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Notes on Asylums and the Insane in France and Belgium. (July and August, 1861)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 February 2018

W. Carmichael McIntosh*
Affiliation:
University of Edinburgh, Assistant-Physician and Superintendent, Murray's Royal Asylum, Perth

Extract

At a time when so much public interest is manifested in lunatic asylums and their inmates, it scarcely requires the memory of the illustrious Pinel, Esquirol, and Guislain, or the knowledge of what has been done by the present Morel, Baillarger, Falret, Moreau, &c., to tempt one over the Channel, more especially when a visit to the far-famed Gheel is contemplated. So in July and August last, having leave of absence from my duties to spend some weeks in rest and recreation, I resolved to find both in a visit to the French and Belgian asylums, having learned by experience that to travel without an object is neither profitable nor pleasant. Believing that what interested me, and regarding which my curiosity had sometimes been excited at home, might not be devoid of interest to others, I made “notes” regularly of what I observed, recording facts and impressions on the spot and on the day, rather in the order of observation than of coherence, and striving only to observe well, and to state the exact truth.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1862 

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References

Various able articles on the Gheel question have appeared in the ‘Journal of Mental Science,’ and the ‘Psychological Journal,’ &c., by Drs. Browne, Coxe, Munday, Stevens, Sibbald, and others, while French and Belgian literature is voluminous on the subject. The above was out of my hands before I was aware of Dr. Coxe's recent paper. Google Scholar

‘Rapport sur l'etablissement d'Aliénés de Gheel,’ par M. le Dr. Bulckens, 1860. VOL. VIII. Google Scholar

Vide ‘Med. Critic and Psycliol. Journal,’ April 1861, p. 218. Google Scholar

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