The case of Luigi Buranelli : medico-legally considered / by Forbes Winslow.

  • Winslow, Forbes, 1810-1874.
Date:
1855
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The case of Luigi Buranelli : medico-legally considered / by Forbes Winslow. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    prisoner) soon after he came here, and attended him on two or three occasions for haemorrhoids (piles) and derangement of the liver, when I thought him a mild and inoffensive respectable man. Early in the spring of last year he lost his wife, to whom he appeared tenderly attached, somewhat unexpectedly, in consequence of a severe and pro- tracted confinement. He was evidently deeply affected at her loss, and became melancholy and extremely depressed, but occasionally working at his employment. Soon after this, he applied to me with an abscess at the verge of the anus, which I opened for him, and found a fistulous communication with the bowel. At this period he became very anxious about his health, magnifying the slightest symptom, and under a strong apprehension that he should not recover. He was, however, induced, after some persuasion, to allow me to operate upon him for the fistula, when I also removed two small external piles. After the operation he became very irritable and impatient, removing the lint and tearing away whatever dressings I applied, nor could he be persuaded by scolding or entreaty to remain quiet. The conse- quence of this was, that the healing of the fistula did not go on satis- factorily, and eventually his conduct became so violent, and his temper so ungovernable, that neither I nor the people with whom he lodged (kind and attentive as they were) could do anything with him. He then placed himself under the care of a surgeon at Tunbridge Wells, but soon after was induced by his friends to get admission into the Middlesex Hospital. Such is the history of the poor fellow since he came to Penshurst; and although I could not, from my own knowledge of him, pronounce him absolutely insane, yet I believe his mind to have been in such a condition as to be easily thrown off its balance by any powerful excitement. I feel much interested in the unhappy man's fate. I am, &c. J. H. Baller. To Mitchell Henry, Esq., 5, Harley-street, London. The several witnesses who gave evidence at the trial as to his state of mind while in Penshurst, not only fully corroborate the statements of Doctor Baller on this point, but proved, further, that after his second wife's death, his depression and melancholy were painfully manifest. That he continually talked of suicide and death, and that a little boy had been employed to stop with him in his room, it being thought unsafe to leave him alone. That he wanted the woman, with whom he lodged, to purchase laudanum for him, and that he believed Doctor Baller wanted to poison him; and, in order to detect poison in the medicine sent by the doctor to him, he was in the habit of putting a halfpenny into it, and pointing to the effects of the poison upon the copper. That, on one occasion, he left the house where he was lodging, declaring his intention of drowning himself in the river; and the witness, Cook, stated, that fearing to leave him alone, he accompanied him, he crying so loudly while on the road, as to attract every one's notice, till he left him with John Simmons, Buranelli's brother-in-law. These facts, unshaken by a severe cross- examination, bring the wretched man down to the period of his admission to the Middlesex Hospital, on the 17th August, 1854.