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244 " THOUGH THIS BE MADNESS,
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
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In this , as in a hundred other questions , there is a limit of common sensebeyond which we need not press the scientific or the religious
question , ; and M . Trelat ' s object in writing this "book is eminently direct and practical * it is to assist magistrates in administering the
, law , to guide parents in the training of children , and to give some broad warnings and efficient rules to those in danger of allying
themselves in marriage or in business with persons whom , he considers mad , although they may perchance have method in them ;
—to quote his own words , he would " diminuer de grandes calatnites en metta ? it a meme de les craindrede les reconnaitre et de les eviter . "
His book consists of an introduction , , descriptive of two classes of insanity—that which is easy , and that which is difficult of recognition ;
followed hy fourteen chapters , each devoted to a different form of la Folie Lucideand headed hy a special
titleas—Imbeciles , and , weak-witted people ; , , Monomaniacs ;
Jealous patients ;* Drunkards ;
Wasters and speculators ; Proud patients ;
Malicious patients ; Suicidal patients ;
and so on ; each class being of course specified by examples which have not broken out into what would be ordinarily called madness ;
or at least in which the madness has supervened after a long course of questionable , action , which is just what M . Trelat
desires to call attention to . The examples are partly taken from his private practicepartly from cases under his care in the
, Salpetriere , and form a curious biographical collection . Some of these we purpose to place before our readers . They point their own
moral in almost every instance . But first to the Introduction . After alluding to what he
considers the exaggerated signs required by tribunals twenty years ago , before they would let off a prisoner on the ground of insanity ,
M . Trelat puts the broad proposition , " that many insane peopleare living in the midst of us ; take part in our actionsour interests _> .
, and our affections—which they compromise , trouble , and destroy .. Sick minds exercise a profound and prejudicial influence over sound
ones ; examples of which will be found in the following chapters . We know few greater misfortunes than the entrance of such
an insane person into a family . . . . With the best wishes for the true welfare of such , we desire that the kindness shown to
them should be suitable to their condition ; that they should bethe governed and not the governors ; above all , we desire that they
should be known in order that their alliance should be avoided ; for such marriage perpetuates the evilwithers domestic joy
, , strikes at family life in its right of worthy heritors , and in its *
hope and its duty of bestowing worthy citizens upon the State . "
244 " Though This Be Madness,
244 " THOUGH THIS BE MADNESS ,
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), June 1, 1862, page 244, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01061862/page/28/
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