 
 that I should share equally and to give me all the advice requisite 
 to facilitate business, I finally consented, and sold all the property I 
 had except my household and kitchen furniture, one horse and 
 some milch cows. He thus led me from a trade that I was brought 
 up to and a master of, into one that soon became master of me, and 
 induced me to sell things that were real and invest the proceeds in 
 things that were not real ; he made me rich in one night on paper 
 by his extravagant calculations, and made everything look very 
 pleasing. Consequently we purchased a small stock of dry goods 
 and groceries, amounting to about fifteen hundred or two thousand 
 dollars. I took them to Swan Creek, in Hickman county, and 
 opened business in the name of my friend and myself. He did not 
 advance one dollar as capital in the concern. 1 sold by retail on 
 credit and some for cash, and for the first two and a half years I 
 did well my balance sheet showing a nett profit of about five 
 thousand dollars. I replenished our stock quarterly at Nashville. 
 During this time new banks were springing up everywhere, and 
 money was quite plenty. At about the expiration of this time my 
 friend X - purchased his friend B.'s stock of goods and property 
 for himself and me. He was so much pleased with my course in 
 business that he made the purchase without my knowledge or con-
 
 CAUSE AND TREATMENT. 15 
 
 sent, having had no previous understanding with me on the subject 
 of the trade, which was contrary to my wish. By this time the old 
 concern of himself and friend B. had become in quite an embar- 
 rassed condition; and in my absence, without having said one single 
 word to me on the subject, he drew bills on a commission house in 
 New Orleans to the amount of some six or eight thousand dollars 
 (I never could ascertain the precise amount, as I had no way to find 
 out only through him, and he would not tell me) in the name of 
 the new concern, and used the proceeds to pay the debts of the old. 
 He purchased cotton at a high price to meet said bills, upon the sale 
 of which cotton we sustained a loss of four thousand dollars, which 
 brought the new concern into an embarrassed condition with the 
 old. I was not well pleased with this treatment, nor with the idea 
 that what I had accumulated in the two and a half years should be 
 thus swept from me by the intrigues of a man who professed to be 
 my best friend. It caused my confidence to be further shaken in 
 him, and I therefore proposed that we would dissolve partnership, 
 that I might return to a farm and my trade. But he boasted that 
 he had me under his thumb just where he wanted me, and there he 
 intended to keep me. In the meantime, he had promised faithfully 
 that if I should become- mentally deranged at any time during the 
 existence of our partnership, he would see to my proper treatment 
 until I recovered. He professed to have a perfect knowledge of the 
 disease, and wished for a violent case, that he might show the 
 people how he could effect a cure. I was laboring under this awful 
 malady at that very moment, and repeatedly asked his opinion, 
 candidly, in regard to my case expressing my opinion that I was a 
 fit subject for the Lunatic Asylum at Nashville. He made light of 
 my fears of insanity, and said that the institution at Nashville was 
 not intended for people of my class that I would not be received 
 there, and that it was designed only for the rich and great of the 
 land. He said he would have nothing to do in placing me there, 
 and was glad no one else would. He wished to keep me at home, 
 that he might cheat, defraud and abuse me. He thus compelled me 
 to do the hardships and drudgery of the concern for ten years, and 
 I a dying man ! These circumstances caused the disease to change 
 its form from moral insanity and monomania to mania or raving 
 madness, accompanied with epilepsy, about the time or soon after 
 he drew those bills on New Orleans. The banks in parts of the 
 United States began to suspend specie payments, and the moneyed 
 concerns of the country became dull and dreary. I made fine col- 
 lections during these two and a half years, and in the meantime, 
 during the winter season, bought live pork of my customers and 
 sent it to Alabama, which yielded a small profit. My friend X 
 received through rny hands twenty thousand dollars, more or less, 
 and how he applied it he and his God only knows I cannot tell. 
 He would draw instruments of writing, or bonds, and read them 
 over to me, affirming that they were just as he read them, and the
 
 16 
 
 THE AUTHOR'S CASE. 
 
 gentleman in whose favor they were drawn was in a great hurry 
 that it was unnecessary for me to read them, but to sign them 
 quick saying that he would take no advantage of me, etc. 
 When, however, these writings were presented for liquidation, they 
 turned out to be entirely different to what they were at first repre- 
 ,ented. 
 
 I made some improvements during this time, and from the one 
 store grew a little village styled Palestine, which was in a prosper- 
 ous condition. This brought me up to the spring of 1835, when I 
 visited Philadelphia, by the way of Wheeling and Baltimore, for 
 the purpose of replenishing our stock of goods. In the meantime 
 I*had become partially deaf, originating, I suppose, from the attack 
 of bilious or nervous fever before alluded to. At times I could 
 hear as well as any man then again it would be that I could not 
 hear more than every third or fourth word, and would have to 
 guess at the balance. For six weeks, at one time in my life, I 
 could not hear it thunder. Then again my hearing would return. 
 What would the reader say of a man who would seek advantage 
 of another while in this condition ? God commands us to do unto 
 others as we would have others do unto us. Thus I was first cheated 
 out of my property and money, and then defrauded out of the 
 privileges of a free but insane citizen, guaranteed to me by the laws 
 of my country. 
 
 I remained at this town of Palestine for three years longer, 
 struggling hard to recover the loss sustained upon the cotton pur- 
 chased by Mr. X , all of which time he was leading an unfor- 
 tunate brother of mine (who was, like myself, laboring under 
 insanity) into endorsement after endorsement, and one eternal bond- 
 age after bondage, endeavoring to repair the old concern with the 
 means and upon the credit of my brother and myself. My brothel 
 was not to blame for my misfortune nor I for his, for we were both 
 dethroned of mental powers. I would not ask him to endorse for 
 us, neither would I ask any other person, except in a very few 
 instances, for I knew there was danger. I am told now 'that Mr. 
 X - is circulating a report that I was the cause of his embarrass- 
 ment. After the above statement, I leave the reader to determine 
 who produced the insolvency the party that was solvent at the 
 time the partnership and endorsements were entered into, or the 
 party that was insolvent. My brother and myself were solvent, 
 
 and X and his brother were insolvent which brother of his 
 
 led me, in the meantime, into an endorsement with him upon an 
 administration bond of ten thousand dollars, upon which endorse- 
 ment my credit sunk twenty-five per cent, in one month right at 
 home. But the bond was signed and filed in the clerk's office, and 
 it was then too late to recall it. They professed to be my warm 
 friends, but were my secret enemies my life was at stake every 
 hour, and instead of assisting me in time of need, they were running 
 about the streets and through the neighborhood hunting up and
 
 CAUSE AND TREATMENT. 17 
 
 circulating evil reports against me, and seeking every advantage 
 of me in their power. 
 
 During the last three years I did business in Palestine, I found an 
 increase in the sale of goods, but a decline in collections that did 
 not count well. I became weary of the business and sold out the 
 property and stock of goods to one of my former clerks and a neigh- 
 boring mechanic. The sale amounted to about five thousand two 
 hundred dollars, and I, maniac-like, placed the bonds in the hands 
 of Mr. X , besides sending him, for the previous three years, 
 by his spies and runners, all the money I could collect, say about 
 fifteen thousand dollars, more or less. I placed the books and notes 
 on our customers in the hands of our successors in business togethqf 
 with a former clerk, to act as my agents in the collection of the 
 money due us at that place, which was at that time between twelve 
 and fifteen thousand dollars determined in my own mind to return 
 to a farm and aid personally in winding up the concern. 
 
 This brought me up to the first of January, 1838. In a few days 
 after this I was persuaded by this man X , my partner in busi- 
 ness, to visit the town of Carrollville, Wayne county, Tennessee, 
 and purchase a half acre lot and appurtenances, together with a 
 stock of dry goods, which purchase I made at his strong solicitation, 
 amounting in all to about eight thousand dollars, and opened a new 
 business in the name of Mr. X and myself. I visited Louis- 
 ville, Kentucky, for the purpose of replenishing our stock of goods, 
 while my partner was at home shaving off notes, drawing bills and 
 getting our own paper discounted in bank, receiving all the money 
 collecting at Palestine, leading the honest yeomanry of the country 
 into endorsement after endorsement, and driving me through thick 
 and thin, wet and dry, heat and cold. We ordered a stock of goods 
 from New- York in the spring of 1838, for both houses, fifty -five miles 
 apart. In addition to this, I received a lot of groceries from New- 
 Orleans on consignment, consisting of two hundred sacks of coffee 
 and a small lot of sugar, and was supplied with salt on consignment 
 during my stay in business there. In addition to this I replenished 
 our stock of dry goods occasionally from Louisville, by orders, and 
 groceries from New-Orleans. I remained in business there two 
 years, and -during the time the sales for groceries and salt on con- 
 signment amounted to twenty-five thousand dollars cash, and the 
 same amount for dry goods, more or less not recollecting the pre- 
 cise amount all this time sending groceries to supply my partner's 
 store, and remitting him all the money I received for sales and col- 
 lections, amounting to the amount of the sales, except what I paid 
 over for salt and groceries on consignment, and even sent him a 
 large portion of that money. He kept up his spies and runners all 
 the time to receive money and prevent me from running away. I 
 can inform the gentleman that I never run away except in imagin- 
 atien I run beside myself, as a great many other men have done. 
 He never sent to me for money but what 1 sent him all I had re- 
 
 2
 
 18 THE AUTHOR'S CASE. 
 
 serving 1 only a few dollars to buy provisions to sustain life. I sent 
 him two thousand dollars at one time, and three thousand in a few 
 days afterwards was counted out to him by the writer, with a faith- 
 ful pledge that he would replace the whole five thousand at any 
 time when called for. I sent for it in the space of two or three 
 months afterwards, and also sent a one thousand dollar bank note 
 by the clerk to be changed. I was under a hard press for the money 
 at the time, but instead of sending me the five thousand dollars, he 
 used two hundred out of the thousand dollar bill, and sent the clerk 
 back with eight hundred dollars. When lie would get all the money 
 I had he would abuse me for not having more still drawing bills 
 and buying cotton to meet said bills, to pay the debts of the old con- 
 cern. I was taken suddenly sick in the fall of the last year two 
 doctors were called in and Mr. X - sent for. My family were 
 sick also. My disease was pronounced congestive fever, but they 
 never thought of crying out insanity the doctors either forgot that 
 word or had never learned it, and they poured enough calomel into 
 my system to have killed a horse. They treated the case as a com- 
 mon fever no protective measures were adopted either by my friends 
 or physicians at least if there were I never could discover it, and I 
 watched with the eye of an eagle to see if any of them would make 
 one bare effort at any time in my life beyond that of an ordinary 
 sane man. Such effort was never made until I arrived at my pre- 
 sent condition. Mr. X - remained all night and part of next 
 day, administering upon my estate, and I a dying maniac. I noticed 
 in his administration that he was smart enough to carry all the 
 money off with him. It is best not to administer upon a man's es- 
 tate while dying you perhaps might shorten his days by it. A 
 man likes to see his friends when he is sick, and he also likes for 
 them to take care of him until he is well. One of the doctors went 
 off in a few days, pronouncing me a dying man, and the other said 
 I was getting well. I finally recovered partially from my sickness, 
 as did my family also none of us quite died that season, but came 
 very near it. My life was in the hands of my God, but every thing 
 else I had was in possession of my friends 'and physicians. In jus- 
 tice to the two young men in my employ as clerks, I believe they 
 did the best they could under the circumstances. 
 
 The reader will perceive that Mr. X received, through my 
 
 hands, from first to last, in cash, cash claims, and groceries, up- 
 wards of one hundred thousand dollars. At the end of this two 
 years I determined in my own mind to sell out at Carrollville and 
 wind up the dreadful machine. I accordingly sold out to a neigh- 
 boring mercantile firm, and the sale of the lot and improvements 
 thereon, together with the remaining stock of goods, amounted to 
 about eight thousand dollars. I sent Mr. X - the bonds received 
 on said sale. He certainly should have grown very rich byj,his 
 time. I purchased a small farm about five miles from town, and 
 moved my family out to it for health during the next summer.
 
 CAUSE AND TREATMENT. 19 
 
 which brought me up to 1840. The bosom companion of my youth, 
 and whom I loved above all others, was taken from me by the God 
 who gave her, together with my youngest daughter. In the mean 
 
 time Mr. X was getting out writs to have me tried for my life ; 
 
 for what reason he did not know, nor do I believe he cared at the 
 same time professing to be a friend to the insane. I would still cite 
 him to the Lunatic Asylum, telling him that I was a fit subject for 
 it. He had it in his power to walk across a camp-ground and save 
 my life, but would not do it. 
 
 But his friend for nought he could abuse ; 
 When aid was asked he would refuse ; 
 Nor would he give a cooling drink 
 To save a friend from death's dark brink. 
 
 How holds the chain which friendship wove T 
 It broke and soon the hearts it bound 
 
 Were widely sundered, and for peace 
 Envy, and strife, and blood, were found. 
 
 The merriest laugh which then was heard 
 Has changed its tone to maniac screams, 
 
 As half quenched memory kindles up 
 
 Glimm'rings of guilt and feverish dreams. 
 
 And where is she whose diamond eyes 
 Golconda's purest gems outshone, 
 
 Whose roseate lips of Eden breathed ; 
 Say where is she, the beauteous one ? 
 
 Beneath yon willow's drooping shade, 
 With eyes now dim and lips all pale, 
 
 She sleeps in peace read on her urn, 
 A broken heart this tells her tale. 
 
 And where is he, that tower of strength 
 Whose fate with hers for life was joined ? 
 
 How beats his heart, once honor's throne 
 How high has soared his daring mind 
 
 Go to the Asylum's room to-night ; 
 
 His wasted form, his aching head, 
 And all that now remains of him 
 
 Lies shuddering on a maniac's bed. 
 
 Ask you of all these woes the cause ? 
 
 The festal board the enticing bowl 
 Too often came, and reason fled, 
 
 And maddened passions spurned control. 
 
 Learn wisdom then the frequent feast 
 Avoid, for there with stealthy tread 
 
 Temptation walks to lure you on, 
 
 Till Death at last his banquet spreads. 
 
 Then shun, O shun the enchanted bowl 
 Though now its draught like joy appears, 
 
 Ere long it will be fanned by sighs, 
 And sadly mixed with blood and tears
 
 20 THE AUTHOR'S CASE. 
 
 When I came to get into the whole secret of the matter, Mr. 
 X - had led me into his financial concerns in bank, to the 
 amount of about forty-five thousand dollars, and about thirty 
 thousand dollars to wholesale merchants and farmers, and bound 
 me as endorser with him on broken paper for about seventy-five 
 thousand dollars more making in all, at the end of the ten years 
 in which he was to make me rich, about one hundred and fifty 
 thousand dollars a nice way of making a man rich. The banks 
 took from me, under the hammer, a house and lot worth two thou- 
 sand dollars at two hundred, by what they called a kind of lien. 
 This is a specimen of their course with most of my real estate and 
 cash claims, up to the time I was brought here: What they have 
 done since I do not know, but they treated me like a stranger be- 
 fore. I thought they would have had some conscience in my case, 
 as I was not personally the financier nor the borrower of their 
 money. If they are disposed to act justly, they will yet give me 
 credit for all the real estate and cash claims deposited with them 
 at a fair price, for when property changes owners it should change 
 at fair value. If the reader is out of bank I would advise him to 
 stay out. 
 
 As I have touched upon the subject of religion, the reader might 
 pause for a moment and say, " You are not in principle a Baptist, 
 and you are not a Presbyterian pray tell what you are." I am 
 nearer a Methodist in principle than any thing else. If the Methodist 
 Episcopal Church would use but one mode of baptism, and that by 
 immersion, as was immersed the son of God by John in the river 
 Jordan, and wash one another's feet, as did he and his disciples, and 
 receive no member into their churches without an experimental 
 knowledge of a change of heart from nature to grace. With these 
 three amendments to their present discipline, and if the balance 
 of the orthodox churches would concentrate upon this one church, 
 the religious part of the community would be nearer to the footsteps 
 of Him who came to save you than any people since the days of the 
 Apostles. One Lord, one faith, one baptism. We will here give 
 you a metaphor: Suppose your friend dies what would be your 
 course of interment ? Would you not dig a grave, make a coffin, 
 and place in it the corpse and lower it into the bowels of the earth, 
 and fill up the grave? Or would you place them on their knees, 
 and sprinkle or pour a small portion of dirt on their heads? Just 
 so with baptism. When you would baptize a living soul, would 
 you not bury them in the water and let the waves close over 
 them ? Then you may say with truth that a soul has been buried in 
 baptism, but in sprinkling and pouring you cannot say that. Philip 
 and the Eunuch both went down into the water, and he baptized 
 him. What did they both go down into the water for, if he was 
 not baptized by immersion ? " You must be buried with me in 
 baptism," saith He who came to save you. Still, baptism is 
 not the putting away the filth of the flesh, but the answer of
 
 CAUSE AND TREATMENT. 21 
 
 a good conscience. If you should think my views to be scat- 
 tering, just bring them in one grand chain and you can make 
 them link. 
 
 The writer of this does not claim to have ever fought for his 
 country ; but he has seen the day he would have done so had it 
 been necessary. I had one brother that fought in the Creek war 
 and lived on raw-hides, and another who served under the illustri- 
 ous Jackson at the battle of New-Orleans. I was then quite a small 
 boy. but I would have marched out with as much zeal as any boy 
 in the nation, and, had it been necessary, would have scaled the walls 
 of a fort, torn down the batteries and thundered grape-shot into the 
 very mouths of the enemy. But if the reader will remember, there 
 was no call to fight for this country from the time I was fifteen years 
 of age up to the date of 1832 between those two dates I held my- 
 self ready. At about eighteen years of age I received the appoint- 
 ment of adjutant-major of a regiment of Tennessee militia, and in 
 1832 I became a candidate to fill the vacancy occasioned by the 
 resignation of the colonel ; but some who had professed to be my 
 best friends (and some of them my relations) proved false and cast 
 their votes for a man who had never held office in the regiment, and 
 thus defeated me. I therefore felt under no obligations to fight for 
 these pretended friends, but thought if he was their man at home 
 he might fight their battles abroad. If his father fought for his 
 country, so did my brothers so we were equal on that score. 
 
 But, says the reader, you have got to fighting battles. Pray tell 
 us how you would fight a battle ? I would fight to the best advan- 
 tage, and that would be to whip the enemy ; and if I had the com- 
 mand of a battle I would make a bold rush upon the weak point, 
 fire off my small arms first, keep them in hot play, and not let them 
 rest one moment. I would keep my 'eyes skinned, and hold back 
 the big guns in reserve until I saw the main body of the army 
 heave in view. Thus the enemy might suppose I had no artillery, 
 and I would take them by surprise. Hold on to the big gun, boys, 
 if you let the enemy get possession of it you are gone. If I had 
 possession of a fort I would keep it as long as I had a man or 
 a weapon to fight with ; and if the enemy had possession, I would 
 take the fort as if by thunder storm, with cannon balls and grape- 
 shot ; and if I was fighting a swamp fight I would fight upon the 
 plan of Gen. Francis Marion. Read his life, and you will learn how 
 Jasper and Newton released the prisoners. Some time in 1840 I 
 started to move to an adjoining county from the one I then lived in. 
 A doctor who held a balance of a note on me, for which I was 
 bound as security, and of which I had paid about two-thirds, and 
 was making arrangements to pay the balance, (upwards of two hun- 
 dred dollars) when he had me arrested with a writ of capias ad 
 respondendum, for the purpose of having my body imprisoned, when, 
 strictly speaking, I might have bwu considered his insane patient. 
 He was one of the doctors called in when I took sick at Carrollville.
 
 22 THE AUTHOR'S CASE. 
 
 This was a nice way to heal insanity. I took out a damage writ 
 for him, and when brought before the court a judgment was render- 
 ed against me for the cost of the damage suit, which was erroneous, 
 and perhaps prejudicial though it was not the first erroneous judg- 
 ment rendered against me by a few. During this year and in 1841 
 I gave up all my property and means into the hands of my friends 
 
 who were bound for me and Mr. X , to be sold by the officers, 
 
 or to be disposed of as they might think proper. How much is yet 
 unpaid I cannot tell, but if they have and will keep their accounts 
 straight, and give all just credits at a fair rate, they may yet see the 
 day that they may get the principal part or all of their money es- 
 pecially those who have lost by endorsements, or loaned me money 
 at lawful interest and what money they do receive shall be applied 
 by a pro rata distribution, without regard to size or men, if they 
 don't get to serving garnishments and injure the sale of this work. 
 Those who have taken the benefit of the bankrupt law will of course 
 not expect to receive any thing. 
 
 During this time my unfortunate brother, who had borne a libe- 
 ral part of my difficulties for ten years, came to his death. This 
 bereavement sunk me into a still further state of insanity. May 
 the Lord in his mercy remember his widow and orphans ; I will re- 
 member them in temporal things. 
 
 In the fall and winter of this year I purchased two flat-boat loads 
 of pipe staves on Tennessee river and floated them to New-Orleans. 
 1 worked hard at the oars on my way down, being over anxious to 
 pay debts. I was taken with a further relapse of fever, insanity and 
 epilepsy, and waen I arrived at the port, of destination the article 
 was selling low in market and money was scarce. Hence my trip 
 was not profitable, and after disposing of my lumber and paying a 
 bill of six hundred dollars in New-Orleans, together with the pay- 
 ment of hands and other contingent expenses incurred, I had but 
 little money left. I took passage on board the steamboat New Al- 
 bany, bound for Florence, Alabama. While coining up, my life 
 seemed still more dreary. I went ashore in Perry county, out of 
 heart, out of money, and nearly out of friends. I walked several 
 
 miles to the house of a friend C , and stayed all night with 
 
 him, and he loaned me a horse to ride home. He then had it in his 
 power to save my life and win great laurels to his brow both in time 
 and eternity. 1 travelled the next day shivering with cold and fear. 
 This brought me up to the 12th day of February, 1842. Within 
 about one mile of Palestine, where I had sustained heavy losses, and 
 within about five mjles of Merriwether Lewis' grave, I dismounted 
 my horse, took from my pocket a weapon, and in a freak of insan- 
 ity and raving madness, with a severe fit of epilepsy, I put an end 
 to all things with me for a while. I have but a faint recollection of 
 this act ; not sufficient to give the reader a full and correct detail. 
 I am told that I was found in this condition and carried into a house, 
 and through the goodness of God, and medical aid. I was brought to
 
 CAUSE AND TREATMENT. 23 
 
 for some purpose, He only knows what perhaps to write this book 
 for the benefit of the people for just as the mind directs the pen 
 doth move. I was there taken care of and treated kindly for a day 
 or two, and all the time by a part of the community ; another part 
 began to hold their grand councils, I was treated especially well by 
 the landlord and his family, the physicians and my brothers, with, 
 some others of their neighbors, for which kind treatment they will 
 please receive my hearty thanks. But the great misfortune was, 
 they took the case in hand just eighteen years too late. Or, per- 
 haps, if they had taken it in hand ten years earlier it might have 
 answered a very good purpose. However, I never was treated as 
 an insane man one single day of my life up to that time. 
 
 At which time they held their grand councils. 
 
 And sentenced that I should be shot ; 
 But he who rules the seas and mountains 
 
 Sent judgments on them which said they should not. 
 A nice sentence to pass on an insane man, 
 
 The writer's ideas they were keen to borrow, 
 The one who was to pull the trigger had better held a fan, 
 
 That they intended to have me shot to-morrow. 
 This they tried from me to keep concealed, 
 
 But their plans to me were all revealed. 
 
 I will here give an elegy in poetry to the memory of Meriwether 
 Lewis, who, in company with his friend Clarke, explored the Rocky 
 Mountains : 
 
 A Lewis and a Clarke were both great. 
 
 But of the two Lewis was the greatest of the great 
 
 He was by his country bartered, 
 
 And so was my brother and I, 
 
 And with them I desired to die. 
 
 L.'s condition no man could detect; 
 
 Will Tennessee never o'er his grave a monument erectt 
 
 I've stood by his grave and mourned the cross 
 
 That a man of so much worth was to his country lost. 
 
 I've heard that dead men could not talk, 
 
 But I can both talk and walk, 
 
 And I've been as dead as any man you ever saw, 
 
 Either by natural death or law, 
 
 And with my pen I can write, 
 
 I'll keep my country's cause in sight. 
 
 One mile with a broken heart I could not come. 
 
 Five, fifteen and forty were the ones I most did love, 
 
 I had travelled them an hundred times before, 
 
 And am travelling them millions more. 
 
 I believe if I had been placed under the same kind of treatment at 
 any time between the age of fifteen and the date of 1832, for six 
 months, that I have received since I have been an inmate of this 
 institution, that I would this day have been a sound and useful man 
 among my readers. But I could get no man to act either tor love 
 or money, only at just such times and in such way as they saw
 
 24 THE AUTHOR'S CASE. 
 
 proper. I offered a reward of five hundred dollars for any man to 
 detect my condition and act upon it as they should do. I would have 
 paid it cheerfully ; but. on the contrary, some of my friends told me 
 that their Bibles taught them to cheat, and defraud, and abuse me. 
 I told them to watch close that not one single passage could be 
 found in the Bible wherein they were authorized to cheat and defraud 
 any man, much less an insane man. But you can find in the Bible 
 where you are commanded to heal, teach, and take care of those who 
 are diseased either in body or mind let the disease be of whatever 
 character it may and to see that they be not cheated and defraud- 
 ed, and to feed the hungry and to clothe the naked. Some of the 
 very same men who had always refused to treat my condition as 
 that of an insane man, and had stood opposed to bringing me here, 
 when it was then forever too late, seemed to be very wrathy, and 
 wanted to know why I had not given them the credit of treating my 
 case. 
 
 I now give the reader a view of the past eighteen years in 
 poetry : 
 
 REVIEW. 
 
 My first physician can take back his calomel of sixty grains, 
 
 To take his twelve pills was pretty tough, 
 They all my constitution broke and destroyed my brains; 
 
 So the reader might well suppose my road was pretty rough 
 The quart of blood made me so weak 
 
 I could not plough to make meat and bread, 
 I was for some time I could not dpeak, 
 . His emetic was too severe for much about it to be said. 
 
 My second can take back his grains forty-five, 
 
 My third' can take back his thirty; 
 For under such a course no man could survive, 
 
 So this all lamped together looks quite dirty ; 
 When this they, see they'd better keep as still as mice 
 
 Such a course might do to physic a horse, 
 For if I write again I'll write twice or thrice ; 
 
 Thus they left me half dead or worse. 
 
 The man I am now with gives grains from ten to twenty, 
 
 And he of course should know, 
 And he says it is a plenty ; 
 
 He heals men as fast as they can come and go. 
 They had just as well, in a rage of fury. 
 
 Hang their patients without judge or jury. 
 Mr. X. can take back his razor, 
 
 And use it to scrape an Irish grazier. 
 
 Eighteen years they had to cheat and defraud, 
 
 They were keen for eighteen more, 
 To abuse the writer both at home and abroad, 
 
 But, alas ! they found him laying in blood and gore ; 
 And then they undertook to heal, 
 
 But ah ! it was too late 
 To their surprise he did reveal 
 
 To them their eternal fate.
 
 CAUSE AND TREATMENT. 25 
 
 In the past eighteen they lost many laurels, 
 
 And instead of healing their insane, 
 They sought for many quarrels, 
 
 And now have nothing to abuse but his remains. 
 They set themselves up as perfect judges, 
 
 And promised that they would show 
 But they cut so many splurges 
 
 It caused me to strike the blow. 
 
 They held their Bibles taught them thus, 
 
 I told them, then, they were mistaken ; 
 No Bible teaches you to make a fuss 
 
 Around a man whose head and heart is breaking. 
 They turned 'their dying insane out of doors, 
 
 And thought they were doing something great 
 To wait and see the blood stream from all the pores, 
 
 They were keen to see the writer's fate. 
 
 To take care of their insane they were too good. 
 
 Lest in the act expenses should incur, 
 This they told me from my boyhood, 
 
 To treat my case they would refer ; 
 They promised that in years one 
 
 They would have all things done 
 But then they thought they must have two 
 
 In which they gave nothing new 
 
 But then they required a third, 
 
 And in it they lost their bird ; 
 And they fed me through the fourth 
 
 On nothing else but boiling broth. 
 Then again they must have five, 
 
 In it to abuse and drive ; 
 And affirmed in the year six, 
 
 That they would all things fix 
 
 Then they must have the seven- 
 Thus they run from eight to eleven, 
 
 And in twelve, thirteen and fourteen, 
 They were all engaged in sporting ; 
 
 And in fifteen and sixteen 
 
 They their plans were fixing, 
 
 And in seventeen and eighteen, 
 
 They might still be seen a waiting. 
 
 But in them all, eighteen in number, 
 
 They did commit an awful blunder, 
 Their poor insane they all forgot, 
 
 To heal the writer they would not. 
 But they had to drink his blood 
 
 Because they left him in the mud 
 Some of them expressed great sorrow, 
 
 I hope they'll all be better by to-morrow 
 
 They then required another year 
 
 In it they would act sincere ; 
 The writer had them years eternal, 
 
 And bid farewell to his dear colonel. 
 In spite of all their spleen and hate, 
 
 The fame of this work will be great, 
 They will have to face it on the final day, 
 
 When they will not know what to say.
 
 26 THE AUTHOR'S CASE. 
 
 In conclusion of the short sketch of my own case, I must here, in 
 justice to my old friends and new acquaintances, say that since I 
 have been here, ladies and gentlemen of the first respectability in 
 the city of Nashville, have received me into their houses, and treated 
 me with hospitality and respect. 
 
 And in return for their pure friendship 
 
 I've give them my advice how to worship. 
 
 To name them all 'twould be too tedious, 
 
 I hope they are and will become religious j 
 
 When this work comes out, if people think it fin< 
 
 My heirs will keep it up through all time ; 
 
 And when before the public laid, 
 
 A second edition can be made. 
 
 And when the first and second is blended 
 
 The secret will not be half ended. 
 
 I have written many pages 
 
 On it I will try for wages. 
 
 My children must be fed and clad, 
 
 For weaving of the first web I'll be glad.
 
 THE AUTHOR,
 
 INSANITY. 
 
 IN the first place, there is a difference between insanity and 
 idiotism. An idiot is a foolish male or female, in an entirely help- 
 less condition. An insane man or woman is one who is deranged 
 and dethroned of the power of thinking- for and the capacity of taking 
 care of themselves one who, in a fit of epilepsy, would tear out his 
 own eyes one who has some very good ideas on some subjects and 
 very bad ones on others one who is subject to be led about by the 
 whims of a perverse generation of people a monomaniac or a ma- 
 niac. All men that are insane are not insane on the same subject. 
 Some men are insane upon one subject and some upon another, 
 some upon one subject and not upon others, and some are insane 
 upon all subjects. Insanity is not produced from the same cause in 
 every case : it is produced from various causes, and there are differ- 
 ent grades of the disease some men are partially insane and some 
 are wholly insane. Under these different heads the disease is pro- 
 duced as follows : 
 
 1. It is hereditary in some families the son inherits the father's 
 estate and sometimes his disease. 
 
 2. It is sometimes produced from the death of a near relation 01 
 of a bosom friend. Two hearts may be united in bonds of affection 
 one of them may die and the other become a wandering maniac. 
 
 3. It is sometimes produced from religious excitement. Some 
 men become insane upon the subjects of religion, death and eternal 
 judgment three of the most dangerous subjects that a man can 
 become insane upon. 
 
 4. It is frequently produced from sudden hard spells of sickness, 
 fevers, &c., and sometimes by much study. 
 
 5. It is sometimes produced from sudden disappointment and mis- 
 fortunes, or reverse of fortune. 
 
 6. Sometimes it is produced from sudden fright and dread of con- 
 sequences. 
 
 7. It is sometimes produced from disappointed affection. 
 
 8. It is sometimes produced from a change of occupation where 
 
 29
 
 30 INSANITY. 
 
 one has been brought up at one trade and led to forsake it in the 
 prime of life and engage in another. 
 
 9. It is sometimes produced from pretended friendship professing 
 to be a man's friend and all the time his secret enemy. That thing 
 called pretended friendship, when a man's life is at stake, is the 
 most degrading thing on earth. 
 
 10. It is sometimes produced from close application to business, but 
 never from a relaxation of business. 
 
 11. It is oftener produced from maltreatment and abusive lan- 
 guage than anything else. It is never produced from kind treat- 
 ment. 
 
 12. It is sometimes produced from intemperance and opium eating. 
 Then, again, on the contrary, it is sometimes the case, that intemper- 
 ance is produced by insanity from the want of having good 
 examples se"t before the subject in early life, or the want of proper 
 parental care and advice from the want of proper tuition and 
 training of the mind. Train up a child in the way he should go, 
 and when he becomes old he will not depart from it. So says the 
 book of all books, by which we should all be governed. 
 
 13. A joint may be dislocated, an inflammation take place and 
 extend to the brain, thereby producing insanity. 
 
 14. The liver may be affected so as to produce insanity. 
 
 15. The spine and marrow may be affected and thereby produce 
 insanity. 
 
 16. There is a ligament running from the shoulder to the brain 
 that may be so affected as to produce insanity. 
 
 17. The brain itself may be affected and thereby produce insanity. 
 In short, a disease may locate itself in any part of the system and 
 
 extend to the brain, thereby producing insanity, monomania or 
 rnania, and raving madness. There are many, other causes, such 
 as over-exertion, exposure, sudden changes from heat to cold, going 
 into the water after having taken mercury or calomel, the loss of 
 sleep or appetite, and game-making, tittering and laughing at a 
 man's misfortunes, blows on the head, etc. ; but those under the 
 above specified heads are the principal leading and grand causes. 
 
 The disease may be healed as easily as any other disease in the 
 world, if taken in time, and there are but two plans by which a cure 
 can be effected. The manner of treatment should be as follows: 
 
 It requires, in the first place, that the friends of the subject take 
 the case in hands. If an insane man is left to have himself healed, 
 he is just as apt to kill himself as to heal himself, and more apt. 
 It requires medical aid where you are not blessed with an insane 
 hospital. One very good plan is to place the subject under the care 
 of a very careful physician, and let him alone be the judge of the 
 case, and not listen to one single word that may be said by common 
 people about the condition of his patient ; give not one single 
 abusive word, nor suffer any one else to abuse, and let him show by 
 his conduct as well as by his words that he may confide in him.
 
 TREATMENT. 31 
 
 Notwithstanding you should show all this kind protection, you 
 should at the same time deal with candor when you see your pa- 
 tient's life at stake but act kindly, speak kindly, and treat kindly, 
 administer your medicine in small doses, and repeat them often. 
 Mild emetics and purgatives are the most valuable remedies ; a 
 seaton in the back of the neck is sometimes useful. Feed upon 
 light diet, such as rice, tea, milk and mush, squirrel or chicken soup, 
 and a limb of the flesh, with loaf bread. The physician must be 
 very certain that he is not mistaken in the condition of his patient, 
 and not pronounce him sane until he is sane, nor well until he is 
 well. The patient must be taken from the transactions of all busi- 
 ness while healing. All the physicians in. the world cannot heal 
 the disease and require the subject to transact a heavy business. 
 They must also be taken from the presence of any person or persons, 
 and from the presence of any of the cirucnmstances which may 
 have produced the disease. It must be taken upon from the first to 
 the third stages of the disease. There are just as many stages of 
 the disease as there are nerves or fibres in the brain ; I do not know 
 how many nerves or fibres there are, nor do I believe any other man 
 knows, threfore I cannot tell how many grades there are in the 
 disease, but there are a great many ; the first nerve may become af- 
 fected or lose its balance, and if you neglect the restoring of it the 
 contagion will extend to the second, and from the second to the 
 third, and if not taken in hands at this stage it will extend to the 
 fourth, and from this to the fifth running from one to the other 
 through the brain or around the forehead in rapid successions, until 
 the whole becomes diseased, be they more or less. 
 
 We will suppose the disease to locate itself in the right temple, 
 and extend through the nerves until it terminates its dreadful pro- 
 gress in the last nerve, which is in the left temple. At this juncture 
 of time it would be impossible to effect a cure. The better plan of 
 healing is to bring them to the Insane Institution at Nashville, 
 Tennessee, or some other lunatic asylum nearest your reach, and 
 place them under the care of men appointed by the State to take 
 care of such persons. I have been an inmate of the above named 
 institution for the last three years, in the last stage of the disease, 
 and I must here, in justice to the practising physician, trustees, 
 matrons, and assistant officers, say, that in point of hospitality, pru- 
 dence and care, they may be equalled, but cannot be surpassed. It 
 is too frequently the case that in many families they select their 
 insane to cheat and defraud, abuse and bemean, and force them to 
 do the hardships and drudgery of their business, when they should 
 be taking care of them. If God, in wisdom and mercy, blesses 
 you with the power of thinking for, and the capacity of taking care 
 of yourself, and he creates you half a dozen sons, all sane but one, 
 and let that one be the first, second, third, fourth, fifth or last, it is 
 made your especial duty to provide for that insane one in preference 
 to all others not to excess or extravagance, for insanity does not
 
 32 INSANITY 
 
 know when it is running into extremes it is simply your duty to 
 reasonably feed, clothe and protect them, and to use all due means 
 and all due diligence in due time, by which you may have them 
 healed, taught and taken care of; and it is unbecoming in the 
 others to throw up to the parent that he is taking care of the insane 
 one, or even hint to him that he is doing so, for it is no more than 
 his duty. It would be more credit to them to aid the parent in 
 taking care of the insane one, than throw up to the father that he is 
 doing it ; and if, in the absence of your care as sane parents and 
 sane brothers towards an insane son or brother, that son or brother 
 comes to a premature death for the want of your care, you are held 
 responsible at the bar of Almighty God for the life of your son or 
 brother, and for the well being, healing, teaching and reasonably 
 feeding and clothing that unfortunate son or brother. But if you 
 are living within the discharge of your duty, if you are acting in the 
 capacity of sane parents or brothers towards your insane son 01 
 brother, and he steals a march upon you and takes his life, in that 
 event you are not held responsible you stand acquitted ; but if 
 you are living outside of your duty, and have been living so all 
 along this little short journey of life, you are held firmly bound at 
 the bar of Almighty God for every crime he commits while in a 
 state of insanity. The sane are made the stewards of the insane 
 it is a kind of stewardship ; it is your duty to act in a two-fold 
 capacity to act for yourselves and for your unfortunate son or 
 brother. Some persons try to excuse themselves upon the ground 
 that they did not know it, to be their condition, which is no excuse 
 for it is made your duty to investigate those things, and the time 
 to investigate is when they are children, or at some time in their 
 raising. Even the heathen tribes take care of their insane, and 
 why not this enlightened nation ? 
 
 The Son of God, while on earth, healed such persons himself. 
 He acted in the capacity of a physician he commanded that they 
 should be brought unto him that they might be healed. When He 
 ascended on high He left His holy example, by which you who 
 profess to be His followers might be governed in such cases. That 
 is a holy will, and if you will examine it you will find written in 
 plain, legible letters plain to be read by any man the words 
 heal, teach, and take care of to rear up, cheer up, and to build 
 up. He d\ not recommend the abusing of such persons, but 
 looked upon them as objects of compassion and mercy. Kind and 
 mild reproofs, meek reproofs, mixed with brotherly kindness and 
 affection, are excellent in such cases. But harsh, abrupt reproofs, 
 mixed with malice, ambition and malignity, and that from a per- 
 son in whom the subject has no confidence, only adds fuel to the 
 fire; it creates wrath against the day of wrath. First take the 
 beam out of thine own eye, then thou canst see clearly how to 
 take the mote out of thy brother's eye. Many poor souls are lost, 
 and lost to irretrievable wo, just for the want of a friend to cry
 
 TREATMENT. 33 
 
 out insanity, and act awhile until they get well. And if your 
 friend becomes insane, and you wish to have him or her, as 
 the case may be, healed, taught, and taken care of, and you have 
 not the means, the laws of the State of Tennessee has made 
 ample provisions in such cases. If you bring your insane friends 
 here, that does not go to say that you should keep them here 
 always, but it goes to say that you should keep them here until they 
 get well or die. 
 
 If, simply because you are blessed with the capacity of judging 
 the value of property, and your unfortunate fellow-being is not so 
 blessed, you take from that man or woman, boy or girl, by any unjust 
 or unfair measures, one dollar, it is held as an act of theft in the 
 first degree in the sight of God, for it is made your duty to trade for 
 yourself and them. If there is any time in the whole course of a 
 man's life that his friends should show what they are, it is when he' 
 is in a state of insanity, and that is generally the very time they do 
 show precisely what they are. The discovery is made in about one 
 case in every hundred, and in about ninety-nine out of every hundred 
 their friends play the very old scratch. About the time they think 
 they intend to destroy themselves, they mount their ponies and raise 
 the hell-hound cry, and make them go it right or wrong ; and when 
 their friend is dead, they look back and feel quite foolish. After 
 they have cheated and defrauded their insane out of .everything 
 they have, and abused and driven them under whip and spur day 
 and night, and put more on them than human nature can bear, 
 and finally find them in their rooms with their brains blown out, 
 drowned in some creek, hanging by the neck, or with their throats 
 cut, they come out and tell the people if they only had them back 
 they would take care of them and treat them kindly. There is but 
 one kind of insanity that should be treated with disrespect, and 
 that is hypocritical insanity for a man to go about and tell the 
 people he is insane to evade hard labor, when he is not, that class 
 should be treated with contempt and disrespect; but where it is a 
 disease located in the brain, it should have its just deserts in due 
 time, according to its day and time. Some men would perhaps say, 
 that the just deserts of insanity would be to imprison it in the 
 penitentiary ; others would pay it should be hung ; and others, per- 
 haps, would think it just to hand it a weapon and command it to 
 take it? life. But I would advise you to read your Bibles, the laws 
 of your country, the Constitution of the State and the United 
 States ; they will teach you what the just deserts of insanity are ; 
 they will protect insanity ; the insane laws do well enough all 
 that is wanting in such cases is a proper application it is a very 
 plain law a boy of a dozen years of age can travel through it. 
 There are fine turnpike roads leading to this institution ; it is a large 
 and spacious building, situated on a beautiful, elevated, healthy 
 piece of ground, and furnished with eighty-seven rooms, and all 
 well furnished with bedding. Ladies and gentlemen of the first 
 
 3
 
 34 INSANITY. 
 
 respectability, from different parts of the United States, visit the 
 institution, and very frequently ascend to the fine cupola on the top 
 of the building, for the purpose of viewing the magnificent scenery 
 surrounding the city of Nashville. It is by no means a penitentiary 
 to those of its inmates who have anything like reasonable health. 
 In short, it and its facilities are complete -restoratives of depreciated 
 mental powers. Those Avho should be friends to the unfortunate 
 men and women who are mentally diseased, will always have their 
 own way and notions about their condition they are always too 
 young'or too old too rich or too poor, the weather too warm or loo 
 cold, too wet or too dry, the creek too high or too low, too soon or 
 too late, the mill is to go to, or there is a big cheating and defraud 
 ing game on hand anything, in many families, comes in before 
 taking care of their insane. If you cause a soul to come into this 
 world incapable of thinking for, trading for, and taking care of 
 itself, and yon live wholly in the neglect of treating its condition as 
 such, you had just as well murder it when a child, and perhaps 
 better, for in that act you would have it out of (he way at once, 
 whereas the other is a slow murder. It is a tenfold greater crime 
 to live in the neglect of treating a case of insanity that may occur 
 in your land or nation, than it is to live in the neglect "of Dealing 
 virtue, for virtue needs no healing, and insanity does. Virtue can 
 take care of herself, and insanity cannot. It is a tenfold greater 
 crime to cheat, .defraud, slander, or. lead insanity astray in any 
 respect whatever, than virtue. If by good fortune insanity happens 
 to make you a soft bed, you are entitled to a portion of it and if 
 by misfortune it happens to make you a hard bed, sanity must take 
 insanity's fate. It is not the man who sells an insane man pro- 
 perty upon a credit at a high price, and gets him involved in debt, 
 and takes it back at a low price, or who sells him gowds upon 
 credit, or who lends him money al high interest, or endorses for* 
 him; neither is it the person that sets traps and snares to lead 
 the insane astray to gratify their own propensities. None of these 
 are the friends of the insane ; it is the man who heals, teaches, and 
 has an eye to their safety ; it is the one who reasonably clothes, 
 feeds, and gives a drink of water to cool their raging thirst, 
 and sees that they are not cheated and defrauded ; and when able 
 to labor, it should be required of them in a reasonable and light 
 degree. 
 
 .You, as a community of people, where you have had a reason- 
 able time given you to suspect insanity, and any good cause shown 
 you why you should suspect it. are held just as much responsible at 
 the bar of Almighty God, for living in the neglect of treating the 
 subject as such, as you are for not punishing sane men for doing 
 wrong. It is no disgrace to you to have an insane son, Wot her, 
 uncle, or nephew ; neither is it any disgrace to you to have an insane 
 son-in-law, brgther-in-law or cousin, nor is it a disgrace to you should 
 your insane relations do wrong. If God gives you an insane child,
 
 TREATMENT. 
 
 it is not your fault, nor can it be helped ; still there is a disgrace 
 attached to +: yet the disgrace is not upon the part of the insane, 
 but upon the part of the sane. But, says the reader, you are 
 stumped now. Not so I will lead you out of it in a few words. 
 You receive the disgrace by maltreating them and living in the neg- 
 lect of treating them as insane persons. 
 
 Insanity is the last thing upon the face^ of God's earth that you 
 should seek to blast the prospects of, both for time and eternity. 
 Your Bibles teach you to go out in search of such persons, and 
 see if there be any in your land and nation of this class. If so, 
 when you find them, this book "'will teach you what to do with 
 them. 
 
 Religion and virtue combined are the bold defenders and protec- 
 tors of insanity, whether upon young or old, male or female. I 
 don't care how base the form, all that religion and virtue wants to 
 know, is the soul insane if so, says religion and virtue, I am 
 a friend to that soul. Religion and virtue, high-minded and honor- 
 able, reaches out the arm and takes the subject by the hand, and 
 calls it brother. They are closely allied : do not understand riie to 
 say that religion of itself produces insanity, but religious fanaticism 
 they are brothers they are even twin -brothers. Religion and 
 virtue take a delight in treating a case of insanity, and when you 
 se*e a community of people running about their streets, camp- 
 grounds and neighborhoods, hunting up and circulating reports 
 upon the insane, take it for granted that there is no such thing as 
 virtue or religion reigning in the hearts of that community. But 
 if you see them step to the subject, and have them healed, taught 
 and taken careof, you may then say that that community knows 
 something about religion in earnest. It is sound policy in any 
 government to take care of their insane a community of people 
 grow rich by taking care of their insane, and they grow poor by 
 living in that neglect. God will not let any comm'unity of people 
 prosper that maltreats insanity no gentleman will abuse the insane 
 you cannot hire him to ill-treat them no, not for all the money 
 in the world. 
 
 I will cite to you three cases of insanity that occurred within the 
 circle of my acquaintance. The first case, E., occurred with a 
 gentleman from thirty to thirty-five years of age, in the year 
 1830. It first assumed the character of moral insanity, with melan- 
 choly depression. ' The gentleman ranked in the first class of dry 
 goods dealers of his town, and seemed to be in a prosperous condi- 
 tion. In the space of four or five years it assumed the character 
 of monomania, and in the course of three or four years more it 
 took the character of mania or raving madness, accompanied with 
 epilepsy. Having met with a reverse of fortune in the meantime, 
 which operated against the disease, and no protective measures 
 having been adopted for ten years, during which time he was
 
 36 INSANITY. 
 
 engaged in a heavy retail business, his disease terminated in suicide 
 in 1840. T. . 
 
 The second case, A., occurred in 1831, in the person of a gentle- 
 man about the same age, who ranked amongst the first farmers of 
 his country. The disease also first assumed the character of moral 
 insanity, with melancholy depression. In the space of three or four 
 years it assumed the character of monomania, mania and raving 
 madness. He also met with reverses of fortune on account of liabi- 
 lities for others. No protective measures were adopted, and this 
 case also terminated in suicide in 1841. 
 
 The third case, W., occurred with a gentleman about the same 
 time, and it ran through the same form ; the same treatment was ren- 
 dered, and no protective measures adopted, but on the contrary a 
 course rather upon the rigid order was adopted towards all three of 
 these cases. It also terminated in suicide in 1841. 
 
 All three of these men made attempts on their lives frequently at 
 intervals. All three were American born, and once in affluent 
 circumstances, and of the first standing in society, and'all leaving 
 families, and many respectable relations and friends to mourn their 
 untimely loss. So much against maltreatment in cases of insanity. 
 Would it not have been better to have sent them to a Lunatic 
 Asylum? 
 
 I will now cite the reader to the case of Captain Lewis, hereto- 
 fore mentioned in a piece of poetry. He was a man of the highest 
 order of talent, and of unblemished character. In the early settle- 
 ment of the western country he rendered some important gratuitous 
 services to the government, and subsequently he applied to the pro- 
 per authorities for a governmental appointment, which was refused 
 him. This unexpected disappointment produced a melancholy 
 depression. He justly considered himself thrown aside by his 
 country, by being refused an appoinynent after having explored the 
 Rocky Mountains in company with his friend Clarke, mainly for 
 the benefit of the government of the United States, with many 
 other services rendered to his country, in doing which he underwent 
 many fatigues and much arduous labor. When, however, another 
 was promoted over him, he became deranged, and left his native 
 State for New Orleans. After remaining there a short time, he 
 started on his return home. .At about thirty miles west of Columbia, 
 in Maury county, Tennessee, and hear Grinder's Stand, in Law- 
 rence county, he met with a hard contest in his own mind, and 
 finally his noble spirit sunk under his misfortunes, and he came to 
 a premature' death by committing suicide. It was more than his 
 nature could bear, to return to a country that had bartered him off 
 for his inferior. He was taken into the house of Mr. Grinder soon 
 after the wounds were inflicted, and expired before the dawn of 
 the next day. His remains lie mouldering in their mother earth 
 near the spot where he breathed his last. The last time I saw his
 
 .-/TJXAtfi&i 
 TREATMENT. 37 
 
 grave it was grown over with wild briars and shrubbery, in a remote 
 part of the uninhabited barrens of Lawrence (now Lewis) county. 
 Thus died the noble Lewis next in enterprise to the indefatigable 
 and intrepid Christopher Columbus. 
 
 Three other cases of insanity occurred within my knowledge : 
 The first, E. W., was that of a young gentleman about twenty 
 years of age, whose friends, however, took the right view of his 
 condition and placed him under kind and protective measures. It 
 terminated in a recovery, and he is now a respectable , member of 
 the bar in the practice of the law. 
 
 The second case, J. D. W., was that of a gentleman of about 
 twenty-five years of age. His friends adopted measures and he also 
 recovered, and is now a respectable minister of the Gospel. ' , 
 
 The third case, D., was that of a gentleman aged twenty-three. 
 Kind and protective measures were adopted and the case terminated 
 in a recovery, and he also is now a respectable minister of the 
 Gospel. .; , 
 
 So much for kind treatment in cases of insanity. It was a 
 fortunate thing for them to be thus treated kindly. These latter 
 cases assumed as great a tendency to prove fatal as did the first 
 three that terminated in suicide. I could cite you to many other 
 cases, but I think these to be sufficient to convince any rational mind 
 of the great impropriety of pursuing a rigid course of treatment in 
 cases of insanity. Some men advocate the doctrine that men may 
 become insane and the disease wear off. It is all humbuggery, and 
 won't bear telling. God never created the soul that became insane 
 and become right of itself. Do not understand me by this that a 
 man cannot be brought right by their friends upon the principles 
 herein laid down. 
 
 . Pinel has related a very striking case : A man had creditably 
 filled his place in society until his fiftieth year. He was then 
 smitten with an immoderate 'passion for venereal pleasures and 
 frequented places of debauchery, where he gave himself up to the 
 utmost excess, and then returned to the society of his friends to 
 paint the charms of pure and spotless love. His disorder gradually 
 increased, his seclusion became necessary, and he very soon became 
 a raving maniac. 
 
 Ray has related one equally striking. He says a man had lived 
 many years in a happy and fruitful union, and had acquired by his 
 industry a respectable fortune. After having retired from business 
 and led an idle life, his predominant propensity gradually obtained 
 the mastery over him, and he yielded to his desires to such a degree 
 that, though still in possession of his reason, he looked on every 
 woman as a victim destined to gratify his sensual appetite. The 
 moment he perceived a female from his window he announced 
 to his wife and daughters, with an air of the utmost delight, the 
 bliss that awaited him. Finally this partial mania increased to
 
 38 INSANITY. 
 
 Tf '"'<' 
 
 general mania, and shortly after he died in an insane hospital at 
 
 Vienna. 
 
 He again relates a case of a robust and plethoric young man who 
 came to his residence: in Vienna. He was unusually continent, and 
 was attacked with erotic mania. Gall, pursuing the treatment indi- 
 cated by his peculiar views of the origin of the disease, succeeded in 
 restoring him in a few days to perfect health. 7 \ { ' 
 
 Another case is related of a well educated, clever young man, 
 who, almost from his infancy, had felt strong erotic impulses, but. 
 succeeded in controlling them to a certain extent by means of 
 equally strong devotional feelings. After his situation permitted 
 him to indulge without constraint in the pleasures of love, he soon 
 made the fearful discovery that it was often difficult for him to 
 withdraw his mind from the voluptuous images that haunted it and 
 fix it. on the important and even urgent concerns of business. His 
 whole being was absorbed in sensuality. He obtained relief by an 
 assiduous pursuit of scientific objects and by finding out new 
 occupations. 
 
 He also relates the case of a very- intelligent lady who was tor- 
 mented like the subject of the last mentioned case, from infancy, 
 with the most inordinate desires. Her excellent education alone 
 saved her from the rash indulgences to which her temperament so 
 violently urged her. Arrived at maturity, she abandoned herself 
 to the gratification of her desires, but this only increased their inten- 
 sity. Frequently she saw herself on the verge of madness, and in 
 despair she left her house and the city and took refuge with her 
 mother, w r ho resided in the country, where the absence of objects to 
 excite desire, the greater severity of manners, and the culture of a 
 garden, prevented the explosion of the disease. After having changed 
 her residence for that of a large city, she was, after a while, threat- 
 ened with a relapse, and again she took refuge with her mother.' 
 On her return to Paris, she came to, me (says Dr. Ray) and com- 
 plained like a person in perfect despair. Every moment (she 
 exclaimed) I see nothing but the most lascivious images the demon 
 of lust unremittingly pursues me at the table and even in my sleep. 
 I am an object of disgust to myself, and I feel that I can no longer 
 escape madness or death. 
 
 A morbid propensity to incendiarism, or pyromania, as it has been 
 termed -where a person, though otherwise sane, is borne on by 
 irresistible power to the commission of crime has received the 
 attention of medical jurists, by most of whom it has been regarded 
 as a distinct form of insanit'y annulling responsibility for the acts 
 to which it leads. Numerous cases have been related and their 
 medico-legal relations amply discussed by men of renown. In a 
 portion of these cases the morbid propensity is excited by the ordin- 
 ary causes of insanity ; in a larger class, it is excited by that con- 
 stitutional disturbance which often accompanies the menstrual pe-
 
 TREATMENT. 39 
 
 riods, but in the largest class of all it occurs at the age of puberty, 
 and seems to be connected with retarded violation of the sexual or- 
 gans. The case of Maria Franc, quoted by .Gall from a German 
 journal, w ho was executed for house-burning, may be referred to the 
 first class. She was a peasant of little education, and in conse- 
 quence of an unhappy marriage, had abandoned herself to intem- 
 perate drinking. In this state a fire occurred, in which she had no 
 share ; but from the moment she witnessed this fearful sight, she 
 felt a desire to fire houses, which, whenever she was under the influ- 
 ence of spirits, was converted into an irresistible inpulse. She could 
 give no otheiveason nor show any other motive for firing so many 
 houses, than this impulse which drove her to it. Notwithstanding 
 the fear, the terror and the repentance she felt in every instance^ she 
 went and did it afresh. In other respects her mind was sound. 
 Within five years she fired twelve houses, and was arrested on the 
 thirteenth attempt. 
 
 Many other cases like these might be quoted, particularly from 
 the writings of Esquirol, but the above are sufficient to illustrate a 
 truth as generally recognized as any other in pathology, and to con- 
 vince the most sceptical mind that if insanity, or, in more explicit 
 words, morbid action in the brain, inducing a diminution of moral 
 liberty, ever exists, it does in what is called erotic mania. 
 
 During the year 1825, or thereabouts, F. D., a gentleman in the 
 circle of my acquaintance, who was a respectable farmer, arose from 
 his bed one morning, dressed himself and walked out at the door 
 his wife supposing he had gone to his daily avocation. At the usual 
 breakfast hour he failed to attend, and she went to the stable yard 
 and about the farm in search of him, but without effect. Her fears 
 of some sudden misfortune became more excited, and she had some 
 of the neighbors called in, and a search commenced in the wood- 
 lands. After searching diligently, on the second day he was found 
 in a stale of exhaustion, without his hat, his clothes torn, 'and a 
 pole in his hand with which, he. said, he was killing snakes. They 
 took him to the house, rendered some medical treatment, gave him 
 tonics and nutritious diet, at the same time rendering kind treat- 
 ment. The case terminated in a recovery, and he was doing 
 reasonably well the last account I had of him, w r hich was in the 
 winter of 1844. If no protective measures had been adopted lie 
 might in all probability been killing snakes to this day. This was 
 a case of mania-potu. In such cases you should approach the 
 subject with great caution and care, and use mild words and mild 
 means. 
 
 Insanity is not confined to any particular age, neither is it con- 
 fined to any particular individual. It has an unlimited space ; it 
 exists whenever man exists, and it is just as contagious as small- 
 pox or measles. A sane man may keep company with an insane 
 man and contract his habits, until it will become impossible for him 
 to wean himself from those practices. Some of the finest laurels
 
 40 
 
 INSANITY. 
 
 are won in cases of insanity, and it is very r equently the case that 
 some of the finest laurels are lost. 
 
 There is nothing that raises a man higher in the estimation of a 
 high minded and enlightened community of people, nor is there 
 anything that elevates him higher in the estimation of the Deity, 
 than to take care of an insane son or brother ; nothing looks better 
 in the eyes of men. On the contrary, nothing can sink a man 
 lower in the estimation of a gentleman than to live in that neglect ; 
 there is nothing sinks him deeper under the ire and wrath of a sin- 
 avenging God. Awake to your own interest it is to your own in- 
 terest to heal insanity. * 
 
 The smallest hurts sometimes increase and rage 
 Far more than art or physic can assuage ; 
 Sometimes the fury of the worst disease, 
 The hand by gentle stroking will appease. Prichard. 
 
 The great desire to wait and see, in cases of insanity, very fre- 
 quently prevents action. This desire is very prevalent in some 
 parts of the country. I have heard some inen express a desire for a 
 case of insanity that' they might have the credit of taking care of 
 them, and when the case occurred they cruelly turned their insane 
 out of doorS. God creates a soul but once, and he creates a genera- 
 tion of people but once ; every generation of people have to account 
 for themselves ; the time to heal is when you become sick, and the 
 time to lead your friend to an insane institution is when he becomes 
 insane. Every hour any disease steals upon the human system 
 makes it much more fatal. I have always been at a loss to know 
 what motive Diety has in dethroning men of their reason. I have, 
 however, been of the opinion that he gives a man an insane son or 
 brother to try his heart and reins, that he may see whether they 
 will take care of them or not. 
 
 If you will examine the history of tyrannical governments you 
 will find that' any person who dares to abuse an insane man or 
 woman, does so at the risk of his own life The common people 
 rise in arms in favor of the insane, and put down all who insult in- 
 sanity. They are reasonably fed and clothed, even where kings 
 and monarchs rule then why should this enlightened republic let 
 other governments outstrip her upon the most important subject in 
 the world ? 
 
 Wo be to that nation of people that drink down the blood of their 
 insane. The man that would cheat and defraud insanity would 
 run his hand into the pocket of a dying man, and filch the last dollar 
 therefrom, and affirm it to be his ; h,e would steal from the dead and 
 dying. 'A frightened maniac who would tear out his own eyes is 
 more to be pitied than the man who has lost a limb. Examine all 
 the medical books and histories together, with every other authority 
 derived from a respectable source, and you will not find the first 
 case of insanity where there has been a cure performed short of the
 
 TREATMENT. 
 
 41 
 
 friends of the subject taking the case in hands. Insanity sometimes 
 lives to be of a good old age under kind treatment, but under a rigid 
 course of maltreatment it cannot live longer than about, a middle 
 age. It snatches thousands into eternity, whether prepared or un- 
 prepared. Time and tide .wait for no man or set of men it glides 
 swiftly on its wings. If God gives you an insane spn to-day, this is 
 the day to begin to take care of him. He does not give you twenty or 
 thirty years to maltreat in ; and when taken into eternity either by 
 natural or accidental death, he does not give him back to you 
 that you might have the credit of rendering kind treatment. 
 Therefore it is best to make use of the golden moments and take 
 care of them, lest they might slip your fingers. If I was a judge 
 of a court, or a practitioner of the law, or of medicine, and I could 
 not define that a criminal at my bar, or my client or patient 
 was insane, and treat him accordingly, I would quit my profession; 
 and if I was a minister of the gospel or an acting justice of the 
 peace, if I could not define that a soul under my care or my 
 neighbor was insane, I would quit the ministry or throw up my 
 commission. 
 
 We will compare the man that labors under insanity, to a 'spoke 
 in a wagon wheel. You may start your wagon in*a great hurry- 
 one spoke may be crazy yo'u rush it over the hills and stones 
 presently out flies the spoke. You drive on carelessly after a 
 while out flies the second. Well, you say to yourself, you will 
 watch for the third, and you rush along. The first thing you know 
 out comes the third, and soon after down comes the wheel and your 
 wagon is broke down. You are then in a nice fix. Just so in the 
 wheel of time ; every soul fills its space in this great wheel we 
 may be counted as spokes in this wheel one spoke may be a little 
 crazy you may gather around it in clans and abuseand drive, and 
 the first thing you know out. flies the spoke by self murder. Well, 
 you say to yourselves, we will watch close for the next you keep 
 up your abusive language, and presently out flies the second. Well, 
 you say to yourselves, we most assuredly will watch for the next 
 you still abusing. The first thing you know out flies the third, and 
 when this occurs it comes very near bringing the wheels of time to 
 a close on your heads. They are all gone into eternity it is 
 impossible to get them bajck. You look back and remember the 
 blessings with which you were endowed by high heaven, and by 
 the aid of which you might have healed them ; and when it is 
 placed entirely out of your power to discharge the duty you owe to 
 your unfortunate fellow beings, to yourselves 'and your Creator, you 
 feel quite uncomfortably situated ; and when you remember the 
 kind treatment that others have received at the hands of their 
 friends and relations, who were in a like condition, and how care- 
 ful they have been to take care of them, and who are still healing 
 and teaching them, and you in the meantime drinking the
 
 42* INSANITY. 
 
 blood of yours for your maltreatment, it pays you up well for your 
 smartness. 
 
 We will compare it again to the corner stones of a wall. A half 
 dozen stout men may gather around the first stone and prize about 
 until they get it out, and when it is out you cannot get it back to its 
 proper place. Just so with the second, third and fourth, and when 
 the corner stones are taken away, the walls cannot stand long. At 
 first one or two stones fall the number gradually increases, until 
 finally, the whole wall comes with a crash. Mten in affluent cir- 
 cumstances and of the first standing in society, might be considered 
 among the corner stones of the human family. A hint to the wise 
 is sufficient. If men are guilty of crime, I would recommend having 
 them brought up before the authorities and try them, and if they 
 are sane and adjudged to be guilty, you may prepare the gallows or 
 place them in your \vorking institutions, according to the grade of 
 crime. If, however, the criminal is insane, you should place him, 
 in an institution to be healed and protected from any further crime. 
 The most efficient medical aid in your reach should be applied to in 
 such cases, and they should decide upon the existence or non- 
 existence of aberration of mind, without prejudice, or partiality, 
 which any real* medical man would do. Quacks should not be 
 called on in cases of importance keep 'every spoke and corner stone 
 in its proper place in due time, then the wheels of time glide smooth- 
 ly on, and the balance of the wall stands firm. It is not. a common 
 thing to labor under insanity and be treated kindly. God pity the 
 condition of the soul that labors under this awful malady whose 
 friends maltreat it. 
 
 We will again compare the man who labors under insanity, to 
 the young man in the tombs cutting himself with stones, whom no 
 man could tame: no, not even with fetters until he was healed 
 by the Son of God. He was not abused by this good Sama- 
 ritan, but wa's looked upon by him as an object of compassion 
 and mercy. 
 
 We will again compare the insane, to the young man that went 
 down to Jericho and fell among theives, was robbed of every thing 
 he had, stripped of his raiment, beaten and left half dead. A Jew 
 passed by on one side and a Levite on the other, and left the young 
 man laying in blood and gore. A Samaritan passed that way and 
 took him up, carried him to an inn, paid the two pence that was 
 requisite, and had him healed. By this act, he saved the life of the 
 young man, and thereby became his Lord, and no doubt won the 
 applause of all good men, and was rewarded by the Father of the 
 good Samaritan, who healed the young man in the tombs by re- 
 ceiving at his hands blessings of both a spiritual and temporal 
 nature. It seems that the Jews and Levites were the class of 
 people that passed by the writer for several years. The good 
 Samaritan never took him up or led him out of the tombs, until
 
 TREATMENT. 
 
 43 
 
 t was ten years too late. It is best to act as Samaritans in such 
 cases. 
 
 The physician and friends of the unfortunate sufferer should be 
 very careful not to let the patient undergo sudden changes of heat 
 or cold, but keep them in an uninterrupted and calm repose ; bath- 
 ing in warm water and washing with clear soap occasionally, is an 
 excellent remedy ; and shower bathing, say once a day, if the 
 weather is not too cold, is also a fine remedy for this disease. Where 
 you are not prepared with bathing tubs or reservoirs, you can very 
 easily place the patient in a chair and pgur \mter slowly on the 
 forehead, which will extend over the body until the patient is rea- 
 sonably* bathed. In the meantime keep the body covered with a 
 blanket, so as to prevent a sudden change from heat to cold. You 
 should not use the cold bath while giving mercury or calomel. 
 However, but very little of this kind of medicine should be used, 
 and when it is, it should be administered in very small portions 
 and preceded with an emetic. From ten to fifteen grains of calo- 
 mel in a dose is sufficient for any case of insanity ; even in the 
 most robust constitutions fifteen grains is a sufficiency, and by all 
 means never rise twenty in any case. Let the calomel be followed 
 by oil or salts, sanative pills, such as Peters', and '.tonics and stimu- 
 lant medicines. The use of mercury is seldom or never necessary, 
 and when it is used it should be used with great caution. In cases 
 attended with much heat about. the scalp, flushing of the face and 
 strong pulsation, blood letting would be necessary, but not too freely. 
 Of the quantity you must be governed by the condition of the pa- 
 tient. .The lancet should be resorted to, especially where the disease 
 is accompanied with epilepsy. Where there is much heat, it would 
 be proper to shave the head and keep it cool by means of cold lo- 
 tions or an oil skin cap filled with ice or iced water. If the symp- 
 toms above mentioned are very acute and the patient is not in an 
 alarming condition, blisters to the occiput or nape of the neck are 
 often serviceable. When the scalp is not hot, and the tendency is 
 rather to stupor than to a high degree of excitement, blisters are 
 usefully applied on the top of the head ; but do not blister to death 
 there is reason in f all things. Bathe the legs and feet in a warm 
 infusion of mustard or horse radish. In the mean time do not for- 
 get to give the patient light, nutritious diet, and as the patient im- 
 proves, meats may be allowed, with some porter or ale. The phy- 
 sician or nurse should be the judge of the quantity. 
 
 In the fatal progress that the' disease has made upon my system, 
 it was accompanied with fits of epilepsy. 1 have had them some- 
 times every day, sometimes every other day, and again every third 
 day. I have even had as many as twenty in a day but regularly 
 every four weeks, or at the change of the moon. When I had one 
 of those fits on me, I knew no more what I was doing than if I had 
 been dead, and when they would pass off- 1 would be in a tolerably 
 calm, reposed condition. I was afflicted with them, to a greater or 
 
 C
 
 
 
 INSANITT. 
 
 less extent, from the age of fifteen years up to the time I was brought 
 here, in the transaction of a heavy business the principal part of the 
 time, and suffered a- reverse of fortune which made my condition 
 more critical. I was. much exposed to the inclemency of the 
 weather, and was not permitted by those who had me in their power 
 to. have time to be healed. 
 
 If a man be taken suddenly sick, he and every thing he has is in 
 the hands of his friends, physicians and his God ; and if he is in- 
 sane and they take .a notion to have him healed, or suffer him to 
 kill himself, they soon have it done. You should apply to the most 
 efficient medical aid in your reach in such cases and act with great 
 caution. You had just as well administer a dose of arsenic to a 
 man as a large dose of calomel in a case of insanity. A quack 
 doctor will soon destroy an insane patient. If a physician cannot 
 define that his patient is insane and treat him accordingly, he should 
 not be allowed to practice medicine. 
 
 It requires close discrimination to define sanity from insanity. It 
 may be detected by the subject becoming restless he frequently 
 walks the floor for an hour at a time, sits down for a few moments 
 and then walks again. In some instances they walk the floor a 
 half or the whole of a night without sleeping. They sometimes 
 become peevish and fretful seem to be careless and indolent, and 
 seem to be sinking into a state of despondency. In other cases they 
 use excessive energy in their daily avoca'ions and pursuits of life. 
 They frequently become flighty and unstable in all their ways ; and 
 if you are conversing on the subject of insanity, and an insane per- 
 son is present, you will see them get up and walk off; they do not 
 like to hear the subject mentioned. Nothing escapes their observa- 
 tion they notice every thing that passes and store it in memory, 
 good or evil, for or against you, according to the treatment they re- 
 ceive at your hands. The subject is irritable and sleepless, and not 
 unfrequently frightened out of one dose of sleep into another runs 
 on and talks nonsensically, and when accompanied with worms, as 
 is frequently the case, you will notice them picking the nose, hair 
 and clothes with their fingers, and become frightened at the crack- 
 ing of a stick that they may tread upon, supposing it be a serpent, 
 and are easily frightened at any noise. Worms are not uncommon, 
 even with adult persons, attended with fever or flushness of .the face 
 and sometimes with spots: they become thirsty and drink water in 
 large quantities. 
 
 Parents should be careful to set good examples before their 
 insane, for they know no better than to live up to the examples 
 set before them by those in whom they place confidence. If a case 
 of insanity occurs in your land and nation, just as you treat it 
 just that way you may expect to be treated by the subject and your 
 Creator. If you treat it kindly an all-wise providence will reward 
 you by filling your barns 'and store-houses with plenty, but if you 
 maltreat and lead it to a premature end, he will reward you by
 
 TREATMENT. 
 
 45 
 
 sending judgments and curses upon your heads. Some persons are 
 of the opinion that we will all be marshalled at the bar of God, 
 there to render testimony against each other. It is all humbug. He 
 needs no testimony He knows all things.' He sometimes makes 
 use of the unfortunate by which to judge the world. He is sitting 
 in judgment always He judges men of their acts as they commit 
 them. The judgment day is yesterday, to-day and forever from 
 tfye beginning to the end of time. There will be a last day a 
 doom's day a final end of all things ; when it shall be said, Come 
 ye, my blessed, enter into the joys of thy Lord ; or Depart, ye ac- 
 cursed, into everlasting punishment, prepared for the Devil, from 
 the foundation of the world. 
 
 The world was once destroyed by a flood of water, and but eight 
 souls saved, namely, Noah and his family. Thq next time it is des- 
 troyed it will be destroyed by a flood of fire in one general confla- 
 gration, and it is nice to suppose the kind of fire. The common 
 fire you have in your fire-places is a blessing sent you by an all-wise 
 God, by which you might take an insane son or brother and have 
 him healed or taken care of, and he might live many years under 
 kind treatment. Hell fire is a few degrees warmer than the com- 
 mon fire, and is heated with the fuel of brimstone, and when you 
 drive your insane from your fireside conversations, you sometimes 
 drive them into this hell fire. But mark ye, you are not many 
 strides behind them,! What an awful wo to hear the sentence 
 read out, Depart, ye game-makers and swindlers of, and declaimers 
 against insanity, into this everlasting flame of fire, from whence 
 there is no return ! 
 
 Since I have been here there have bee.n six deaths out of the whole 
 number of inmates four males and two females and in the mean- 
 time about sixteen cures have been performed. The healed patients 
 have gone home, and I am told are doing well. Some of them have 
 even gone to healing others, and I am here trying to teach you 
 how to heal each other. Others are rapidly improving, and will, 
 no doubt, soon be dismissed from the institution. The whole num- 
 ber of patients is from seventy to eighty. I noticed that those cases 
 which terminated in death were too far gone when brought here 
 to be healed. Perhaps if they had been brought here by their 
 friends in time, they might have been healed and been useful mem- 
 bers of society for years to come. 
 
 As to sex, insanity more frequently occurs with females than with 
 males for which cause I can only account from the fact that the 
 female is the weaker vessel. At any rate they are more subject to 
 become excited, and suffer their passions to control their better judg- 
 ment. My views, are founded on general observation. When in- 
 sanity occurs in females it is more frequently with married women, 
 which might be termed puerperal, or a form of mental derangement 
 incident, to women soon after child-birth. Symptoms of insanity 
 often display themselves during pregnancy, and under circumstan-
 
 INSANITY. 
 
 ces which indicate that they are dependant on that state. These 
 cases are rare in comparison to those which occur after delivery. 
 
 Many females become deranged during the advanced period of 
 lactation, especially those of irritable temperament, and such as 
 undertake to suckle their children too long in reference to their 
 constitutions. Cases of puerperal madness, properly so termed, or 
 that coming on after child-birth, are by no means unfrequent. 
 There is no peculiarity in the phenomena of puerperal madness by 
 which this disease is distinguished from other examples of insanity. 
 Those cases which are more properly termed puerperal, as occurring 
 in the first period after child-birth, are generally of the character of 
 mania.' attended with excitement of the feelings and menial derange- 
 ment, while the disorder which displays itself in women exhausted 
 by suckling is most commonly connected with melancholy depres- 
 sion ; a tendency to which may be generally perceived in females 
 who nurse their children too long with regard to their strength of 
 constitutions. Cases of the former description occur w r ithin a short 
 period, and most frequently from twelve to fifteen days after delivery. 
 They appear sometimes to be occasioned by fright or other acciden- 
 tal causes of disturbance ; sometimes by error in diet or by prema- 
 ture exertion or excitement. In other instances they take place 
 independently of any discernable cause. The patient passes two or 
 three restless nights appears to be unusually excited and irritable 
 talks loudly and incessantly, and very sooft betrays a disturbed 
 intellect. The attack is often attended with febrile. Symptoms of 
 mania are not uncommon in the course of the month, but of that 
 species from which they generally recover. When out of their 
 senses and attended with fever, they will in all probability die, but 
 when without fever it is not fatal. 
 
 Puerperal madness terminates, in a great proportion, either in 
 death or in recovery. Few, comparatively speaking, become cases of 
 insanity. The question, on the solution of which there is the great- 
 est reason for anxiety in reference to any particular case of puerperal 
 madness, is whether it is likely to be fatal ; because, if not. fatal, 
 there is great probability of ultimate recovery. The most satisfac- 
 tory way of coming to a conclusion on this inquiry in any individual 
 case, is by the prognostications which the particular symptoms afford, 
 and on this subject I can add but little to what has already been 
 said. 
 
 The principal cause which endangers life in cases of this descrip- 
 tion arises from extreme debility. The excitement of the muscular 
 as well as the cerebral functions is so great as to wear out the 
 strength already at a low ebb, and being neither recruited by nutri- 
 tion or by sleep, the patient sinks from exhaustion.* Experience has 
 proved that a rapid circulation is the principal circumstance which 
 tends to bring on this state ; a very frequent pulse is the most un- 
 favorable symptom. Long continued resistance to sleep and a state 
 of complete stupor, with the appearance of great weakness and ex-
 
 ' s# t\, 
 
 TREATMENT. 47 
 
 I ' f ' t < r! 
 
 haustion. likewise give reasons for apprehension. If these signs are 
 not found, the mental derangement need not give occasion for very 
 serious alarm. The Jesuit seems to be that the disease is more fre- 
 quently a consequence of delivery than suckling. 
 
 In the meanwhile it appears evident that some cause more in its 
 influence than one particular process must be referred to, if we would 
 explain the frequent occurrence in pregnant, puerperal and suckling* 
 females. The only attempt to explain the theory whioh deserves 
 much consideration, is, I am inclined to consider, the puerperal 
 mania- as a case of conversation from, during gestation, and after 
 delivery. When the milk begins to flow, the balance of the circu-. 
 lation is so greatly disturbed as to be liable to much disorder from 
 the application of any existing cause. If, therefore, cold, affecting 
 violent noises, want of sleep, or uneasy thoughts distress a puerperal 
 patient before a determination of milk to the breasts is regularly 
 made, the impetus may be regularly converted to the head and pro- 
 duce either hysteria or insanity, according to its force and the na- 
 ture of the occasional cause. That new determinations in the vas- 
 cular system should ensure on the removal of one so long subsisting 
 as that to the uterus during pregnancy, is in accordance with a well- 
 ascertained principle in pathology. The natural and healthy deter- 
 mination under these circumstances is to the lacteal glands, but 
 owing to various causes, either external or of predisposition, mor- 
 bid determinations occasionally take place. Some women become 
 phthisical at a very early period after child-birth, or rather the symp- 
 toms of phthisis develope themselves at that time in a manifest 
 form. Other constitutional complaints are apt to arise at the same 
 period, according to the prevalent tendency of the habit. Where 
 the brain is susceptible it is likely to suffer in its turn and become 
 the seat of local disorder. The manifestations are affections of the 
 mind. If we consider the frequent changes of disturbances occur 
 ring in the balance of the circulation from the varying and quickly 
 succeeding processes which are carried on in the system during and 
 soon after the period of pregnancy and child-birth, we shall be at 
 no loss to discover circumstances under which a susceptible consti- 
 tution is likely to suffer. 
 
 The conversions are successive in the temporal or local determi- 
 nations of blood which the constitution under such circumstances 
 sustains and requires, and appear sufficiently to account for the 
 morbid susceptibility of the brain. The cases of mental disorder 
 which occur in the latter periods of lactation are evidently of two 
 kinds. In one the disease supervenes on weaning, and probably has 
 its origin in the subsidence of the lacteal secretion. There are other 
 instances which appear to arise from the continual excitement and 
 exhaustion of the system consequent on suckling. This state of 
 exhaustion takes place at different periods in different constitutions. 
 Some women can continue to give milk without injury for years, 
 but by others morbid feelings are experienced in the space of a few
 
 48 INSANITY. 
 
 months, and do not subside for some time after vvcuning. I have 
 observed some instances, of melancholy dejection with symptoms of 
 insanity more or less strongly marked, which have displayed them- 
 selves in the protracted period of nursing, and in females who were 
 evidently suffering from exhaustion. 
 
 It will be evident that our chief endeavors must bt> directed to 
 the present support of life. If we can maintain and cstore the 
 general health and keep the natural functions in a state compatible 
 with continued existence for a time, the disease of the animal sys 
 tern will, in all probability, subside. Evacuant remedies must be 
 used very sparingly and with great caution. The most emoJn1 
 medical aid in your reach should be applied to in stich cases. Blood 
 letting, as a general remedy for puerperal madness or mania, and 
 also in those cases which more resemble delirium tremens, is seldom 
 or never necessary, but generally pernicious. I do not say that case* 
 never occur which require this remedy, 'but T would lay down thi 
 rule for the employment of the lancet not to use it as a remed} 
 of disorder in the mind unless that is accompanied by symptoms of 
 congestion or inflammation of the brain. Local is safer than gene- 
 ral in the real inflammatory diseases of the brain such as would 
 lead to its employment though the mind was not disordered. Even 
 here, however, great caution is necessary. Blood letting, of course, 
 is essentially necessary, as heretofore mentioned ; but these, I think, 
 can never be mistaken for puerperal insanity. They are febrile 
 headaches more or less acute pain of the head, which is a much 
 better indication for blood letting than disorder of the mind with 
 out these symptoms. In cases attended with much heat about 
 the scalp, flowing of the face, and strong pulsation of the tempo- 
 ral and carotid, it will be Proper to shave the head and keep it 
 cool by means of cold lotions or an oil skin cap filled with iced 
 or ice water, as heretofore laid down under the head of treatment, 
 of insanity in general, or by evaporating lotions, if the symptoms 
 above mentioned are very acute, and the debility of the patient is 
 not alarming. 
 
 A few leeches may be applied ; blisters to the occiput or nape of 
 the neck, are often servicable ; when the scalp is not hot and the 
 tendency of the disease is rather to stupor than to a high degree of 
 excitement, blisters are usefully applied on the top of the head ; 
 heat should be applied in the most convenient form ; the lower ex- 
 tremities which are often cold, should be immersed frequently in hot 
 water, or bathe the feet and legs in a warm infusion of mustard or 
 horse radish, and the circulation assisted by the heat in the other 
 extremities by the 'nlost obvious means. The cold shower baths 
 should not be used in cases of puerperal madness or mania, but ap- 
 ply, at intervals, cloths wet in cold water to the forehead. 
 
 Purgatives and emetics are among the most useful remedies in 
 this disease. The alimentary canal is frequently in 3. disordered 
 state the tongue furred, the breath foetid, the skin discolored, and
 
 TREATMENT. 
 
 the evacuations dark and offensive. A few brisk purgative doses 
 of calomel, followed by castor oil, or rhubarb and magnesia, should 
 be given in such rases Emetics of epicachuana, with small doses 
 of tarlarized antimony, are very valuable remedies in this state of 
 the alimentary canal ; but they should be used with caution when 
 the face is pale, the skin cold, and pulse quick and weak.' Epicac- 
 huana is preferable to antimonials. After these evacuant remedies 
 have been premised, great advantage may be derived from the use 
 of. opiates. Full doses will be generally attended with the best suc- 
 cess. Ten grains of Dover's powders may be given at night, .or a 
 grain and a half of solid opium, or thirty drops of the tincture, or 
 Battley's solution of opium, in preference to the tincture. Perhaps 
 the acetate and muriate of morphia are the best preparations of 
 opium. They may be given in doses of an eighth to a quarter of a 
 grain, and repeat every third or fourth hour until sleep is produced. 
 When the opiates disagree, hyosciamus, mixed with camphor, (five 
 grains of each.) should be given every hour, and a double dose at 
 night: a drachm of the tincture will answer the same purpose. I 
 am, however, of the opinion that narcotics are the most valuable 
 remedies ; they often produce nights of better sleep, and days of 
 greater tranquillity, and this calmness is followed by some clearing 
 up of the disorder of the mind. If, however, heat is in the head, 
 and flushing in the face, their use ought to be postponed until such 
 symptoms shall have been removed. In the more protracted cases 
 of puerperal mania, tonics and stimulant medicines are sometimes 
 requisite, especially when the appetite has failed. Ammonia is 
 quite recommendable it may be given with an infusion of 
 Peruvian bark or any bitter infusion. When it is not offensive 
 to the stomach, the rectified oil of turpentine is one of the 
 best stimulants, especially, if it be taken In a dose of a drachm 
 three times a day, with cinnamon water or any other aromatic 
 fluid. 
 
 A rule of great importance refers to the diet of women in puer- 
 peral insanity. It may perhaps be safely asserted that the greatest 
 risk with patients in thia disease is that of being starved through 
 the mistaken notions of their attendants, who are too often disposed 
 to consider the excitement of maniacal disease as a reason for with- 
 holding food, when this very state, owing to the exhaustion pro 
 duced by its long continuance, renders it especially necessary 
 to support the strength more carefully. Farinacious fluids of 
 a nutritious kind, milk, rice, and other such matters, at short 
 intervals, when febrile symptoms preclude the use of animal 
 food. In most instances broth may be allowed and ought to be 
 given. In the more protracted periods, solid meat, with ale, should 
 be given. 
 
 Maniacal patients, laboring under great weakness and exhaustion, 
 with cold extremities, a clammy skin, passing restless and sleepless 
 nights, and under continual agitation, begin to improve as soon as 
 
 4
 
 50 INSANITY. 
 
 i 
 
 their diet is changed ; and when meat, with some ale or porter is 
 given, the pulse will become fuller and less frequent, the ex- 
 tremities warm, sleep will be restored, and convalescence will 
 take place in a surprisingly short time after such a system has 
 been adopted. 
 
 The last observation to be made refers to the management of such 
 patients. We must here advert to the remarks to be found in for- 
 mer pages on the management and treatment . of insane patients in 
 general. The general rules only require modification in some par- 
 ticulars in relation to puerperal women ; they require in other re- 
 spects similar treatment. They should be separated from their re- 
 lations and carefully attended to by persons who are fitted for the 
 occu pation by profession or habit. It is not so often necessary to 
 send puerperal maniacs to lunatic asylums as deranged persons of a 
 different description. I think it unnecessary to add any thing more 
 upon the treatment, only to cite the reader from one to the other on 
 treatment of insanity in general and puerperal insanity. 
 
 Some men who labor under this awful malady fall dead in their 
 tracks, without making use of any weapons by which they might 
 put an end to their existence. The usual course is to bury them. 
 In nine cases out of every ten you bury a living soul. If you would 
 spring to them with medical aid and treat them kind.y, you might 
 bring them to, and the'y might live for several years in a state of in- 
 sanity under kind treatment, and tell you of a great many things 
 that you never thought or heard of before. The man who labors 
 under insanity and falls dead in his tracks, apparently, to the by- 
 standers, is not really dead ; he is dead for a time, and insensible of 
 every thing that is going on while in this condition. 
 
 In giving a Description of Insanity, we will first give that of 
 moral insanity. 
 
 1. IVibrai insanity, or madness, consisting in morbid perversion of 
 the natural feelings, affections, inclinations, temper, habits, moral 
 disposition and natural impulses, without any remarkable disorder 
 or defect of the intellect or knowing and reasoning faculties, and 
 particularly without any insane allusion or hallucination. 
 
 The three following modifications of trie* disease may be termed 
 intellectual insanity, in contradistinction to the preceding form : 
 
 1. Monomania, or partial insanity, in which the understanding 
 is partially deranged or under the influence of some particular illu- 
 sion, referring to one subject and involving one train of ideas, while 
 the intellectual powers appear, when exercised on the subject, to be 
 in a gr^h measure unimpaired. 
 
 2. Mania, or raving madness, in which the understanding is gen- 
 erally deranged. The reasoning faculty is not lost, but is confused 
 and disturbed in its exercise. The mind is in a state of morbid ex- 
 citement, and the individual talks absurdly on every subject to which 
 his thoughts are momentarily directed. 
 
 . 3. Incoherence or Dementia. By some persons it may be thought
 
 TREATMENT. 51 
 
 scarcely correct to term this a form of insanity, as it has been gen- 
 erally considered as a result and sequel of that disease. In some in- 
 stances, however, mental derangement has nearly this character 
 from the commencement, or at least assumes it at a very early 
 period. I am, therefore, justified in stating it to be a distinct form 
 of madness. . Its features are. rapid succession or interrupted alter- 
 nation of insulated ideas, repeated acts of extravagance, complete 
 forgetfulness to every' previous occurrence, diminishing sensibility to 
 external impressions, abolition of the faculty of judgment, perpetual 
 activity. 
 
 The division of the forms. of insanity pointed out in the preceding, 
 description, is the most simple that is admissible or adapted to the 
 existing varieties of the disease. It is entirely practical. The dis- 
 orders of the mind are limited in number and kind by the diversities 
 which exist in the operations of the mental faculties. The mental 
 operations are of three distinct kinds, and are referred, on the testi- 
 mony of consciousness, .to three different departments in our inward 
 nature, viz : To those of the feeling or sentiment, the understanding 
 and the will ; the emotions grief, pleasure and the mental precesses 
 of reflection and contemplation, and the voluntary act of self-de- 
 termination, are three kinds of mental phenomena, which, as they 
 present themselves to our inward consciousness, are so clearly and 
 strongly distinguished fijpm each other that it is impossible to confound 
 them if the cause of derangement is in relation to one of these mani- 
 festations of mental existence. To one or another it belongs, since 
 the mind is ever occupied with phenomena related to one out of the 
 three classes. We have only to inquire to what modification the 
 disorder directly refers itself, or whether it affects the feeling, the 
 understanding or the will, since one of these has possession of our 
 consciousness, or is at least predominant at every point of time. 
 Whichever function of the mind happens to be that which is falling 
 into disorder, by it the form of insanity is determined. Thus we 
 havQi three classes of mental disease corresponding to the three de- 
 partments of our minds. A second distinction is founded on the 
 character of disturbance which is experienced whether it is of the 
 nature of exaltation or depression, of increased or diminished. 
 
 I shall simply enumerate the principal modification* of the de- 
 rangement of the mind, or of its diseases and defects, according to 
 the method of Dr. Prichard. I will use his own words : 
 
 The first division consists, as above stated, in disorders of passion, 
 feeling or affection, or moral disposition. This has two forms, viz : 
 
 First form Exaltation or excessive intensity undue vehemence 
 of feeling morbid violence of passions and emotions. 
 
 Second form Depression. 
 
 The second division consists of disorders affecting the under- 
 standing or the intellectual faculties. 
 
 First form : Exaltation undue intensity of the imagination, pro
 
 55S INSANITY. 
 
 ducing mental illusions. To this head belong all the varieties of 
 monomania. 
 
 Second form : Depression feebleness of conception of ideas and 
 imbecility of the understanding. 
 
 The third division comprises disorder- of the voluntary powers, or 
 of propensities and will. 
 
 First form : Exaltation violence of will and propensities toll- 
 heit, or madness without lesion of the understanding. 
 
 Second form : Depression weakness or incapacity of will moral 
 imbecility. 
 
 . To these annexed forms the reader will be much aided in defining 
 the different causes that produce the disease, as laid down under the 
 first head of Insanity. 
 
 Hail, Columbia ! my native land ! 
 
 Ye free born sons of Columbia, hail ! 
 In your nearest sister towns I once did stand; 
 
 But when misfortunes came my heart did fail. 
 Those towns have in them all many noble* sons, 
 
 And their fair, superior daughters are not a few ; 
 But the sons of Palestine were once my choice brothers. 
 
 They became quite wrathy when I was compelled to sue. 
 
 If wrongs to them I have done, 
 
 They'll pray forgive them alt or none. 
 
 Their wrongs to me I have forgiven, 
 
 And I am willing they should get to Heav%n. 
 
 When by the plough I did thrive, 
 
 I would either hold or drive ; 
 
 When it I did lay aside and went to cutting tape, 
 
 That day's work wrought up for me my eternal fate 
 
 i\ ..-.-. rti .f."?^. 
 
 .jw* ^-*>; 
 
 _
 
 . . -" 
 
 GENERAL REMARKS, 
 
 INSANITY is sometimes termed lunacy, from the fact of the disease 
 being accompanied witfe fits of epilepsy (as heretofore mentioned) 
 every four weeks, or change of the moon (Luna.) Insane people 
 are sometimes termed lunatics from the fact tha't they are inmates of 
 a lunatic asylum. Again, they are occasionally termed hmatics;when 
 the disease is accompanied with raving madness. There are va- 
 rious terms for it, but all diseases of the mind might be justly termed 
 insanity and idiocy. Some persons hold it to be the duty of their 
 neighbors to take care of their insane ; but that is not their duty. 
 They can see the duty of other persons in such cases, but cannot 
 see their own. It is equally binding upon every man and woman 
 to take care of the insane offspring of their bodies. If I was blessed 
 with proper reflecting mental faculties and bodily health, there is 
 not a man on the face of God's earth that should outstrip me in tak- 
 ing care of an insafce son, brother, or relation. I would have them 
 healed, taught and taken care of, or I would work day and night 
 and live upon bread and water rather than see my insane suffer. 
 It is no difference whether it be male or female it should be your 
 first duty to provide for the wants of your insane. 
 
 Some persons stand opposed to pronounce their relatives insane, 
 rendering as an excuse that they might receive thereby a stain upon 
 their characters. That is not reajly the cause. The great secret is, 
 they fear that their afflicted relatives might eat a little of their meat 
 and bread, wear some clothing, or that a medical bill might have to 
 be paid. If you cannot account for all those duties towards your 
 insane in this life, you cannot account for yourselves or them in the 
 life to come. It is expected of every family to account for their 
 own insane in some way or other. It is also the duty of the min- 
 isters of the Gospel to attend to those things to see if there be any 
 such persons in the bounds of their station, circuit or location, and 
 deal with them as stewards of the Lord, that they may be ready to 
 account for their stewardship as faithful servants of the Most High 
 at hb coming. Judges of courts are held equally responsible, 
 together with acting justices of the peace, sheriffs, constables and 
 
 53
 
 54 GENERAL REMARKS. 
 
 coroners. Medical men are held awfully responsible ; they offer 
 their services to the public as healers of all diseases that befalls the 
 lot of man. There are, perhaps, some of the community in some 
 parts of this State, from the prejudice heretofore cherished in their 
 hearts against me, may use their influence against this work and, 
 try to crush it to the earth. I will just request the reader, if they 
 should take this stand, to ask them if they could walk one hundred 
 yards or ride three or four miles, in 1839, and pronounce their 
 patient (the writer) insane, and treat him according to the rules 
 heretofore laid down under the head of treatment in, cases of insanity, 
 instead of pouring into my System from thirty to sixty grains of 
 calomel at one dose, and thereby destroying my constitution and 
 mental faculties, and becoming, indirectly speaking, my murderers 
 instead of my healers, and left me sinking under their rigid course 
 of treatment, for which I paid them about one hundred and fifty 
 dollars. They, however, in the meantime, rendered some medical 
 services to my family. By pursuing the firmer course they could 
 have healed me but the reader will remember it has been six 
 years since 1839. If they should have an insane patient in 1849, 
 and they will pursue the course of treatment given in this book, 
 they will heal nine cases out of every ten ; but if they pursue the 
 same rigid course that they did in 1839, they will kill nine out often. 
 Farmers, mechanics and others, who have not made the subject of in- 
 sanity their study , if they should be at a loss to know whether they should 
 be governed by the rules herein laid down in case of insanity, I would 
 ask them to refer to a real medical man, and be certain that he is a 
 real medical man before they are governed by his opinion. There 
 may be some objections raised upon the ground that the author is a 
 suicide. This rigid course of maltreatment was the forerunner of 
 suicide. Down, down, down with a rigid course of treatment and 
 abusive language, and up. up, up with kind treatment and mild 
 means in cases of insanity. The latter course must prevail if the 
 mental powers are restored. 1 do not allude, in this remark, to the 
 management in lunatic asylums, for they know how to treat their 
 patients but I drop it for the benefit of those who are not blessed 
 with those institutions, and who undertake to heal their friends at 
 home. To treat a case of insanity is not to treat it with ardent 
 spirits, for accursed is he that turneth up the bottle to his neighbor's 
 mouth, but it is.to have it healed. 
 
 . Some men are very tenacious, as above stated, with regard to 
 their own characters,, and stand opposed to pronouncing their friends 
 insane, lest it might injure their characters among their neighbors. 
 I will just remark that if it injures a man's character to'-take care of 
 his insane, I would not have the character that such neighbors would 
 give rne ; they could not run after me fast enough to give me a cha- 
 racter; and if they should give it to me I would give it back; 
 therefore they would lose nothing by the gift. 
 
 Some men look upon it as a credit to cheat and defraud insanity
 
 GENERAL REMARKS. 55 
 
 and even sit around the comers of business houses watching for au 
 opportunity to catch the unfortunate subject off his guard or absent 
 from his friends, that they may gore him deep ; and when they have 
 cheated and defrauded him out of a.large plantation, a large lot of 
 money, a fine negro fellow, a line lot of goods, a fine horse, or shaved 
 a valuable lot of claims at from twenty to thirty per centum dis- 
 count, when, the unfortunate subject does not know the value of a 
 dollar, they think they have done something very great ; they 
 laugh in their sleeves, but mark ye, it will take to itself wings and 
 leave them. Ill-gotten fame. or wealth will take its flight from any 
 man in the course of time, and they will have to pay dearly for it 
 in trie world to come ; they will have to pay up the utmost farthing. 
 You evade the laws of your country in such cases, but when you 
 come to the law of God it swings you up. I believe it would be 
 just for the Legislatures of the different States to enact a law to 
 make it a penitentiary offence for a sane man to wilfully and know- 
 ingly cheat and defraud insanity just as if he had stolen that 
 amount. It should also be a criminal offence for a quack doctor to 
 maltreat his insane patient. A man's life is worth more to him than 
 all the money in the world, and if his physician should poison him 
 to death with great gorges of medicine, as if he was physicing a 
 horse, he should be made to suffer- in the same way and manner as 
 though he had plunged a dagger to his heart. 
 
 I will here give an anecdote that once occurred in a city between 
 a physician and a stone-cutter. The doctor was accustomed to pass 
 through the street that led 'by the stone-cutter's shop to visit his 
 patients. In passing one morning in a great hurry, he accosted 
 the stone-cutter as he was busily engaged in cutting letters on a 
 tomb-stone. "Well, sir," said the doctor^. "I suppose you cut the 
 letters on the stone until you get to the words ' in memory of,' and 
 then wait and see who dies before you cut the balance." 
 
 " Yes, sir," replied the stone-cutter, " except with your patients ; 
 with them I go right on, for I know a tomb-stone will be shortly 
 required." 
 
 This would be applicable to the medical man who pursues a rigid 
 course of maltreatment, and administers from fifty to a hundred 
 grains of calomel to his insane patient in twenty-four hours. In. 
 such cases the stone-cutter, cabinet-maker, nnd sexton, may all go 
 right on, for the poor patient will be laid in his grave in a very short 
 time. 
 
 The mind is composed of five different attributes, to wit, the five 
 senses seeing, hearing, smelling, taste and feeling ; and if you lose 
 the use of one of the members of your mind, they all being com- 
 bined or united, it will affect a second to a greater or less degree ; 
 but upon restoring the first attribute by kind treatment, a cure would 
 be very easily performed by a careful physician and kind nurse. 
 Thus you might prevent the contagion from extending to the 
 second, but if you neglect to make an effort to restore the first, the
 
 56 GENERAL REMARKS. 
 
 disease will, as a matter of course, extend to the second and third 
 attribute, and perhaps inhale in its progress other diseases or assume 
 a different character, and will thus extend to the fourth, and will 
 continue its ravages until it reaches or terminates in the last attri- 
 bute. At this juncture it would be impossible to restore either of 
 the attributes, and the whole mind of man becomes morbid and 
 incapable of self-government the contagion spreads throughout 
 the whole system and may extend to the brain and produce 
 mania or raving madness, a'nd, in all probability terminate in death ; 
 all of which might be prevented by treating the unfortunate subject 
 as insane. 
 
 Some of the finest talent in the world may be found in members 
 of insane institutions. For a time their talent becomes impaired 
 from some one or more of the causes laid down under the first head 
 of insanity, and their friends discover it and take them to an asylum 
 to be healed ; and it is not an unfrequent occurrence that they re- 
 cover from the disease and return home and make the most brilliant 
 men in the world. If a man, in the hurry of business, happens to 
 commit some unintentional errors, and his mind becomes perplexed, 
 and his friends become alarmed, fearing they may lose their debts, 
 refusing to give him time to correct those errors, (as was the au- 
 thor's case) he looks upon it as a disgrace to be imprisoned or 
 threatened with imprisonment^ if he has been in good standing in 
 society, or living in the favor of, and rn peace and harmony with 
 his friends. If they begin to abuse him and drop off from him, he 
 notices it all the time, and it produces unpleasant feelings for them 
 to make those threats of punishment ; but if he is insane, he does not 
 look upon it as a disgrace to be led kindly by his friends to a respect- 
 able healing institution, But on the contrary, he takes it as a special 
 favor. When your friend becomes insane, show your God what 
 you are, and never mind what the world may say against it. The 
 soul that is insane cannot help it ; he would like very much to be 
 sane. Some people will have it in such cases that they could avoid 
 being insane, and that they are not in that state, but only think so. 
 I reckon if one of those persons was to- think himself insane, he 
 would be very willing to be led to this institution to be healed. 
 You would come along very kindly. Do you suppose the young 
 man in the tombs cutting himself with stones, could avoid his con- 
 dition, or that he could have healed himself? It is just as reasona- 
 ble to suppose that as it is to suppose that the man who is insane 
 can avoid his condition or heal himself. Suppose you were taken 
 suddenly sick with nervous or congestive fever could you prevent 
 it? I guess not but perhaps you might be healed. Insanity is 
 likewise a disease, but more violent and painful, and if you were to 
 become afflicted with this awful malady you might be healed of it 
 also. It requires a little more time and care than a case of fever. 
 
 Some families wait for their friends to come and tell them that 
 their relatives are insane, and get on their knees and ask their friends
 
 ' ' ' ItA-i- ; il ' *l"' "./ J^ 
 
 GENERAL REMARKS. 57 
 
 to take care of them, and if they happen to be possessed of too high 
 a mind to pursue this course, God pity their condition, for in many 
 instances their friends will have no mercy on them. The insane 
 are quite high-minded they even sometimes imagine themselves 
 kings and favorites of heaven. 
 
 The man that steps up to you and says, " Sir, I am an insane 
 man." is one who only thinks himself insane. He may tell you by 
 citing the condition of other men who are pronounced insane and 
 treated as such, and ask you to say yourself, citing you at the same 
 time, to their own condition or to an insane institution, and ask yoa 
 for a friend. But they will never tell in plain words until they be- 
 come in a similar condition with the writer ; then they will acknowl- 
 edge themselves insane. It is a hard word for a man to cry out 
 upon himself. He expects his friends to cry that word for him. A 
 boy may speak it, but a man don't like to confess himself inferior 
 in point of talent or honor to his fellow man. I have noticed all my 
 life that a man's friends get entirely too- smart in such cases, long 
 before the right time ; but when the time comes for them to act and 
 show what they should do, they are never smart enough. It is 
 everybody's business and I have heard it said, what is every- 
 body's business is nobody's business. Every man is in action and 
 no man acts right if they do, it is a rare occurrence. A majority 
 of people profess to be perfect judges of insanity, and there is not 
 one out of every hundred that can define it, and perhaps it would 
 not be extravagant to say one out of every thousand. 
 
 If a man's friends will set themselves up as judges, they certainly 
 should be very sure that they do not judge amiss ; and if they are 
 not capable of judging they should not set themselves up as judges. 
 What kind of feeling would the reader suppose it would put upon a 
 man, to hear that a certain other man in the circle of his acquaint- 
 ance, had become insane, and to see the relations and friends of that 
 man mount their horses and lope off to his house and not abuse or 
 seek any advantage or suffer any one else to do it until he gets well ; 
 and he knows himself to be the most insane man on the face of 
 God's earth, and that his relatives and friends have a good right to 
 know it too, and he also knows them to be under equal obligations 
 towards him as that of the other man's friends, and he sees them 
 mount their horses and strike off to hunting up and circulating re- 
 ports on him, and gallop up to his house and abuse him, and' go off 
 to boast that they have given him a good lecturing ; is it reasonable 
 to suppose that this conduct could possibly create any good feel- 
 ing '? If you do suppose such a thing, you are very much mistaken 
 in your suppositions. It creates an unpleasant feeling in his mind 
 and breast towards his friends, and causes him to lose confidence in 
 himself and them. In some instances they require a longer time to 
 treat a case of insanity in their families than others, fearing that 
 they might act in too much haste. You cannot act in too much
 
 58 GENERAL REMARKS. 
 
 haste in such cases if you act with caution and discretion. Time 
 is money, therefore it is best td make use of it as it glides on. If 
 youi' friend becomes insane, you cannot get to him too soon, if you 
 approach hiia in a proper manner. Some families have to go out 
 and ask tha people what their duty is towards their insane, and 
 while they are making such inquiries perhaps their insane may com- 
 mit suicide. Read this book and it will teach you your duty. It 
 does no good to pronounce a man insane unless you act upon his 
 condition. For one man to say, " there stands an insane "man," and 
 a second to say, " well, let him stand no one cares," does not heal 
 insanity. It requires action in such cases. I could get no man to 
 act upon my condition, either for love or money, until it was forever 
 too late. I have tried at least one thousand men upon the subject, 
 and in a thousand different ways for action, but they invariably took 
 the wrong view of it, and began to make game and abuse, which 
 only adds fuel to the fire. It is passingly, strange that a man's friends 
 and relatives have no more feeling than to abuse him when he is sick 
 and deranged. You do not know but what you may now have a 
 son or a daughter that is deranged ; it would not be amiss to inves- 
 tigate it closely : and if it proves to be the case, be very certain to 
 take care of that one and treat it kindly, and I will insure that will 
 give you a character in the estimation of gentlemen ; you will be 
 spiritually rewarded, both in time and eternity. 
 
 Some men may say that they have no use for this book, upon the 
 ground that they have no insane in their families. My friends and 
 relatives always held that they had no insane, but they found them- 
 selves awfully mistaken. Suppose you have no insane now per- 
 haps you or some of your family might become insane, and then you 
 would find use for a book, thai would teach you what to do with 
 them. Buy while they are going, lest you might wish you had one 
 when you need it. 
 
 I have heard it said that during my trip to New Orleans, (hereto- 
 fore mentioned) a letter was received by the Methodist Church, of 
 which I was a member, stating that if I 'remained a member of said 
 Church it would not prosper. If it be any satisfaction to the Church 
 to know the truth, I wrote no such letter ; and if a letter of any 
 description was received by said Church over my name, it was a 
 forgery, both writing and signature. This is not the first forgery 
 that was ever committed by using my name, by several. I remem- 
 ber it was used quite freely during the winter of 1838-9, to notes 
 given for a large drove of hogs, bought by G. T. & Co., of which 
 partnership I was not a member ; neither did I have any part or lot 
 in the profits or loss of said purchase, except in taking the paper of said 
 concern in discount of debts due Mr. X and myself, which opera- 
 tion I stood opposed to. (for I knew the concern to be insolvent,) and 
 by which I sustained a loss of several thousand dollars. I never 
 authorized any of their agents to use my name to the notes, either
 
 GENERAL REMARKS. 59 
 
 verbally or by writing ; and I wrote no letter during said trip to 
 New Orleans, to the Church, or to any person, except to three indi- 
 viduals on business in which they were interested. 
 
 The heart is the seat of life from it flows throughout the whole 
 system a circulation of blood, even to the extremities of the. fingers 
 and toes from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot cir- 
 culating from the heart, through the veins and arteries, and then 
 returning to the heart and re-circulating again and again ; and if the 
 seat of life, which is the heart, becomes sick, the head becomes sick 
 also, and thus the whole system becomes sick. When the seat of 
 life dies, the balance cannot survive long it is bound to follow soon 
 after, in some way or other : but when the head and heart become 
 sick t-hey may be healed, and thus prevent the other members of the 
 body from receiving the contagion, and, instead of terminating in 
 death, the man m% live many years. You may break the heart 
 of a lion or an ox if you treat them as I was once treated, much less 
 the heart of a man. 
 
 Insanity is never out of danger, neither does it know when it is 
 in danger. Some people watch their insane very close until about 
 the time they think they are about to destroy themselves, and then 
 they quit watching. It is nice to watch an insane man it only 
 makes them worse to watch them ; take them into your houses and 
 treat them kindly, or bring them here where they can be healed. 
 Some people don't care no more what becomes of their insane than 
 they do for a dumb brute, and not so much, for they will take care 
 of a dumb brute, and they won't take care of their insane.' It is 
 sometimes the case that one kind word saves a man's life. Time 
 things are time things, and eternal things are eternal things ; time 
 things may be changed time things may.be rectified if a man's 
 friends will give him time to rectify them, but eternal things cau- 
 not. 
 
 O, t.hou that, stoneth the prophets and killeth them that I sent 
 unto thee, how oft would I have gathered you together as a hen 
 gathereth her brood under her wings, and unfolded these mysteries 
 unto you, and ye would not ; eyes ye had, and ye would not see ; 
 ears ye had, and ye would not hear. Eyes I had, and I did see ; 
 ears I had, and I could not hear. 
 
 When you step up to an insane man and abuse him, you are en- 
 tirely out of business ; you have got nothing else in the world to 
 do, and you may get yourself into business by it, and a very bad 
 business. 
 
 Gentlemen and ladies in high stations, 
 
 Will you look down upon the insane idiot 
 With contempt ? .You and your great relations 
 
 Might all become maniacs and idiots. 
 
 * Will you turn to them a deaf ear, 
 
 Or will you raise your voice for them in prayer, 
 That God may restore their minds and bless you every year, 
 And lead them from the dangerous snare?
 
 60 
 
 GENERAL REMARKS. 
 
 They are of the same dust and fellow-being. 
 
 Your conduct towards them is marked down 
 By the eyes of Him who is always seeing; 
 
 He expects you in your duty to be found. 
 
 If you should mistreat them and show disrespect, 
 
 Slim would be your chance for heaven ; 
 Therefore you had better them protect, 
 
 That you and them may be pure leaven. 
 
 Thus you might wear fine laurels, 
 
 And meet them in peace beyond J ordan's stormy banks, 
 Where never enter jars or quarrels ; 
 
 Where you could win crowns, golden harps and thanks.
 
 IDIOTISM. 
 
 IDIOTISM is a state in which the mental faculties have been want- 
 ing from birth, or have not been manifested at the period at which 
 they are generally or usually developed. Idiotism is an original 
 defect, and is by this circumstance, as well as by its phenomena, 
 distinguished from that of fatuity, which results from disease, or from 
 protracted age. The latter is dementia, and it is important that 
 this affection should not be confounded with idiotisrn. I will point 
 out the distinction between idiotism and original deficiency of under- 
 standing. Tt is divided into two stages or degrees, viz : absolute 
 idiotism and the condition approaching to idiotism, which last is 
 denominated imbecility. Imbecility is a state in which the intel- 
 lectual faculties are not wholly deficient, though manifested in a 
 lower degree than according to the ordinary standard. 
 
 Idiotism, however, is not the same in all instances. It differs in 
 particular cases and has a variety of forms. One of the most strong- 
 ly marked of these is termed cretonism, a species of idiotism connected 
 with personal deformity. Says Prichard, Cretons often show in their 
 earliest infancy what they are destined to become. They have 
 sometimes, in their first years, a puffed, swollen countenance ; their 
 bands and heads are large and out of proportion to the rest of their 
 bodies; they evince insensibility to atmospheric impressions; an 
 habitual state of stupor and sloth ; difficulty in sucking, as if through 
 weakness of instinct connected even with the first wants ; very slow 
 and imperfect development of the faculty of articulating sounds after 
 they are only capable of learning to pronounce vowels without conso- 
 nants ; they even display more and more clumsiness and stupidity in 
 all their movements. The same deficiency or absence of intelligence 
 continues to the age of ten or twelve years. Cretons of that age are 
 frequently unable to take food into their mouths and masticate it, so 
 that it is even necessary to put their aliment down their throats. 
 As they grow up they still \va\k with an awkward and tottering gait 
 when they can be induced to move at all. They have never r 
 cheerful countenance, are always stupidly obstinate, with a resistip' 
 
 61
 
 62 IDIOTISM. 
 
 I 
 
 mutinous temper ; they show a disproportioned smallness of head in 
 'elation to their bodies ; their heads are flattened, and the tuberosjty 
 of the occiput is less projecting than is natural ; their eyes are 
 small, sometimes deeply sunk, at others prominent ; their look fixed 
 and stupid, chests flat, fingers thin and long, the soles of their feet 
 flat and sometimes bent, and often turned inwards or outwards ; ob- 
 scene and erotic propensities. They do not walk about much, and are 
 only excited by a desire taget food or warm themselves by the fire 
 or in the rays of the sun; his litter is his longest and most fatiguing 
 Journey, and to it he coines tottering and reeling about. In seeking 
 his object he goes forward without shunning dangers or obstacles ; 
 he can take no other road than the one most familiar. Their organs 
 of sense are imperfect ; they see imperfectly, are deaf or hard of 
 hearing, dumb or mumbling and lisping in their speech ; their taste 
 and smell are also imperfect, and* they eat without selection of food. 
 Their reflecting faculties are still more imperfect than their powers 
 of sensation ; they are incapable of directing their attention to any- 
 thing ; though sensations take place through the organs of sight or 
 hearing, they are scarcely followed by any perception of objects. 
 Many idiots have even the instinctive faculties in a defective state, 
 and appear to be far below the brutes in the scale of animal exist- 
 ence, for brute animals have in perfection all those impulses to action 
 which are necessary for their individual well-being and that of 
 their tribe. 
 
 Idiots, however, have their bodily appetites and sexual desires ; 
 they are likewise subject to anger and rage. There are some who 
 display faint glimmerings of intelligence; their attention is some- 
 times excited by impressions made upon their senses ; they appear 
 to look upon certain objects with a sentiment of pleasure mixed 
 with curiosity. 
 
 Bsquirol gives an account of a woman twenty-two years of age, 
 who was admitted at the Salpetriere, in 1812. Her mother, while 
 pregnant, experienced certain severe trials, and the subject had a 
 feeble and sickly infancy, and learned to walk at a very late period. 
 When five years of age she suffered from a severe illness, Kesulting- 
 it was supposed, from a fright. Since that period the progress of 
 intelligence has ceased, although the organs are well developed. 
 
 er stature is above the medium size, her step easy, slow, and 
 somewhat haughty ; her hair of a chesnut color, her forhead high, 
 eyes blue, face flushed, chin small and sharp, teeth white and well 
 arranged, the occiput well developed, the physiognomy mild and 
 friendly, skin fair and the limbs well formed. The admeasurement 
 of the head, taken during life, is as follows :
 
 , IDIOTISM. 63 
 
 Circumfer.ence, - 33.66 in. 
 
 Antero posterior diameter, - - 7.87 
 
 Bi. temporal diameter, t - . 6.10 " 
 
 From the curve at the root of the nose to the occi- 
 pital tuberosity, 14.29 " 
 
 Total, 61.92 
 
 The menses appeared at thirteen, and we're abundant and regu- 
 lar at fourteen. After that period her disposition became less ami- 
 able, and she refused to labor. The sight of men caused the blood 
 to mount into her cheeks, and she was accustomed to escape from 
 the house of her parents to run about and play with little boys. 
 The intellectual capacity of this imbecile was considerable ; she at- 
 tended both to what she saw and heard. She had some memory, 
 formed a sufficiently accurate judgment respecting the most com- 
 mon things, and replied correctly, .but in a hesitating tone, to such 
 questions as were rarely addressed. In vain they endeavored to 
 teach her to read and labor she would repeat a few letters and 
 that was all. She learned how to arrange dolls, and amused her- 
 self with them. She would dress herself, comb her hair, wash her- 
 self, make her bed, and call for a change of linen. She would go 
 for her food ; but was unwilling to receive it except in dishes appro- 
 priated specially to her use ; quite haughty, and disdained her com- 
 panions ; and notwithstanding she was habitually mild, opposition 
 irritated her, and she then became perverse and abusive in her lan- 
 guage, and would strike if made angry. If any one struck her she 
 would return their blows with interest. She was excessively obsti- 
 nate, and would never yield ; had neither 'fear nor jealousy ; walk 
 ed much, and sported with her companions ; would caress her mo 
 ther, of whom she was very fond, and if long absent, she became 
 sad. She would accuse her father-in law, whom she disliked, Oi 
 treating his other children better than herself, and particularly in 
 supplying them with better clothing. She was observant of atten 
 ^tions paid to her. The sight of men produced a strong impression, 
 and she watched for the workmen when permitted to enter the 
 courts of the hospital. She never became habituated to continual 
 labor. On receiving a new dress, she hastened to display herself to 
 her companions and the domestics of the house. When her portrait 
 was taken, in consequence of the regularity in the form of her head, 
 and the harmony of her features, which contrasted with the feeble- 
 ness of her understanding, she seemed transported with joy. Nev- 
 ertheless, there was much difficulty found in inducing her to keep 
 her seat, which she was constantly disposed to leave. It was impos- 
 sible to take a cast of her face, for so soon as she felt the softened 
 plaster over her eyes, she would open them. She has often essayed 
 in vain to keep her 113s closed, and often wept with mortification at 
 her inability to submit successfully to the operation. Imbeciles
 
 64 IDIOTISM. 
 
 are nothing of themselves they are incapable of attention. With 
 feeble sensations and fugacious, dull of memory a'nd inaccurate, 
 they are able to combine and compare, but their will is without 
 energy. They are not always deprived of the power of speech ; a 
 small portion of them are mutes. They very readily express, by 
 the play of their countenance and gestures, their thoughts, desires, 
 and wants. Nothing is produced by them, and all their movements, 
 both intellectual and moral, are aroused only by foreign impulses. 
 They neither think no* act but through others ; their will is with- 
 out energy ; they cannot follow a conversation, and are still more 
 feeble in a discussion, nor can they conduct a project to its close. 
 They regard the most serious things as gay, and laugh at those 
 that are most sad. They hear but do not comprehend, although 
 they affect to both see and understand. Their gestures and posi- 
 tions are odd, and rarely in harmony with -what they think or say, 
 are puffed by pretension, easily led and controlled, and incapable of 
 application and labor. There are other imbeciles, however, who pos- 
 sess but a small number of sensations and ideas, and have but 
 little memory. Their language also is limited, obstinate, and 
 peevish. 
 
 Parents and guardians are under equal obligations to the unfor 
 tunate idiot as they are to their insane, except the healing part. I 
 conceive it to be impossible to heal idiocy where they are born in 
 that condition ; therefore, I think it unnecessary to lay down any 
 particular rule by which they might be healed. Still; it is your 
 duty to reasonably feed and clothe them, and render them as com- 
 fortable as you can. It might be proper to give a sufficiency of mild 
 medicine, occasionally, to keep the stomach and bowels in a healthy 
 condition. They do not- usually live to be more than from twenty 
 to thirty years of age, and very frequently die ajL an earlier period, 
 especially where they are mistreated, which shortens their lives as 
 does maltreatment in cases of insanity. 
 
 LINES TO MY FATHER. 
 
 May God support you in old age, 
 And when he takes you from this stage 
 May you in Heaven meet my mother, 
 And Jesus Christ, your elder brother. 
 
 Your youngest son, perhaps, you'll never see, 
 
 But pray don't think of me ; 
 When a boy I loved you more 
 Than all the sons you had before 
 
 When you suffered me from your mansions driven, 
 .As did Noah's dove o'er this wide domain I've striven, 
 If wrongs to you -I have done, 
 Pray forgive them all or none. 
 While this I write 1 can't forbear to weep, 
 That I by my country should be sold sq,.cheap
 
 
 JURISPRUDENCE OF INSANITY, 
 
 THE chief design of the author of this work has been to convey 
 to the reader a correct view of insanity, and the manner of treat- 
 ment requisite to effect a cure, together with the causes that produce 
 the disease, and the manner of detecting it. I will now lay down 
 what I conceive to be correct views in criminal cases of insanity 
 before any. particular court of judicature. 
 
 This subject will be readily admitted as one of great importance 
 and interest. The life of a fellow-being is often dependent upon the 
 evidence given in a court of justice. When cases of this kind be- 
 come matters of judicial inquiry, a person ignorant of the character 
 and peculiarities of disordered intellect, of the pathetical condition 
 of the human mind, of its strange caprices, of the influence of exter- 
 nal and internal agents in disordering its manifestations, may by 
 his evidence consign a human being, deprived of his reasoning 
 faculties, and having no control over his thoughts and actions, to an 
 ignominious and painful death. The judge and jury, never having 
 had an opportunity of making the subject of insanity their study, 
 must depend principally upon the evidence of medical testimony. 
 If they, too, have not investigated the subject, how perilous is the 
 condition of the unhappy man charged with the commission of a 
 capital crime, and held responsible to answer the laws of his coun- 
 iry. and abide the decisions of a court and jury wholly ignorant of 
 the disease, and suffer the penalties of the law on account of the 
 executors of it being uninformed ! It may be urged that it is only 
 the province of the court to state to the jury the law on criminal 
 cases of insanity. To do this, it is necessary that he should be 
 intimately conversant with the subject and the peculiar character- 
 istics of mental derangement. To do justice in such cases, it -is 
 absolutely necessary that not only the medical men examined, but 
 the judge and jury, should be well informed upon the subject of 
 insanity. t 
 
 The time, I hope, is not far distant, when there will be instituted, 
 for the investigation of cases in which it is important to establish 
 the existence or non-existence of aberration of mind, a separate 
 5
 
 66 JURISPRUDENCE 
 
 jurisdiction, presided over by persons whose attention has been 
 specially directed to the study of mental derangement. Some of 
 the most illustrious ornaments of the bench, in cases where insanity 
 may be urged as an exculpatory plea, might labor under difficulties 
 unless well informed upon this particular subject, and thereby, in all 
 probability, unintentionally give an erroneous charge to the jury, 
 and pass an erroneous sentence upon the unfortunate subject, and 
 inflict th% punishment of an ignominious and torturing death, while 
 at the same time it would be the duty of the court, bar and jury, to 
 protect the unfortunate criminal, by extending the benefit of such 
 laws as are made and provided in cases of insanity generally they 
 being blessed by an all-wise Creator with proper reasoning faculties 
 and bodily health, and their unfortunate fellow being both bodily 
 and mentally diseased. 
 
 No man should be considered competent to give an opinion on a 
 complicated question as a witness, where insanity may be suspected, 
 or should be necessary to be investigated for the well being of society 
 and that of the unfortunate criminal, unless he has made the disease 
 of. the mind his study ; and if an attempt should be made to bring 
 forward any such testimony, it should be exposed by the bar to the 
 laughter of the court. Yet medical knowledge is essentially neces- 
 sary for the elucidation- of any particular case of insanity, and the 
 friends of the subject should as well, as heretofore laid down in the 
 treatment of cases of insanity in general, apply to the most efficient 
 medical aid in their reach. It might be the case, that from some 
 previous misunderstanding between the parties, that partialities or 
 prejudices might exist in the minds of such witnesses, either in 
 favor of or against any particular criminal case of insanity, at 
 which time all such feelings should be thrown aside, and perhaps it 
 might be advisable to throw the testimony aside and procure other 
 medical testimony, with whom the criminal may not have been pre- 
 viously acquainted, or had no transactions in the different avoca- 
 tions and pursuits of life. Not one of the jury may have ever seen 
 a case of insanity, nor have given the subject a moment's consider- 
 ation. It would be erroneous to place a dying maniac in the dungeon 
 of a county or State prison, and bind him down with fetters and 
 chains, thus placing him on a level with thieves, robbers and midnight 
 assassins, who would plunge a dagger into the heart of his fellow 
 being, and usher him into another mode of existence. Such a course 
 would go to cause the disease, to further increase its ravages and 
 torturing pains, and might cause the disease to prove fatal and the 
 subject to commit suicide. The unfortunate subject ? knowing him- 
 self to be insane, looks up to his friends for advice, and when they 
 treat him thus, he becomes tired of the present, and is willing to try 
 a future existence. * 
 
 In such cases their friends may render as an excuse, that they 
 were confining them to prevent an escape, about which they need 
 not give themselves any uneasy thoughts. There is no danger of
 
 ' OF INSANITY. 67 
 
 
 
 an insane man trying to make his escape, but, on the contrary, their 
 friends should go and take them home, or carry them to a lunatic 
 asylum, where they will be taken good care of and cured, and where 
 they will be prevented from destroying themselves or any other per- 
 son. By this course you may preserve life. It is the opinion of some 
 persons that none but the lower class of men ever commit suicide, 
 and say, let them go no one cares it injures none but themselves. 
 Such persons are laboring under a mistaken notion. It occurs almost 
 invariably with men who were once in the first standing in society, 
 and in possession of the finest talents in the world, and it invariably 
 implicates the highest rank of society. Insanity should be held in 
 high estimation by sanity, and is by persons of reflection who know 
 anything about the disease. 
 
 Relative to the duties enjoined upon judges, counsellors, parents, 
 guardians, friends and physicians, in reference to any particular 
 criminal case of insanity, suffice it to say, once for all, that the obli- 
 gation of such is equally binding towards each and every case, without 
 regard to sex, name or age there is no exempt case. I do not mean, 
 by standing opposed to the imprisonment of maniacal criminals in 
 the dungeons of a county or State prison, (as sane criminals should 
 be,) that it would be advisable to suffer them to roam at large over 
 the world, subject to be led about by the whims and intrigues of 
 the sane thief or midnight assassin, and imperceptibly led to the 
 commission of unlawful deeds, which, if sane, they could not have 
 been induced to commit. Thus, through the mistaken notions of a 
 court and jury, who may not have had an opportunity of becoming 
 acquainted with the subject of insanity, a poor soul might be inflicted 
 with the punishment of the lav/ for doing a deed when not in his 
 right mind. If not protected, therefore, by their friends, and treated 
 by their physicians while in this state of aberration, the unfortunate 
 subjects are doomed to sink in the estimation of society, and are 
 classed in the rank of, and subject to suffer the penalties of the law, 
 with the sane villain who may have led them to commit the crime; 
 when, if properly taken care of, or sent to a lunatic asylum by their 
 friends, in all probability their minds would be restored, and they 
 become useful men to society. It is nice to even suppose an insane 
 man or woman should know how to procure their own counsel when 
 brought before a court for the commission of a criminal offence, or 
 even to take care of themselves. 
 
 Deranged persons sometimes imagine themselves surrounded by 
 enemies who are seeking their lives, and actually sink under fright 
 and fall dead in their tracks, or put an end to their own existence 
 with the view of preventing their enemies from gratifying their 
 blood-thirsty souls in their blood preferring to take their own lives 
 rather than let their enemies do it. The judge forgets to say, in his 
 charge to the jury, that perhaps the criminal at the bar is insane, 
 and cite them to the insane institution at which they might be 
 healed. The lawyer forgets to sav that his client is- insane, and to
 
 68 JURISPRUDENCE 
 
 
 
 cite the jury to an insane institution. The jury forget, in rendering 
 their verdict, that there is an insane institution. They all forget the 
 respectable healing house, but they never forget the penitentiary and 
 gallows. It is better to err in such cases on the side of mercy than 
 on the side of severity it is better to drink the blood of a hundred 
 sane men than one insane man, all being guilty of the same crime 
 If a man be guilty of a crime, and you arraign him before any court 
 of judicature, if he be insane and you swear that he is sane, it makes * 
 him amenable to the laws of his country for the crime he commits, 
 and he is punished with death the prosecutor that prosecuted him, 
 the witness that swore against him, the jury that found the verdict, 
 the judge that passed the sentence, and the sheriff that executed 
 him, are all held responsible in tho sight of God as a band of mur- 
 derers. You are taking the life of him whom God commands you 
 to heal you are destroying where you should protect. ^,-,. 
 
 Acting justices of the peace, sheriffs, constables and coroners, 
 are sworn to support the Constitution of their respective States 
 and of the United States ; and if a case of insanity occurs in 
 your city, town, county, or district, and you live wholly in the neg- 
 lect of treating the subject as such, you stand perjured in the sight 
 of God, together with all other officers who take the same oath. 
 
 In addition to the plans heretofore laid down for detecting insanity 
 or homicide, I will further lay down the following. They are founded 
 on general observation : 
 
 Acts of homicide perpetrated by insane persons by other striking 
 peculiarities of action noted in the conduct of these individuals 
 by a total change of character. 
 
 The same individuals, in many instances, would attempt suicide, 
 expressing a wish for death, and they will in some cases even beg 
 to be executed as criminals. 
 
 Those acts are without motive; they are in opposition to the 
 known influences of all human motives. A man murders his wife 
 and children who is known to have been tenderly attached to them, 
 and a mother destroys her infant. 
 
 The subsequent conduct of the unfortunate individual is generally 
 characteristic of his state. He seeks no escape nor flight as would 
 the sane villain, but delivers himself to justice, acknowledges the 
 act, describes the state of mind which led to its perpetration, or re- 
 mains stupified and overcome by a horrible consciousness of having 
 been the agent in an atrocious deed. The murderer has generally 
 accomplices in vice and crime there are assignable inducements 
 which lead to its commission motives of self-interest, of revenge, 
 displaying wickedness premeditated. The acts of a madman are 
 also in some degree premeditated, but his premeditation is peculiar 
 and characteristic with a view of trying to convince his friends of 
 his teal condition, hoping that he may get them into action upon 
 the treatment of his vase to prevent suicide or any further destruc- 
 tion. There is also a presumption of insanity where the individual
 
 OF INSANITY. 69 
 
 has either been previously insane, or affected by epilepsy. I main- 
 tain that capital punishment has the effect of developing in the 
 maniacal criminals, in many instances, a destructive impulse, as 
 well as exciting that tendency to imitate which is inherent in every 
 mind. The sentence of punishment by death, instead of producing 
 a beneficial effect with persons laboring under homicidal tendencies, 
 actually, in many instances, stimulates them to the commission of 
 ^rime. 
 
 I will cite to the following cases, taken from Prichard : I. K., a 
 farmer, several of whose relatives had been the subjects of mental 
 derangement, was a man of .--ober and domestic habits, and frugal 
 and steady in his conduct until about his forty-fifth year, when his 
 disposition appeared to have become suddenly changed in a manner 
 which excited the surprise of his friends and neighbors, and occa- 
 sioned grief and vexation in his family. He became wild, excitable, 
 thoughtless, full of schemes and absurd projects ; he would set out 
 and make long journeys into distant parts of the country to pur- 
 chase cattle and farming stock, of which he had no means of dispo- 
 sing. He bought a number of carriages, hired an expensive house 
 ready furnished, which had been occupied by a person much above 
 his rank, and was unsuited to his condition. He was irascible and 
 impetuous, quarrelled with his neighbors, and committed an assault 
 upon the clergyman of his parish, for which he was indicted and 
 bound to take his trial. At length his wife became convinced that 
 he was mad, and made application for his confinement in a lunatic 
 asylum, which was consequently affected. The medical practitioners 
 who examined him were convinced of his insanity, by comparing 
 his late wild habits and unaccountable conduct with the former tenor 
 of his life, taking in consideration the tendency to disease which 
 was known to prevail in his family. The change of his character 
 alone had produced a full conviction in the minds of his friends and 
 relatives of his madness. When questioned as to the motives which 
 had induced him to some of his proceedings, he gave clear and dis- 
 tinct replies, and assigned, with great ingenuity, some plausible rea- 
 son for almost every part of his conduct. 
 
 A. B., a tradesman of industrious, sober habits, conducted himself 
 with propriety until about forty-six years of age. and had accumulated 
 a considerable property from the- fruits of his exertions. About that 
 period he lost his wife, and after her death, he became more and 
 more penurious. At length he denied himself the comforts, and. in 
 a great measure, the necessaries of life, and became half starved 
 and diseased. His body was emaciated and beset with scaly erup- 
 tions. Mr. S., a gentleman had long known him, hearing of the 
 condition into which he had sunk, sent a medical practitioner to 
 visit him, by whose advise, Mr. B. was removed from a miserable, 
 dirty lodging, to a lunatic asylum. Mr. S., who was present on the 
 occasion, observed that A. B., previous to quitting the room in which 
 he had immured himself, kept his eyes fixed on an old trunk in the
 
 70 JURISPRUDENCE 
 
 corner of the apartment. This was afterwards emptied of its con 
 tents, and in it were found, in the midst of various articles, dirty 
 bank notes, which had been thrown into it apparently at different 
 times, to the value of more than a thousand pounds. A. B., after 
 his removal to an asylum, where he had wholesome food and exer- 
 cise, soon began to recover from his bodily infirmities, and at length 
 became anxious to be at large. He betrayed no sign of intellectual 
 delusion, nor did it appear that anything of that description had 
 ever been a part of his complaint. After some months, and after 
 various expedients were- adopted, it became necessary to bring him 
 back to the asylum, with a certificate from a medical man who had 
 examined and declared him to be insane. He still remains in the 
 asylum, and derangement is now more complete than formerly, as 
 it plainly involves his intellect. 
 
 Mr. H. P. had been for many years confined in a lunatic asylum, 
 when an estate having devolved upon him by inheritance, it became 
 necessary to subject him anew to investigation. He was examined 
 by several physicians, who were unanimous in the opinion that he 
 was a lunatic, but a jury considered him to be of sound understand- 
 ing, attributing his peculiarities to eccentricity, and he was conse- 
 quently set at liberty. The conduct of this individual was the most 
 eccentric that could be imagined ; he scarcely performed any action 
 in the same manner as other men, and some of his habits, in which 
 he obstinately persisted, were singularly filthy and disgusting. For 
 every peculiar custom he had a faint and often ludicrous reason to 
 allege, which indicated a strange mixture of rudeness and absurdity. 
 It might have been barely possible to attribute all these peculiarities, 
 as well as the morbid state of temper and affections, to singularity 
 in the natural character and to the peculiar circumstances under 
 which this person had been placed ; but there was one conviction 
 deeply fixed on his mind, which, though it might likewise be ex- 
 plained by the circumstances of his previous history, seemed to con- 
 stitute an instance of maniacal delusion. Whenever any person 
 whom he understood to be a physician attempted to.feel his pulse, 
 he would recoil with an expression of horror, and exclaim, " If you 
 were to feel my pulse, you would be lord paramount over me for the 
 rest of my life." The result has proved that confinement is not al- 
 ways necessary in cases of this description. Mr. H. P. has remained 
 at liberty for many years, and his conduct, though extremely singu- 
 lar, has been without injury to himself or others. 
 
 It is a well established fact that masturbation is a prolific cause 
 of mental derangement in young subjects. In those cases, although 
 the intellect finally surfers deeply and rapidly, yet in its initiatory 
 stage the moral and affective may be seriously perverted, while the 
 conduct and conversation of the individual may be outwardly 
 marked by its usual propriety. Long before any intellectual aber- 
 ration is observed, and while the patient is merely moody and re-
 
 OF INSANITY. 71 
 
 served, his mind may be tortured by fears and suspicions that mar 
 his peace and sometimes lead him to acts of violence. 
 
 Dr. Bell, the accomplished physician of the McLean Asylum of 
 Massachusetts, says that he knew a pious, intelligent student, pur- 
 suing his daily avocations to the satisfaction of his friends and in- 
 structors, who nightly slept with a weapon under his pillow to pro- 
 tect himself from attack from one whom he had scarcely seen, and 
 to whom he had never spoken, and when convinced of his delusion 
 by proofs so overpowering that his mind was obliged to acknowledge 
 its assent, he merely transferred his suspicious to another equally 
 innocent individual. Had this young man met the object of his 
 suspicions and shot him dead, how few could have been brought to 
 believe that he acted under the influence of insanity and was conse- 
 quently irresponsible. . How feeble would have been any evidence 
 of insanity, but such as had reference expressly to the particular 
 form under which he was laboring. Such a case as this should 
 make a strong impression on the mind of the medical jurist. 
 
 The following cases are taken from Winslow's Pleas of Insanity, 
 which deserve high consideration. 
 
 An intriguing, vicious, unruly madman was detected with a piece 
 of iron, which he had contrived to shape like a dagger, and to which 
 he firmly fixed a handle. The weapon was taken away from him, 
 when he immediately became excessively abusive, and was placed 
 under restraint. After this he was more violent, and uttered the 
 most revolting imprecations. In a fit of fury, he exclaimed to the 
 keeper, " I'll murder you yet I am a madman, and they cannot 
 hang rne for it." 
 
 In 1829, Mr. G. Combe saw a patient who had been confined in. 
 the Richmond Lunatic Asylum for the period of ten years. He was 
 intelligent, ingenious and plausible he was represented as having 
 been a scourge to his family in childhood had been turned out of 
 the army as an incorrigible villain had attempted the life of a 
 soldier jjad fyeen repeatedly flogged. andWiad subsequently endea- 
 vored to murder his father. With reference to this case, Dr. Craw- 
 ford, physician to the Asylum, makes the following observations : 
 He never was different from what he is now ; he has never evinced 
 the slightest incoherence on any one point, nor any kind of hallu- 
 cination ; it is one of those cases which throw a difficulty in drawing 
 the line between .extreme moral depravity and insanity, and in dis- 
 covering at what point an individual should cease to be considered 
 as a responsible, moral agent, and answerable to the laws. The 
 governors and medical gentlemen of the asylum have often had 
 doubts whether they were justified in keeping him as a lunatic. 
 He appears so thoroughly callous with regard to any moral principle 
 and feeling; so totally unconscious of ever having done any thing 
 wrong ; so completely destitute of all sense of shame or remorse, 
 when reproved for his vices or crimes, and has proved himself so
 
 
 72 JURISPRUDENCE 
 
 irtiterly incorrigible throughout life, that it is almost certain that any 
 jury before whom he might be brought would satisfy their doubts by 
 returning him insane to a lunatic asylum, which, in such a case, 
 would be the most humane course to pursue. He was dismissed 
 several times from the asylum, and sent there the last time for 
 attempting to poison his father, and it is thought best that he should 
 be kept there for life as a moral lunatic. But there has never been 
 the least symptom, of diseased action of the brain, which is the gen- 
 eral concomitant of what is usually understood as insanity. 
 
 There have been many cases very similar to that just related for 
 the care and protection of which nothing whatever has been done. 
 The gallows ends the career of many unfortunate moral maniacs. 
 Was not Labierse a case of this kind ? This man, who is represent- 
 ed to have borne a "high character, murdered his mistress, two wives, 
 Whom he had successively married, his own son, and was at last ar- 
 rested in his criminal course by being detected in stealing a child, 
 which he had destined to satisfy his savage appetite. This maniac 
 selected the period of parturition for the administration of poisons. 
 The only motive assigned for his conduct was, the delight which he 
 was presumed to take in witnessing persons suffer excruciating tor- 
 ture. This man was condemned to suffer the penalty of the law, 
 and was executed. Ought he not to have been sent to a mad-house? 
 
 The following case of homicidal insanity excited much attention 
 in. France, and amongst the medical men, created considerable dis- 
 cussion : Henriette Conover, a female servant, twenty-seven years of 
 age, was of mild and lively disposition, full of gaiety and remarkably 
 fond of children. Suddenly a singular change was observed in her 
 deportment. She became silent, melancholy, disturbed in thought, 
 and finally sunk into a state of stupor. This was in the month of 
 June. She was dismissed from her place on account of her mental 
 dejection, and in the month of September attempted to commit sui- 
 cide. In the following October she entered into the service of Madame 
 Fournier still despondii% and melancholy. On the 4th of Novem- 
 ber she suddenly conceived the horrible purpose of murdering the 
 child of a neighbor. She severed its head from its body wSth a large 
 kitchen knife. She subsequently declared that while executing this 
 horrible deed, she felt no particular motive either of pleasure or of 
 pain. She, however, experienced some emotions of fear at the end 
 of two hours. Madame Belam came and inquired for her child 
 " Your child is dead," replied Henriette. She made no attempt to 
 escape or to deny the crime. This unfortunate creature was tried 
 on the 27th of February, 1826, when the medical witnesses declared 
 that though they could not produce any positive proof of her insanity, 
 yet they were equally unable to pronounce her sane. She was again 
 brought to trial, found guilty of homicidal suicide and sentenced to 
 hard labor for life.
 
 OF INSANIt*. 73 
 
 
 
 I hope any court and jury will be able, by close observation, to dis- 
 criminate in criminal cases, between homicidal criminals and sane 
 criminals, which is a very important consideration. I hope the dif- 
 ferent courts and councils will not think this short and compre- 
 hensive view of jurisprudence in criminal cases of insanity to be an 
 intrusion upon their different elevated stations, as it has been my 
 whole design to enlighten any portion of them that may never have 
 had an opportunity of making the subject of insanity their study, and 
 hope, by a clear investigation of this book, they will be much aided 
 in defining such cases, and perhaps may be even aided in rendering 
 the charge to the jury relative to the insane laws, and the jury might 
 De aided in rendering their verdict. I think it unnecessary to add 
 much more upon this subject, as I never was a judge of a court or a 
 practitioner at the bar, neither did I ever sit as a juror or give testi- 
 mony as a witness in a criminal case either of sanity or insanity. I 
 was nothing but a common citizen, engaged in the daily avocations 
 and pursuits of life. 
 
 The reader might come to the conclusion that some parts of this 
 work are pretty cutting. If so, whatever part they may think good 
 they can cherish in their minds, and the bad they can throw aside, 
 as it is not intended to be any portion of the law of the land, but a 
 family adviser or medical book for the parents, sons and daughters, 
 brothers and sisters to read, and heal and be healed. I hope it will 
 cause no division or confusion, but unite you together as a band of 
 brothers upon the importance or unimportance of the different sub- 
 jects herein contained. United you stand, divided you fall. A man 
 may, under the influence of disease of his mental powers, commit 
 acts of extravagance, ruin himself and family, become involved in all 
 kinds of difficulties, indulge in habits destructive to both body and 
 mind, and no restrictive or protective measures be adopted to save 
 him from inevitable ruin. The absence of all hallucination or per- 
 version of the mental powers is the only thing that saves such an 
 unprotected person from sudden destruction. I have received many 
 favors from the hands of my friends during my life, for which I feel 
 very thankful. Some of them have received large favors at my 
 hands, for which I hold no claims on them further than to afccpunt to 
 my creditors and children for any debts they may owe me. If you 
 miss doing an insane man the right favor in due time according 
 to its day and time it all amounts to nothing in the end. The 
 right favor is to have them healed, taught, protected and taken care 
 of. In the midst of counsel there is safety, but in an over multi- 
 plicity of counsel there is no safety. Of the latter I have in time 
 received a liberal portion. 
 
 In criminal cases of insanity, where the life of the unfortunate 
 subject is at stake, which, when taken, all he has of an earthly 
 nature goes with it.
 
 74 JURISPRUDENCE OF INSANITY. 
 
 ^ 
 
 The judge and jury should be Washingtonians, 
 The medical testimony should be Jeffersonians, 
 The counsel should be Ciceros, or Patrick Henrys, 
 The friends should all be in their memories, 
 The clerk should not give a slip with his pen, 
 And the sheriffs should act like men. 
 To the heeling of your insane I will cite you all, 
 As waa advised the Hebrews by the apostle Paul.
 
 ON SUICIDE. 
 
 ANY self-murder might be justly termed suicide. The man who 
 shoots himself commits suicide ; the man who plunges wilfully into 
 the depths of the murmuring deep, as it flows swiftly down, encom- 
 passed by its banks, and drowns himself, commits suicide ; or the 
 man who takes inwardly ardent spirits, laudanum or opium, for that 
 express purpose, commits suicide ; but the act of drawing a razor 
 across the throat is and might be distinguished from all other sell- 
 murders as suicide. 
 
 In giving the general causes that produce suicide or self-murder 
 in any way, we will have to be governed in a great degree by the 
 same causes heretofore laid down that produce insanity, as it is in- 
 evitably the case that insanity i always, with very few exceptions, 
 together with this rigid course of maltreatment and abusive lan- 
 guage, the forerunner of suicide. I am, therefore, justified in saying 
 that, as a general rule, no man would, in a state of sanity, sound in 
 body and mind, with malice aforethought, commit this act. It al- 
 most invariably originates from some local disease in the brain or 
 system which act man of himself never commits. It is true he 
 strikes the blow with liis own hand or pulls the trigger with his 
 own finger, but strictly speaking the persons under whose care he 
 is, and with whom the unfortunate subject may have his immediate 
 transactions in life, and those with whom he most frequently asso- 
 ciates and looks up to for advice and protection, together with his 
 attendant physicians, do the work for him. Hence they become his 
 murderers. Some men are committing suicide fiye, some ten, some 
 fifteen, and some even for twenty years making the attempt at in- 
 tervals. Suppose, for instance, that a man conceals himself in his 
 room, in the absence of any person, knowing at the same time that 
 it would be impossible for any person to get to him to prevent him 
 from committing the act, and after having taken a w r eapon in his 
 hand, reflects for a moment, seeing the error he is in, and lays it 
 
 75
 
 76 SUICIDE. 
 
 down even if he should not put his intention into execution, I 
 would say that man was insane, or both bodily and mentally dis- 
 eased ; and their friends, physicians, parents, or guardians, as- the 
 case may be, should take the case in hands immediately, to prevent 
 it, by treating it upon one of the two plans heretofore laid down 
 under the head of treatment in cases of insanity in general. By 
 this means they restore the nerve, or fibre, already affected or dis- 
 eased ; and in rendering the service they save the life of the unfor- 
 tunate subject, and win to themselves unfading laurels, as did the 
 lord of the young man that went down to Jericho. 
 
 The time to take steps to prevent such fatal accidents from befall- 
 ing the bodies of unfortunate men, is upon the first attempt you may 
 suspect they make at suicide, or upon the loss of the first fibre of 
 the brain. Therefore, if taken in hand in a proper manner, it is 
 just as easy restored as a common fever or influenza; it requires a 
 little more care and caution on the part of the friends and physi- 
 cians of the patient, but what of all that when you save the life of 
 a fellow being, and perhaps have your son or brother in your fireside 
 conversations for years to come. In all probability you may thus 
 be an instrument in the hands of God in saving a soul in eternity. 
 If you see thy brother in fault, chasten him mildly, affectionately 
 and brotherly ; by so doing you may save thy brother's soul, receive 
 a brighter reward, add stars to your own crown, and enter with him 
 into realms of unfading felicity. Then you may sit down at the 
 right hand of God, hail Jesus Christ as your elder brother, and fall 
 down at his feet with'your sheaf, and cry out, " Here, Lord, is one 
 sheaf that thou gavest me in yonder world ; I have cultivated the 
 vine, and thou didst send rain in thy good grace in good season to 
 water and replenish its growth." In gathering time, when God 
 shall call upon you to account for your stewardship, you can render 
 to him your son, brother, patient or friend, as the case may be fine 
 fruits of your labors and the unfortunate subjects might be justly 
 termed the fruit of the vine. You might, with oare and kind reli- 
 gious instruction, have fine fruit from the vine and fig tree, and be 
 counted meat fit for your master's service. 
 
 If the friends of subjects neglect to treat them as insane persons, 
 as heretofore laid down under the head of treatment in cases of 
 insanity, until the disease reaches or terminates in the last stage, 
 by all means they should at that time grasp the arm and prevent 
 the fatal blow. It is easy to prevent suicide by a little care and 
 caution ; but whejp people take a stubborn stand, and look upon it 
 as a duty to abuse insanity, not considering the moral obligation 
 they owe to themselves, their fellow-men and their God, and take 
 no steps to prevent such things from taking place, they may find 
 their friends committing suicide, and then they begin to excuse 
 themselves to one another, and to the people. But when you 
 investigate this matter rightly, you will find that there is but one
 
 SUICIDE. 77 
 
 j " * 
 
 place to render an account, and that is at the bar of Almighty God. 
 You cannot render an account for eternal things before any other 
 tribunal. 
 
 It is nice to step up to a little boy who may have been bereaved 
 of one or both of his earthly parents, and say, before you have 
 brought him up, " Sir, you must come down." I would recommend 
 the plan of bringing your boys up. Human nature is humarwnature, 
 and human nature in the shape of insanity is easy enough led to do 
 wrong contrary to its own will, without frightening it from one de- 
 gree of maniacy into another, until it commits suicide. Suicide is 
 very frequently produced by sudden fright and abusive language. 
 
 You may take a pig, and feedand water it until you make it 
 quite gentle, and even have a pet of it ; but do you quit feeding 
 and watering that pig, and let it take a notion into its head 
 that you intend to kill it, or turn it into the woods and set the dogs 
 after it, and you may run it entirely wild, and if you don't watch 
 very close you will never tame it again. Just so with human nature 
 you may take a boy of a dozen years of age, he may be ever so 
 mild, kind and affable, and let him be bereft of his parents that lay 
 nearest his heart, and cease to render him parental advice, and 
 begin to abuse and' call him a worthless fool, and knock and cuff" 
 him about as if he were a dog, and show signs of malice and 
 unkind and inhuman feeling towards him, by telling him he is a 
 jurthen to you and that you are tired of him, and by making a 
 difference between him and other members of the family by slighting 
 him at table, etc., he takes notice of all this, but says nothing about 
 it; and you may thus run human nature as wild as the wildest deer 
 in the forest you may run it as wild as hell itself, and hell, you 
 know, is death. He looks upon himself as a cast-off, and, like the 
 prodigal son, he becomes willing to forsake his father's house, and 
 would rather eat husks with swine than ask for a piece of bread. 
 It is not an unfrequent occurrence, that such treatment produces 
 madness and terminates in suicide. 
 
 Again : you may take a boy at twelve years of age, and let him 
 ^be ever so wild, if you will deal kindly, mildly and gently with 
 him, and not hand him bread when he asks for it as if you thought 
 it a stone, or a fish as if you thought it a serpent, whose fangs 
 might jag you, but give them freely and kindly, and in all probabi- 
 lity he will make a useful member of society. The art of taming 
 is just as easy, less expensive, and much more agreeable, than the 
 art of running one wild ; and if you are not very careful, about 
 the time you think you are doing something great by running 
 them wild, you will never tame them. It is much easier to pursue 
 a kind course and keep them tame, than it is to get them to return 
 to this condition. Just as the twig is bent the tree is inclined. 
 
 Was there no healing in the waters of the author's native land, 
 which once flowed with milk and honey was there no balm in 
 that fertile soil was there no physician there was there no Moses
 
 78 . SUICIDE. 
 
 who could lift up the brazen serpent in the wilderness that he 
 might look upon it was there no good Samaritan to lead him to 
 an inn and pay the two-pence to have him healed, or was there no 
 follower of the Son of God to lead him out of the tombs to prevent 
 him from cutting himself with stones or weapons? The young 
 man heretofore alluded to, who was in the tombs cutting himself 
 with ftones, was committing suicide. The Son of God did not 
 look upon it as a disgrace to heal him. and thereby prevent him 
 from destroying himself. Those who look upon it as a disgrace to 
 treat such persons kindly, must look upon themselves as superior to 
 the Son of God, and he that thinketh himself the greatest shall be 
 the least. 
 
 Again : you may take two.horses, at from three to four years of 
 age let them be of equal muscular power ; take one and feed and 
 water him regularly and treat him kindly, ride him moderately and 
 never overtask his powers, and if he becomes sick, physic him and 
 give him rest until he is well, and at ten years he is a good horse, in 
 the prime of life, and may, under such a course of treatment, be a 
 serviceable horse at twenty. Take the other and hiich him to the 
 plough^or dray, drive him under the whip all the week, feed and 
 water him once or twice a day, ride him fifteen or twenty miles on 
 Sunday, and at ten years of age he is a dead horse, v Just so with 
 human nature you may take two boys of equal constitution, from 
 twelve to fifteen years of age ; place one under kind treatment, and 
 require from him reasonable labor, and when sick have him taken 
 care of u,ntil he is. well ; at thirty years of age he is in the prime of 
 life, and under- such a course of treatment, it is reasonable to suppose 
 that he might live out his three score and ten, which is the u^ual 
 time, in the present age of the Avorld, allotted for man, and might 
 make a useful member of society all the time. Take the other and 
 place him under a rigid course of maltreatment and abusive lan- 
 guage, and thereby break his heart, which is the seat' of life ; drive 
 him under whip and spur day and night ; if he becomes sick pay no 
 particular attention to him, or if you do undertake to have him 
 healed, pour large doses of strong medicine into his system, anil 
 thereby destroy his health, constitution, and mental powers ; require 
 impossibilities at his hands and drag him imperceptibly into bondage, 
 and he becomes hopelessly deranged ; yet he knows his condition 
 and passively submits to abuse, thinking that they will some day or 
 other take his case into consideration before it is forever too late. 
 His prospects may. be equal or perhaps greater at the outset of life 
 than the one placed under kind treat.me.nt, but under this rigid 
 course, at about thirty years of age, when he is just old enough to 
 be in the prime of life, he is a dead man, and in such cases life gene- 
 rally terminates in suicide. If .he had been placed under the sa-me 
 kind of treatment as the other boy, he might also have 1-ived out 
 his full time of three score and ten years, and been equally useful to 
 society ; some people expect their relatives and friends to come to
 
 Mk 
 
 SUICIDE. 79 
 
 them and tell therri in plain terms that they intend to commit suicide 
 which course the)' will never take. If a man steps up to you and 
 says, "Sir, I am ineane, and if you don't take care of me I will 
 take my life," you need not be uneasy that man will never com- 
 mit suicide. But if he tells-you that there is a discovery of import- 
 ance to be made, and cites you to the condition of other persons in 
 the circle of his acquaintance who are pronounced insane and treat- 
 ed as such, and cites you to his own condition, and tells you that it 
 will take close watching to make the discovery, you may know pre- 
 cisely what he means; he intends that if you do not, in a reasona- 
 ble time, treat his condition kindly, to commit suicide, and leave 
 you the bag to hold with both ends open ; and he desires that you, 
 being blessed by Almighty God with proper reasoning faculties, will 
 take steps by which to prevent it. This important duty is enjoined 
 upon you as fellow beings, bone of the same bone, flesh of the same 
 flesh, and dust of the same dust having sprung from the same ori- 
 gin, and being created by the same divine hands. It is not only your 
 duty to take such steps, but it is your own interest and the well be- 
 ing of society. By preventing them from committing suicide, or 
 doing wrong in any way while in a state of insanity, adds to your 
 own safety, peace and happiness. It frequently becomes necessary 
 to bring your insane to this or some other institution, nearest in 
 your reach, not only for their own welfare, but in some instances it 
 actually becomes necessary to seek an asylum for them for your own 
 safety and that of their families. 
 
 One murder sometimes produces another. Just so with ^suicides 
 if one man commits suicide, and you have any good reason to 
 suspect that it would be more than human nature could bear in any 
 oilier particular individual, then is a good time to take steps to pre- 
 vent the second. They very frequently walk their floors for a half, 
 or a whole night, without .sleeping a wink, with a razor in their 
 hand, to commit suicide ; and for a short time before they put their 
 designs in execution, they become sleepless and drink water in large 
 quantifies, and their appetite fails. I might here say, as a general 
 rule, that you may be governed in detecting an intended suicide, in 
 the same manner laid down for detecting insanity. You will also 
 notice a person who is laboring under aberration of mind repeated- 
 ly placing his hand to his forehead, where there exist acute pains. 
 The insane are quite high-minded, and you cannot convince them 
 but that suicide is the most honorable premature death that an in- 
 sane man can die. If there be honor attached to any premature 
 death, they look upon suicide as the greatest. I will venture to say 
 that an insane person cannot commit any act that would sink them 
 in the estimation of a gentleman, but on the contrary, gentlemen 
 will protect insanity. None but half-handed fops and swindlers 
 will slander it. I do not drop these remarks to encourage men to 
 commit suicide, for the friends of the unfortunate subject should 
 take steps in due time to prevent it. If you do not take such steps
 
 ,80 SUICIDE. 
 
 or make an effort to prevent it, where you have had a reasonable 
 time to suspect that a suicide might occur, yotf, under whose care 
 ah insane man is, or should be, are held firmly bound for every drop 
 of blood that may be shed in such cases, just as if you had stabbed 
 the subject to the heart, and will have to render a strict account at 
 the bar of Almighty God for every neglect of duty towards them, 
 and for every act and word that may have caused them to commit 
 suicide. I hope not one of my readers will think themselves too 
 good to take steps to prevent an intended or an expected suicide or 
 to take care of their insane, for I assure you that if you think your- 
 selves too good to make use of lawful means to save the life of an 
 unfortunate fellow being, you are not good enough to get to heaven. 
 Remember, as above sta.ted, that the Son of God and the good Sa- 
 maritan did not think themselves too good to heal, and have healed 
 such persons. I have talked with some persons in the course of my 
 life, who advocated the doctrine that there was a certain time and a 
 certain way allotted for each and every individual to die. If this be 
 correct, it would go to say that it is no crime to commit suicide, and 
 that being so qrdained, his friends cannot prevent it, and the death, 
 in that event, is not premature. 
 
 I hfld that a majority of deaths that occur in the United States 
 are premature. No death is mature unless the subject sickens and 
 dies in pea'ce on his pillow ; therefore, the man who commits s-uicide, 
 dies before his 'time, simply because no friend has taken steps to 
 prevent the blow. I will just ask those who look upon it as a dis 
 grace to take s.uch steps, ( I hope, however, there are none, of this 
 class,) tf they think it a disgrace for a woman to nurse and suckle 
 the child she bears ? The person who is sick and insane is very 
 frequently in as helpless a condition and as feeble in mind as an 
 infant, and if it be no disgrace to nurse one, it cannot be to take 
 care of the other. I hold it to be a credit to nourish both, and by 
 neglecting that duty towards persons of feeble mind, unpleasant 
 feelings arise, and the subject commits suicide. How easily could 
 this awful termination be prevented by the prompt exercise of medi- 
 cal care ! 
 
 I have also talked with .a few individuals who hold that men are 
 perfectly sane when they commit suicide, and that they very well 
 know what they are doing committing the act solely to wreak 
 vengeance upon those who have been accessary in bringing them 
 down. I admit that it is. in some instances done through a revenge- 
 ful disposition in part, but I do not admit that they are sane. Others 
 hold, that they sometimes commit suicide on account of money, 
 or some former crime that they have secretly committed, preferring 
 death to acknowledgment. These ideas are erroneous. What good 
 would all the money in the world do a man after he is dead, or why 
 should he commit the act on account of any former crime, which 
 would make bad worse ? If they were to say that the unfortunate 
 subject preferred death to bondage, tyranny and bad treatrnejQt, .they
 
 SUICIDE. 81 
 
 would come nearer the figure. There is, however, no general rule 
 without some exceptions. 
 
 When maniacs commit suicide they do it without reflection ; they 
 frequently throw themselves from a height, a circumstance which 
 proves that they are led by a blind impulse to the commission of the 
 act, without premeditation, by the employment of means the most 
 easy and accessible. They not unfrequently find themselves walking 
 their floors with a sharp edged instrument in the hand, attempting 
 suicide. At this juncture of time they are governed by a sudden 
 impulse, either of a beneficial or destructive nature ; they are af- 
 fected by illusions, imperfect perception of the relation of things, 
 and are pursued by panic terrors. They are the sport of their sen- 
 sations or hallucinations, which constantly deceive them. One 
 wishing to descend from a pinnacle believing himself on a firm 
 basis, mistakes his condition and precipitates himself into an 
 abyss. 
 
 Esquirol gives the following striking views of self-murder in 
 maniacs, which deserve much consideration. He says : A maniac, 
 impelled by hunger, was accustomed to eat whatever came in his 
 way. He died suddenly, and on examining the body they found a 
 sponge which he had devoured, and which rested in the ossophagus. 
 Others destroy themselves while endeavoring to perform feats of 
 strength and address. The feats of a maniac are of a peculiar cha- 
 racter. Some believe that by striking their heads against a wall or 
 the trunk of a tree, they experience relief, as do cattle with mad-itch. 
 The writer has, in the course of his life, struck his head against 
 trees, walls, &c., vainly hoping to obtain relief. I have also found 
 myself, on various occasions, standing on the bank of some river or 
 large creek, ready to plunge into the murmuring deep, and also in 
 the woods with one end qf a rope fastened to a limb of a tree, and 
 the other end around my neck. I have again found myself with the 
 muzzle of a gun placed under the jaw, with my toe at the trigger, 
 ready to let the contents into the head. In other instances I have 
 found myself standing with a drawn pistol pointing to the right 
 temple or to the heart, with the forefinger bearing on the trigger with 
 some force. The checking powers, however, not having lost their 
 whole force, would move up with energy and disappoint the fatal 
 intention. But finally the checking and correcting powers all lost 
 their balance, and I nearly effected suicide by drawing a razor across 
 my throat. Notwithstanding all this, I am yet permitted by an all- 
 wise God to continue to breathe, and am improving gradually every 
 day. It is passing strange that my life is held so sacred and precious 
 in the sight of Him who gave it for what purpose He only knows 
 but I hope for a good one. 
 
 Esquirol states that maniacs destroy themselves at the commence- 
 ment of the disease, being driven to despair. This class of patients 
 take their lives because they have a knowledge of the disease which 
 is commencing, which plunges them into despair. There are others 
 
 6
 
 82 SUICIDE. 
 
 who destroy themselves during convalescence, being rendered des- 
 perate by the excesses they have committed or ashamed of having 
 been insane. In many instances persons are very much abashed to 
 acknowledge themselves insane. They expect their friends to find 
 out the fact. Those who are suffering from fever destroy themselves 
 as other maniacs. 
 
 Esquirol also justly remarks that every case of monomania may 
 lead to self-murder, whether the subject obeys his illusions or hallu- 
 cinations, or falls a victim to a delirious passion. A monomaniac 
 hears an internal voice which is constantly repeating "slay thyself," 
 and he commits suicide in obedience to a superior power whose 
 mandate he cannot disobey. I maintain, however, that in such 
 cases self-murder might be prevented by the friends of the unfortu- 
 nate subjects treating them as insane persons. 
 
 He states that a man whose brain was deranged by some obscure 
 and mystified notions, believed that he was in communication with 
 God. I have no doubt of the unfortunate man's condition, for I 
 have imagined myself thus situated on a thousand occasions, and 
 firmly believed that I heard a celestial voice which caused me to 
 spring from window to window and from garret to basement, when 
 I eventually attempted suicide, I was lost in astonishment and won- 
 der on finding myself wounded. It seemed as if some mysterious, 
 luminous chariot was wafting me away to heaven. I suffered more 
 in imagination than in reality, but perhaps I was insensible of the 
 extent of my sufferings. 
 
 C rich ton cites many cases as examples of homicidal suicide, taken 
 from German authors, (among them the following,) and remarks 
 that many of those unfortunate beings who constitute the subjects 
 of his observations, being unable to resolve to kill themselves, have 
 taken the lives of others, hoping thereby to be condemned to death. 
 Examples are given of those who, during a paroxysm of jealousy, 
 anger or revenge, have slain the objects of their passion and then 
 themselves. " We had," says Esquirol, " at the Salpetriere, a wo- 
 man who desired to hang herself. A brother having become ena- 
 mored of his own sister, on learning that she was about to be 
 married, stabbed her, and threw himself from the window. A shoe- 
 maker, for ten years a melancholist, imagined that the purchase 
 of a house which he had made was the cause of his misfortune, 
 and during a fit of despair he slew his wife and three children, and 
 would have slain the fourth had it not escaped his rage. After 
 this horrible sacrifice he laid open his own abdomen, but the 
 stroke not being mortal, he raised the instrument and transfixed 
 his heart. This man enjoyed a good reputation, and was of a mild 
 disposition." 
 
 Thus, those wretched beings who destroy others before they com- 
 mit suicide, obey those vehement passions which lead them quickly 
 to this double homicide. In some instances they are aroused by 
 passions which are slow in developing themselves. There are others
 
 SUICIDE. 83 
 
 who murder the tenderest objects of their attachment, and then kill 
 themselves, being unwilling to be separated from them, and believ- 
 ing that they will be reunited after death. In other instances, they 
 slay them in order to preserve them from the trials of life and the 
 dangers of condemnation. I will state the case of a female, under 
 good moral character, who suddenly became deranged, and was left 
 at noon-day at her own residence, with an infant child which she 
 had borne. On the return of her husband, he found his darling 
 infant slain by the hands of its mother. She had even gone so far 
 as to cut up and salt the poor child in a churn. She imagined that 
 it was a fatted pig, and was no doubt wholly insensible of the awful 
 consequences of committing so heinous a crime. Protective mea- 
 sures were adopted by her husband, and fortunately, for instead of 
 this case terminating in suicide, she measurably recovered from the 
 shock, and became tolerably cheerful, though no doubt a remorse 
 of conscience pursued her through life. She was still living, how- 
 ever, a few years ago. as I heard of her in 1832 or '33. Her husband 
 detected her condition, and pursued a prudent course towards her. 
 otherwise the poor frightened woman would have been in a deplora- 
 ble condition. 
 
 Many monomaniacs permit themselves to pine away, and refuse 
 all aliments, believing that in this way they may be prepared to die 
 easily. The father of the celebrated Barthey allowed himself to 
 die of hunger at the age of ninety, in despair at the loss of his 
 second wife. 
 
 Suicide is less frequent among women than men ; the exaltation 
 of their sensibility, the transports of their imagination, the exagge- 
 ration of their tenderness and their religious affections, produce 
 maladies opposed to suicide, from which they are still further re- 
 moved by the gentleness of their disposition and their timidity. 
 They suffer from the vapors and other nervous diseases, and become 
 insane, and when they do take their own lives it is usually love or 
 lyphmania that leads them to the commission of the act. I will 
 venture to say that the proportion of men to women who commit 
 suicide is four to one. 
 
 Some authors speak of epidemics of suicide which have been 
 confined to women. The appearance of an epidemic form of 
 suicide is most singular. Does it depend on a latent condition of 
 the atmosphere upon imitation, so powerful in its influence over 
 the determinations of men upon those circumstances which pro- 
 duce a revolution in a country in fine, upon any governing senti- 
 ment? It is evident that these temporary epidemics are the effects 
 of various causes, and confirm what has been already said. 
 
 Esquirol gives an account of one woman having hung herself, 
 other women felt themselves impelled to follow her example. Also, 
 some years since, in the environs of Etampes, a priest hung himself, 
 and in a few days after two others also destroyed themselves-, and 
 some other persons imitated them.
 
 84 SUICIDE. 
 
 In addition, I will here drop another remark relative to my own 
 case. Upon the very day of hearing of the death of my brother by 
 drowning, (referring, to it in a former page, and which was the first 
 cause of my insanity,) I made an attempt at self-murder by drown- 
 ing. I remember distinctly to have walked on the banks of the 
 Big Bigby for a time, and occasionally stop stock still. I would 
 then sit down for a while, and rise fully determined in my own mind 
 to plunge into the water and put an end to my existence. I thus 
 pondered upon the impropriety of making the leap for at least half 
 a day, making the attempt at intervals. Again : I never heard of 
 a man committing suicide with a razor or knife, or committing 
 .self-murder in any way, but what I was imperceptibly led to make 
 the attempt in precisely the same manner, but I never unfolded this 
 to any person living no, not even to my bosom companion, until I 
 brought it into action, which to many persons may seem passing 
 strange, especially those who are uninformed upon the subjects of 
 insanity, monomania, mania or suicide ; but to those who know 
 anything about the disease it will not be surprising, for I assure you, 
 as heretofore stated, that the man who makes it notorious that he 
 intends to commit suicide, will never take his life'; it is the very last 
 thing he will do. He will evade the subject whenever hinted at, and 
 will converse freely on any other subject in preference to the one in 
 contemplation. Many other cases might be referred to, but these 
 are sufficient to keep every rational mind on the alert where an 
 intended suicide may be suspected. 
 
 As I have given you a piece of poetry at the close of each subject 
 throughout the book, I will here insert the description of a woman 
 found drowned, which is taken from a collection of poems published 
 by Thomas Hood : 
 
 Touch her not scornfully, 
 Think of her mournfully 
 
 Gently and humanly : 
 Not of the stains of her 
 All that remains of her 
 
 Now is pure womanly 
 
 Who was her father ? 
 Who was her mother ? 
 
 Had she a sister 7 
 Had she a brother ? 
 Was there a dearer one 
 Still and a nearer one 
 
 Yet than all other? 
 
 Alas for the rarity 
 Of Christian charity 
 
 Under the sun ! 
 Oh ! it was pitiful 
 Near a whole city full, 
 
 Home she had none.
 
 SUICIDE. 
 
 Where the lamps quivei 
 So far in the river, 
 
 With many a light 
 From window and casement 
 To garret, to basement, 
 She stood with amazement ! 
 
 Houseless by night. 
 
 The bleak wind of March 
 Made her tremble and shiver, 
 
 But not the dark arch, 
 Or the black flowing river. 
 Mad from life's history, 
 Glad to death's mystery 
 
 Swift to be hurled, 
 Any where any where 
 
 Out of the world. 
 
 In she plunged boldly, 
 No matter how coldly 
 
 The rough river ran. 
 Over the brink of it 
 Picture it, think of it, 
 
 Dissolute man ! 
 Lave in it, drink of it 
 
 Then if you can.
 
 THE POSSIBILITY OF APOSTACY. 
 
 IN the different religious denominations various and different creeds 
 and doctrines of faith are held on the possibility and impossibility 
 of apostacy. I hope it will be no intrusion upon the readers of this 
 book for me to give my views in a short and comprehensive manner 
 on this subject, as I conceive that the subjects of insanity and reli- 
 gion are closely allied; and as this subject is intended for the closing 
 of the book, and stands entirely separate from the others as regards 
 its place in the book, it cannot possibly clash with the subject of 
 insanity, but, in all probability, will throw some new light upon that 
 and some other subjects herein contained. 
 
 I would advise all ministers of the Gospel to refrain from preach- 
 ing up the doctrine of election and reprobation in its broad and 
 harsh terms that God fore-decreed and fore-ordained all things 
 whatsoever cometh to pass, and that man cannot prevent it. I con- 
 ceive it to be a dangerous doctrine to preach to a young and rising 
 generation. If he thus decrees, he must be the author of sin. 
 Would any man in the present enlightened age of the world say 
 that God decreed that a midnight assassin should wilfully, with 
 malice aforethought, plunge a dagger to the heart of his fellow-man 
 and usher him into the presence of the judge of all the earth? If 
 so, you would charge him with the murder ; for if he has decreed 
 thus, the act could not be prevented. Or would you pretend to 
 charge your Creator with having decreed that you should drive 
 your insane or idiots from your fire-side conversations, and knock 
 and cuff them about as if they were dumb brutes,- or build a pen for 
 them, and throw an ear of corn to them as you would to a hog, or a 
 chunk of meat and bread, as you would feed a dog, or as if they 
 had neither a soul to be saved or lost. It is a nice way to heal. It 
 only sinks the poor unfortunate soul into a further state of despera- 
 tion. God decrees no such things, and the man who stands up in 
 the face of authority and charges him thus, charges him falsely, 
 
 86
 
 APOSTACY. 87 
 
 and will have to render a strict account in the last and final day for 
 advancing such erroneous ideas ; and the man that would treat the 
 insane or idiot thus, should be hung upon a gallows or burnt at a 
 stake. 
 
 If he decrees any thing, it is that you whom he blesses with the 
 power of thinking for and taking care of yourselves, should take care 
 of your insane and idiots, and if you live in that neglect you break 
 his decrees and receive to yourselves the greater damnation. You 
 cannot find a passage of Scripture within the lids of the Bible, from 
 the beginning of Genesis to the end of the Revelations, wherein 
 you are authorized to cheat and defraud, abuse and maltreat any 
 man, much less the insane and idiot ; but you can find where you 
 are commanded to heal, teach, feed, and clothe them. What do 
 your Bibles teach you to do with the halt and the maimed, and 
 those that are diseased either in body or mind, let the disease be of 
 whatever character it may ? Read it, and you will learn. Remem- 
 ber, it is the book of all books. 
 
 I maintain that a soul may be born of the spirit of the living God, 
 by the efficacy of the blood of his Son Jesus Christ being applied to 
 his heart, and have a bright, manifestation of his acceptance with the 
 Father, and backslide to a considerable extent, and yet become re- 
 claimed and healed of his backslidings, purged of his old sins, and 
 received into the favor of God again. But if he entirely apostatises 
 and denies his Lord, Judas like, it is impossible to renew him unto 
 repentance again, seeing he has crucified his Lord afresh, and put 
 him to an open shame. It would have been better for him that he 
 had never known the way, than, after he has known it, to depart 
 from it ; and he stands exposed to a heavier curse from the wrath of 
 a sin-avenging God, than the sinner who has never been converted. 
 
 I do not hold that a man may embrace religion to-day and lose it 
 to-morrow, but that he may gradually diminish in his religious 
 duties until it will even become a burthen to him to repeat th ' Lord's 
 prayer. Let him that thinketh he stands, take heed lest he fall ; 
 and if you should fall into the pit from this high station, once hav- 
 ing been in the favor of God, living under his kind protection and 
 chastening rod, mark ye, it will be hard work to get out of it again 
 and become initiated into the favor of God. 
 
 Suppose you plant a vineyard and sit down and say to yourself, 
 " I have planted my vineyard and anticipate a fine lot, of fruit," and 
 never cultivate it, but suffer it to be trodden under foot by the beasts 
 of the forest, do you suppose that you would ever gather any fruit 
 from the vines? It would be folly to arrive at such a conclusion. 
 You would be most likely to gather thorns and thistles instead of 
 grapes. But if you will prune and cultivate your vineyard, God 
 will send rain in due season to refresh the growth of the vines, and 
 in gathering season you will be able to gather bountifully of the fruit 
 of, and may have twelve baskets left to carry up. 
 
 Just so in a religious point of view. God in his goodness sows 
 
 6
 
 88 APOSTACY. 
 
 the good seed of grace in your hearts, and if you go back into the 
 world and return to the vomit or wallow in the mire, the good seed 
 of grace will be choked by the thorns, devoured by the fowls of the 
 air, or parched up by the rays of the sun, and the good seed of grace 
 will die in your hearts and you will go with the uncultivated vine- 
 yard. But if you cultivate this good seed of grace sown in your 
 hearts, according to the terms laid down in the book of God, he 
 will replenish the growth of the seed, and it will spring up and 
 bring some sixty, some ninety and some a hundred fold, and you 
 will be as a city set on a hill, giving a brilliant light to all around 
 you, and you will rank witli the cultivated vineyard. 
 
 Again : If you plant a field of corn and sit down and do not cul- 
 tivate it, would you expect that the Son of God would descend and 
 cultivate your crop for you ? or would you not expect to have empty 
 barns during the winter, and your stock to perish for the want of 
 food and with cold ? But if you would cultivate your crop well, 
 you might expect in gathering time to have your barns and garners 
 filled to overflowing with grain arid provender. 
 
 Just so in a religious point of view. It is just as reasonable to 
 suppose that the Son of God would descend and cultivate and prune 
 your vineyard, and plow your corn, as it is to suppose that he 
 would descend personally and feed, clothe and heal your insane and 
 idiots. He descends in spirit, and blesses the means which he 
 may place in your hands by which you might heal if properly ad- 
 ministered. 
 
 Again : Suppose you were to set out to go from this to the city of 
 Washington, and when you reach Wheeling, Va., face to the left 
 about and come back to the city of Nashville. Do you suppose you 
 would ever reach Washington in that way ? But when at Wheeling, 
 if you would face to the right about and pursue your journey, you 
 would soon arrive at your place of destination. 
 
 Just so in a religious point of view. If you set out to live a reli- 
 gious life and run well for a while until you reach the prime of life, 
 and get in sight of Paradise or the promised land, living under the 
 protection of a divine hand, and receiving from it daily spiritual and 
 temporal blessings, and reaching this point, face about and go back 
 into the service of the devil, do you suppose you would ever reach 
 heaven, or enter into the city of God? If you do, you are very much 
 mistaken. But when you get in sight of Paradise, or the promised 
 land, if you would face to the right about, and pursue your journey, 
 according to the terms laid down in the holy will of the Son of God, 
 you, through the mercy and goodness of God, would reach the 
 heavenly city, and enter into the joys of thy Lord ; and as corrup- 
 tion puts on incorruption in the conversion of the soul, and remains 
 during this spiritual journey through the variegated changes and 
 scenes of life, it remains in this state of incorruption and mortality 
 combined. Notwithstanding you may be in a state of incorruption, 
 you are still mortal beings possessing mortal bodies and human
 
 APOSTACY. 89 
 
 nature ; and if you live faithful to your Creator in the discharge of 
 your different duties towards him, you will enjoy the peace and 
 sunshine showered upon your outgoings and incomings by a kind 
 protecting hand ; and in the trying and final hour mortality puts on 
 immortality, and the soul takes its heavenly flight, borne up by the 
 power of God, and will be received into the kingdom of God, where, 
 at the right hand of the Father, it will forevermore bask in unfading 
 felicity. But take heed, while you are in this state of incorruption 
 and mortality combined, lest you slip back into a state of corrup- 
 tion, and be ranked with the five foolish virgins, and be found with- 
 out oil in your lamps, when you come to stand before the bridegroom 
 of the supper of the Lamb, and be cast into the pit of darkness, 
 where weeping and wailing will never cease. May my readers 
 always have oil, and their lamps well trimmed, that they may be 
 classed with the five wise virgins, and permitted to partake of the 
 supper of the Lamb. 
 
 As it regards election and reprobation, you are elected or repro- 
 bated in the hour and article of death, according to the manner of 
 your conduct through life. Do not understand me to say that man 
 of himself, short of the goodness of God, can make his election ; but 
 by living in the discharge of the different duties enjoined ,upon him, 
 as laid down in the book of God, he makes his calling and election 
 sure. 
 
 Suppose two men become candidates for an office of profit or 
 honor, and one, by his good conduct, gains the confidence of the peo- 
 ple, you cast your vote in favor of the man of good conduct there- 
 fore his election is secured to him for his good conduct. But 
 the other, by his misconduct, loses the confidence of the people and 
 thereby loses his election. Just so, by your good or bad conduct, 
 you secure to yourselves your election in the favor of God, or make 
 your reprobation and lose your election in the favor of Him. James 
 says, "Show me thy faith without thy works, and I will show thee 
 my faith by my works. ; ' Still, after we have done all, we are no- 
 thing but unprofitable servants. Remember Lot's wife looked back 
 at the destruction of Sodom and turned to a pillar of salt. I would 
 advise all ministers of the Gospel, when they undertake to preach 
 the word of the Son of God, to arise, take their texts and stick to 
 them, preach the doctrines of the Bible according to the light thrown 
 upon the subject, personate no man, and when they get through, to 
 be very certain that they quit. For a minister of the Gospel, who 
 stands between the living and the dead, to arise and take his text and 
 preach until he is about half through his discourse ; and then quit 
 the subject and begin to personate his congregation, and say, " You, 
 sir, and you, sir, have got to go to the devil, and the balance, or a 
 few of the chosen of us, have got to go to heaven in a hand-basket," 
 is only making a mock of the ministry, and very frequently makes 
 bad impressions on the minds of his audience. 
 
 I would advise medical men, when they undertake to heal their
 
 90 APOSTACY. 
 
 patients, to be very certain that they do heal. You may heal a man, 
 and you may heal at him. A real medical man can heal, and a 
 quack can heal at his patient. If a man be taken suddenly sick and 
 sends for you, he is considered your patient until he gets well, dies, 
 or orders you to stop your visits. If you do not intend to treat him 
 as your patient, I would advise you not to pay him the first visit. 
 Thus he would know what to depend upon, and his friends would 
 procure other medical aid. Never neglect your patients, for many 
 a life is lost for want of proper attention, and the blame must attach 
 to the physician. Medical men are instruments in the hands of God 
 to heal, or instruments in the hands of the devil to hurry them into 
 eternity. I have paid doctors several hundred dollars in the course 
 of my life to be healed, but they invariably pursued a rigid course, 
 and always left me in a worse condition than they found me ; hence 
 they 'destroyed my constitution and mental faculties. 
 
 I hope the reader will not conceive, in my remarks in a former 
 page, where I held that baptism by immersion to be the only true 
 mode, that I intended to convey the idea that it was regeneration, 
 or even running before or with regeneration, but, on the contrary, 
 regeneration should run before baptism. You may plunge a man to 
 the bottom of Cumberland river, or pour all the water in the river 
 upon him, and if he is not born of the spirit of the living God by 
 the efficacy of the blood of his Son being applied to his heart, it will 
 never save him. As before stated, baptism is not the putting away 
 of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience. I 
 hope the ministers of the Gospel and medical gentlemen will not 
 consider that I have been personal in my remarks either to them- 
 selves or churches, for my intentions are far from causing any ill- 
 feelings. 
 
 There was a certain rich man who fared sumptuously every day 
 poor Lazarus lay at his gate and begged the crumbs that fell 
 from his table. Lazarus died and was received into Abraham's 
 bosom. The rich man died also, and lifted up his eyes in hell 
 and saw Lazarus afar off, and prayed to Abraham to let Laza- 
 rus dip the tip of his finger in water and cool his parched tongue ; 
 but there was a great gulf fixed between, so that no man could 
 pass. He then prayed that Abraham would send him back, 
 that he might warn his five brethren not to come to that awful 
 place of torments. " Not so," said Abraham. " They have 
 Moses and the prophets, and if they will not believe them, they 
 would not believe even if one was to rise from the dead." The 
 writer of this has been raised from the dead ; will you read and 
 believe him or not? 
 
 Perhaps some gentlemen, to look and show smart, have written 
 some scurrilous pieces and put them in print about me; if so. I 
 will answer them by placing them in their arithmetic, in the rules 
 of Loss and Gain, as all men who place their names in public 
 print either lose or gain laurels. I will ask them to count up the
 
 APOSTACY. 91 
 
 cost and see if they can tell how many laurels they have lost or 
 gained, as it is not reasonable to suppose that gentlemen could 
 possibly gain any laurels by becoming the defamers of, or the de- 
 claimers against insanity. I have seen some smattering eloquence, 
 the writers of which, I suppose, allude to me. First take the beam 
 from thine own eye, and then thou canst see clearly how to take 
 the mote out of the eyes of the insane. Thus they might see how 
 to get upon the right side of the fence, upon the most important 
 subject in the world. 
 
 I noticed in some of the scurrilous pieces above alluded to, (the 
 writer of which I suppose alludes to me, though if mistaken I ever 
 stand ready for correction,) that some one of the authors charge me 
 with having been in the habit of visiting houses of ill-fame. In 
 answer to that, and in defence of the character of my orphan chil- 
 dren, or others of my friends whom it may concern, I will defy any 
 man living to produce the proof, from a respectable source, that I 
 have ever had a child, living or dead, except those born of my own 
 wife, with whom I was lawfully married on the 29th day of June, 
 1826, in Maury county, Tennessee. I never was a visitor of houses 
 of ill-fame during the whole course of my life, except in one in- 
 stance, and then I was forced in by violence by a couple of pretended 
 friend?, some time in 1835, in the city of Nashville. Neither was 
 I ever guilty of murder, except an attempt at self-murder, while in 
 a state of insanity. Neither was I ever guilty of theft, unless 
 failing to meet my contracts be theft, and if that is considered theft, 
 a great many very honest men are thieves. On the contrary, as 
 was the case with the young man that went down to Jericho, I 
 have been cheated out of the last dollar I had in the world on several 
 occasions, and defrauded of means in various ways by unjust and 
 unfair measures, when I was sick and insane, enough to make any 
 of my readers independent. At a time when I did not know the 
 value of one dollar, they parted my raiment and cast lots for my 
 vesture. 
 
 I see another writer charges me with having shipped twenty mil- 
 lions of souls to Jamaica, and thus betrayed my country. I never 
 shipped a soul to Jamaica or any other government in my life ; nor 
 was I ever beyond the limits of the United States, either in person or 
 correspondence. It would be a strange phenomena in a man's life 
 if he could do all these things and be in his own country all the 
 time. 
 
 I have been told that other writers have asserted that it was me 
 who brought the cholera from another country to this, which is 
 erroneous, and would be equally strange to even suppose that a 
 man could bring the cholera from France to this country when the 
 wide ocean is between the two governments, and the man never out 
 of the United States. I will leave their broad and unfounded asser- 
 tions and problems for themselves to solve. The very face of their 
 assertions bears the color of falsehood.
 
 92 APOSTACY. 
 
 I never was an abolitionist in principle or a member of an ab- 
 olition society. It is passing strange that a few designing indi- 
 viduals, reckless of the welfare of the unfortunate, should select me 
 from the insane portion of the human family to make their thrusts 
 and pass their darts at in preference to all others, when it is a fact 
 that the more refined, high minded and honorable part of the com- 
 munity are disposed to sympathise at my misfortunes. 
 
 I did not intend to notice these scurrilous pieces or their authors 
 in this book, but I give this short sketch in defence of the character 
 of my children, and will write no more on this subject unless I see 
 more charges from their pens. 
 
 As I offered a reward of five hundred dollars during my life for 
 any man to detect my condition, and act upon it as they should do 
 in cases of insanity, I will now offer a reward of one hundred dollars 
 for a work upon any subject not herein contained, to surpass all 
 these subjects combined, from the pen of any man that is precisely 
 in my condition, without the aid of any second person. The balance 
 of this year will be allowed for the production, to be adjudged of by 
 a committee of respectable and talented gentlemen, to be selected 
 by the parties from among the citizens of Nashville. It must be 
 original, as is this, and accompanied with proof of the fact from a 
 respectable source.
 
 YOUTH AND FUTURE LIFE. 
 
 CHARMED by the voice of fame, and allured by the hope of 
 wealth, the youth forsakes the parental roof in quest of the happiness 
 and honors of time things, which are perishing in their nature. His 
 first grand object is to seek one among the fair offspring of the land 
 to cheer and buoy him above the sordid cares of time. His eyes 
 are fixed upon one whose faultless form and airy step is altogether 
 lovely ; he enters upon the stage of a hymenial life with her ; she 
 immediately becomes a minister of mercy to direct and lead him to 
 realms of unfading felicity, or an enchanting companion on the road 
 to perdition. May every female reader of this book be a minister of 
 mercy I hope not one of them will be an enchanting companion. 
 They live thus together, sharing each other's joys, as the brilliance 
 of the meridian sun, or the ills, sordid cares, enchantments and al- 
 lurements of the prince of the power of the air, until the messenger 
 of death demands his terrific claims, and she is swept from his em- 
 braces. He gives way to that peevishness which is too often attend- 
 ant upon grey hairs ; the world begins to wear a sallow hue ; every 
 thing seems changed, save some favorite child, on whom is fixed all 
 his love, until he pays the last debt of nature, and enters into 
 another and better, or worse existence. The immortal part will then 
 stand before the judge of all the earth, to share a portion of her 
 sufferings in endless pain and woe, wrought up by the ills of this life, 
 or enjoy with her the fruits of their labors gained by a godly course 
 and pious conversation. They meet the offspring of their bodies in 
 the haven of repose and eternal bliss, and each shall receive a bright 
 crown of never fading glory. He can then say, as one of old, " I 
 have fought a good fight I have kept the faith I have finished 
 my course ; henceforth there is a crown laid up for me, a crown of 
 righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give me on 
 that day, and not unto me only, but unto all those that love his ap- 
 pearing." His dying couch will be surrounded by friends, and h 
 
 93
 
 94 YOUTH AND FUTURE LIFE. 
 
 will bid farewell to all time things, imploring the mercies of a bene- 
 ficent Creator to rest upon their heads ; bright seraphs will conduct 
 him through cold Jordan's icy arms to join the patriarchs, elders, 
 and the hosts of heaven, and seat him at the feet of his Redeemer, 
 where he will pluck the ambrosial fruits prepared for him by the 
 Father of us all. 
 
 The blessed of the Lord will patiently await their final doom, 
 until the sounding of the last loud trump, when the archangel Ga- 
 briel shall descend and place one foot upon sea and the other upon 
 land, and proclaim that time shall be no more ; when the seas, 
 mountains and dales, will be in one general conflagration, and be 
 consumed as the drop of potter's clay or the crater of the volcano. 
 The dead in Christ will be first aroused from their mouldering urns, 
 mortality will put on immortality, and outstrip in their heavenly 
 flight the tornado of heated flames, and fly through the trackless 
 air to that home where pain and trouble never comes, there to put 
 on white and spotless robes, receive a crown and golden harp, drink 
 of the water of life, and shout victory and praises to the Redeemer 
 through endless ages. 
 
 Walk with me, if you please, on board the old ship of Zion her 
 sails unfurled ; her banners hoisted high ; her flag of peace inviting 
 passengers to embark ; the grace of God her mariner ; and Jesus 
 Christ her chief captain, to lead each passenger and way-worn 
 traveller, through the merits of the blood of a crucified Redeemer, 
 to her port of destination, Heaven. Who would not seek a passage 
 on this great ship ? If you have not obtained permission from the 
 great captain of the vessel for a voyage, this is the very day to make 
 application, lest a passport might be refused in future. The doors 
 of the ship stand wide open, and the captain is reaching out his 
 hand to invite and conduct you safe to the gates of Heaven. Read 
 the holy will of the Son of God, and you will find in plain terms 
 how, where, and to whom to make application, what door to knock 
 at for admittance, a description of Heaven and the terms of admit- 
 tance through the gates, which is without money and without 
 price, the sum having been paid in advance more than eigteen 
 hundred years ago on Mount Calvary. 
 
 The summer breeze was sighing my auburn locks among, 
 
 Pale was my cheek and hollow, where traces deep were drawn, 
 
 Whilst near a harp was lying, neglected and unstrung, 
 Of some mysterious sorrow that wasted life's fresh mom. 
 
 How shall I know thee in the sphere which keeps 
 
 The disembodied spirits of the dead, 
 When all of thee that time could wither sleeps 
 
 And perishes among the dust we tread ? 
 
 For I shall feel the sting of ceaseless pain, 
 
 If there I meet thy gentle presence not, 
 Nor hear the voice I love, nor read again 
 
 In thy serenest eyes the tender thought
 
 YOUTH AND FUTURE LIFE. 95 
 
 Will not thy own meek heart demand me there 
 That heart whose fondest throbs to me were given 7 
 
 My name on earth was ever in thy prayer, 
 
 Shall it be banished from thy tongue in heaven ? 
 
 In meadows fanned by heaven's life-breathing wind, 
 
 In the resplendence of that glorious sphere, 
 And larger movements of the unfettered mind, 
 1 Wilt thou forget the love that joined Us here T 
 
 The love that lived through all the stormy past, 
 And meekly with my harsher nature bore, 
 
 And deeper grew and tenderer to the last, 
 Shall it expire with life and be no more ? 
 
 A happier lot than mine and larger light 
 
 Await thee there for thou hast bound thy will 
 
 In cheerful homage to the rules of right, 
 And lovest all and renderest good for ill. 
 
 For me, the sordid cares in which I dwell, 
 
 Shrink and consume the heart as heat the scroll, 
 
 And wrath hath left its scar : that fire of hell 
 Hath left its frightful scar upon my soul. 
 
 Yet though thou wear'st the glory of the sky, 
 
 Wilt thou not keep the same beloved name 
 The same fair, thoughtful brow, and gentle eye, 
 > Lovelier in Heaven's sweet climate, but the same T 
 
 Shalt thou not teach me in that calmer home, 
 
 The wisdom that I learned so ill in this 
 The wisdom which is love till I become 
 
 Thy fit companion in that land of bliss ? 
 
 And were wistful glances cast towards my wooing lyre, 
 I might not check its lurings, but seize my harp again, 
 
 And half suppressed, advance, as stirred the poet's fire, 
 And quick to numbers tuning, awake its mournful strain.
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 IN conclusion, I must, in justice to my old and faithful friend, 
 the Editor of the Nashville Union, and also to the Publisher, re- 
 turn my heartfelt thanks for the liberality extended to me in my 
 present pecuniary embarrassed condition. They have been my 
 unwavering friends in aiding me to get my work before the public. 
 
 I trust that a close adherence to the precepts herein laid down 
 will be the means of saving the lives of millions of my fellow- 
 beings who now are and may become mentally deranged. As five 
 thousand souls were once fed with two fishes and five loaves of 
 bread, I fondly hope that the proceeds of this work will feed my five 
 orphan children. As I have no two-penny loaves and fishes to pre 
 dicate the publication on, I am much gratified to find my eld friends, 
 with whom I have been intimate from my boyhood, marching for- 
 ward without hesitation, in one solid phalanx, to aid me in the sale 
 of my work, which I have completed under circumstances of a 
 peculiar character. 
 
 The travelling preachers in the Methodist Episcopal Church 
 throughout the United States are requested to act as agents in their 
 respective circuits. Their orders will be promptly filled and liberal 
 commissions allowed them for services. 
 
 There is, perhaps, nothing short of the goodness of God that can 
 effect a final cure of my disease. I am perfectly resigned to His 
 will, and await his final coming and decision with hope. Soliciting 
 an interest in the prayers of the followers of the Son of God, I bid 
 my readers an affectionate adieu.
 
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