Ninth annual report of the medical superintendent of the lunatic asylum, for the counties of Salop and Montgomery, and for the boroughs of Much Wenlock, Shrewsbury, and Oswestry. 1853 / [Salop and Montgomeryshire Counties Lunatic Asylum].

  • Salop and Montgomeryshire Counties Lunatic Asylum.
Date:
1854
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Ninth annual report of the medical superintendent of the lunatic asylum, for the counties of Salop and Montgomery, and for the boroughs of Much Wenlock, Shrewsbury, and Oswestry. 1853 / [Salop and Montgomeryshire Counties Lunatic Asylum]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    11/44 (page 11)
    APPENDIX. LETTER TO PROFESSOR GUY, OF KING’S COLLEGE, LONDON, ON THE USE OF LARGE DOSES OF OPIUM IN CASES OF MANIA & DEMENTIA, Dear Sir,—I owe you an apology for having so long de¬ ferred to answer your inquiry respecting the extent to which I am in the habit of occasionally carrying the administration of opium in certain cases of mania and dementia; and I beg you to believe, that this delay has not arisen from any disinclination on my part to communicate the information you wish for, but simply from my want of time and opportunity to collect such facts as are scattered over the Journal of this Institution, and to place some of them before you in such a form as may best serve to elucidate the practice to which I here refer. On looking at my reply to an official circular from the Com¬ missioners in Lunacy, containing an inquiry respecting the treat¬ ment usually adopted by the superintendents of lunatic asylums in various forms of mental disease, and dated January 14, 1847, I find the following passage;— “ In some instances where the irritability has been excessive, I have found the employment of opium also to be indispensable; and I have sometimes given it in very large doses before it has suc¬ ceeded in procuring sleep In one case, where the patient was not previously accustomed to its use, I found that ordinary doses were quite unavailing, and that one scruple of solid opium was no more than barely sufficient for the attainment of comfortable repose. This quantity was given nightly, for a considerable length of time, and was rather abruptly discontinued, without detriment to the patient, after the tendency to pervigilium was supposed to be ma¬ terially diminished.”