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YET THEBE 7 S METHOD IN IT. " 291
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.
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¦ » • Part Ii. We Resurne Our Analysis O...
navigation . In ten years from the time of Ms marriage lie was a ruined man . His wifestill young"supported this reverse
, , with the greater courage ; as to himself , he talked of suicide . But she told him she could work for bothand for their child
and she established a millinery business , , which prospered and , assured them a comfortable livelihood for some yearsuntil her
health began to fail from over-work . Finding her sleep , uncertain , she took to sitting up in her workroom ; but when morning came
she would be heard laughing and speaking in an unconnected manner . Little by little her business left herand at last she was
, taken to the Salpetriere , afflicted with melancholy and often crying ; lamenting her troubles , and suffering also from delusions
In regard to sound . A judicious course of baths and medicine restored her to a tranquil state , in which she was able to work ; but
at the slightest excitement or sudden noise she still wandered-Her husband , who came often to see her , begged again and again
for her release , and at length obtained it . He had a little money , and wished to share it with her . At the end of sixteen months
however , he brought her back much worse , and he himself in a , state not very far removed from her own . He had probably led
her into dissipations which had overthrown the feeble remains of her reason ; as to himself , he fancied that he had brought a
bundle of clothes for her , and did not perceive that they were only rags and ends of ribbon . After a time he ceased to visit her , and
M . Trelat believes that he put an end to his own life . The poor woman , hopelessly mad , was sent to a departmental asylum .
It is the husband to whose case M . Trelat refers in these pages . The wife succumbed to over-workcaused by his weaknesses . In her
, family there was no taint of insanity ; in his there were several members of deficient mental powers .
Inertia is reckoned as insanity when it can be referred to no accidental or temporary cause , but must be regarded as a chronic
condition , such as that of Mademoiselle Pauline C , who , though . not deficient in actual intelligencecan hardly read at the age of
, fifty-two , nor even mend her clothes . Her bodily frame is neither feeble nor sickly , yet she refuses to walkobjects to sitting upand
is never comfortable except when lying down , . M . Trelat says , , that he has wasted immense pains upon her , and never got beyond making 1
her scrape a little lint , and that under fear of the douche-bath ., — a great agent in restraining or stimulating the insane . Again
Madame C was the wife of a cab proprietor ; she was forty , years of agereplied with perfect correctness to all questionsslept
well , had a , good appetite , but ate very slowly , and would not , do any work whatever . She let her arms hang down by her side
because they were heavy ! Neither remarks , reproaches , nor rewardsnot even the doucheever brought her to the point of even
scraping , lint . Will it be believed , , that this woman had been in a like condition all lier life , that her parents had married her to the
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Yet Thebe 7 S Method In It. " 291
YET THEBE S METHOD IN IT . " 291
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), July 1, 1862, page 291, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01071862/page/3/
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