London, aged twenty-nine, admitted May 10th 1821. This young man had
been a patient in this hospital before, and had continued here for
twelve months, when he was placed on the incurable list; but having
got much better, and continuing to improve for some time, six months’
leave of absence was granted him, at the expiration of which period he
came back completely well, returned thanks to the governors, and was
discharged perfectly cured.
The character and symptoms of this patient’s disorder were extremely
curious and singular. When the paroxysm came on, however he happened
to be situated, his whole frame from head to foot became stiff, as if
all his joints and muscles were ossified. His eyes, though staring
open, became fixed, and he foamed at the mouth. If sitting or walking
when his fit came on, he would instantly fall to the ground, generally
extended at full length on his back, with the same symptoms of rigid
stiffness and insensibility: his eyes, open and inclined upward, were
insensible to the touch of a hand passed over them, which did not
produce the slightest wink. No symptom of animation remained, with
the exception of breathing: but this so faintly as to be scarcely
perceptible. His condition in all other respects resembled death; and
in this state he would sometimes continue for one, two, three, and even
four days, without any apparent change. He could not be induced on
those occasions to eat or take any kind of sustenance; except, under
the direction of medical gentlemen, when rich broths were passed by
injection sufficient to sustain nature: but of this he seemed quite
unconscious. During the fits his whole person was literally as stiff
as a plank, and he might be raised to a perpendicular, and carried
from place to place like a ladder, without the least appearance of
flexibility. Towards the termination of those paroxysms, when a hand
was passed over the eye-balls they would sometimes move, which was a
prognostic of his recovery: and on being roused from his stupor, he
recollected nothing of what had passed; but he would speak of dreams,
visions, heaven, hell, and the strange things he had seen, at least
with “his mind’s eye.” Visions which, with the fanatical disciples
of Hannah Southcote, would have stamped him a sealed prophet, and
sanctioned as divine revelations the wild dreams of his disordered
fancy. After those fits he always appeared weak and dejected. He
was a very fine young man, powerful and active, and had served as a
master’s-mate in the Royal Navy.
When formerly confined here he was at times extremely violent; and on
one occasion attacked one of the keepers, and did him considerable
injury. He is heir to a considerable property in the neighbourhood of
Dulwich, but his right of possession still hangs vaccillating in the
glorious uncertainty of the law.
He was discharged quite cured on the 28th of February 1822, after a
month’s previous leave of absence.