defect in education, and which is not a little conducive to the production of insanity, is the greater attention paid to the cultivation of the intellectual powers than to the moral faculties, that is, to arts, sciences, and literature, than to moral and religious feelings. The pride of parents is perpetually urging them to have their children distinguished rather by fine accomplishments than by benevolence, humanity, and all the kindlier affections of the soul. It is difficult, says our author, sometimes to ascertain whether mental alienation depends on original weakness of the understand ing, or a vicious education. M. Pinel relates the case of two orphans, who, being deprived at a very early age, of their parents, were placed under guardians of the most opposite characters. The one was brought up in every kind of effeminacy, indulgence, and idleness, the other was under a very devil for moroseness, tyranny, and severity. They both became insane before the age of 21, though there was no hereditary disposition to insanity. Thus, extremes meet, and produce similar effects! Many other examples, from undoubted authorities, are brought forward by our author, to illustrate the pernicious effects of indulgence and improper education in early youth, on the mental faculties. II. Influence of Political Institutions. The character, passions, manners, and sentiments of people, are greatly modified by their government, as has been remarked from the time of Hippocrates. To what other cause can we attribute the contrast between the Athenians and Spartans?-the one celebrated for their genius, ur banity, eloquence, and love of the fine arts, the other for their austerity of manners, equity, concord, and disinterestedness. It is to the political institutions of the Romans that we are to attribute those military virtues and superior genius that made them masters of the world. The climates or soils of Greece and Italy have not changed; but the institutions of man have decayed, and with them all those attributes of mind and body by which be was characterized in ancient days. The power of government on the genius of a people being acknowledged, our author inquires whether particular forms of government may not exert an influence on the production and character of insanity. The most intelligent travellers inform us that under despotic governments there are very few insane people. Our author endeavors to account for the circumstance in this way :Under despotic governments all the public institutions conspire to prevent the acquisition of knowledge,-to stifle the sentiments,and, in short, to completely coerce the passions. The subjects. of such governments may almost be said to have no moral existence, and consequently the exercise of the intellect, or its organ, the brain, is almost a nullity. The organ, therefore, is not exposed to the causes of derangement. Under republican, limited monarchical, and representative governments, on the other hand, there is everything favorable for the production of mental maladies. The reasons are obvious. Civilization flourishes under such political institutions. The intellectual powers are developed to the utmost stretch. Emulation, am ་ bition, intrigue,-all the passions and propensities are indulged in to excess, and are but feebly restrained by the reasoning faculties. But, at the same time, the brain, the material organ of these brilliant phenomena, these sublime faculties, is too much exercised, and thus exposed, in common with other organs, to derangements of function or structure, more or less durable, which disturb the reasoning faculties for a time, or annihilate them altogether. It is thus, by a still more violent, but immediate action on the sensorium, that political commotions and revolutions give rise to mental maladies, and multiply the instances of suicide and crimes.* Men, in such awful circumstances, seem emancipated from the control of reason as well as law, and all the fiercer passions are let loose. Vengeance, cupidity, ambition,-nay, even the more generous emotions and pas * We must take leave to differ, through out the whole work, from our author, in making insanity, in all its grades and vavarieties, depend on primary or immediate derangement of the cerebral functions. On the contrary, we know, from long observation and experience, that the causes of insanity, though perhaps primarily acting on the brain, in the form of moral emotions, would but rarely, comparatively speaking, disturb the intellectual powers, were it not for the derangements of function induced in various other organs, as the stomach, liver, &c. which react on the sensorium, and greatly exasperate the original morbid impression. But we go even further, and assert that purely physical causes will disorder certain organs in the body, in consequence of which the brain will be so sympathetically affected as to present all the phenomena of insanity. We are ready to admit, however, that the sensorium is strongly predisposed to the intellectual disorder by the causes enumerated by our author. sions are carried to such an excess, that the seat of reason is overthrown. But this is not even the principal way in which insanity is produced in revolutionary periods. The vicissitudes of fortune which then obtain in every direction, are too great to be borne. Elevation as well as depression is dangerous to most men. There are few, in fact, who can firmly support either of these changes. The effects of these political commotions, in regard to insanity, were seen and recorded in Peru, after the Spanish conquest,-in England, during the civil wars,-in America, after the war of independence,-and, on a large scale, in the late French revolution. Esquirol has declared that he could trace the ebbings and flowings of this dreadful revolution by the increment and decrement of insanity. The same experienced author has noticed a fact of much interest, as showing the influence of political institutions in the generation of mental maladies. Formerly the asylums of the insane presented a considerable proportion of their inhabitants tormented with the fear of demons and beings of a supernatural order; but now this class of insane is replaced by one of quite a different description,men who are haunted with the fear of the police. The change is satisfactorily accounted for by Esquirol. Religion and superstition have lost much of their influence over Europeans in general, but over the French in particular. The consequence is, that the government must employ other means to keep turbulent spirits in order. What power the clergy may have lost, is now thrown into the hands of the police offi 356 cers, and hence the change of It is not strange that the imagina- a struggle III. Influence of Religious In--especially when stitutions. But though superstition has lost much of its terrors, and perhaps religion itself much of its benign influence over the minds of men, in proportion as civilization has advanced; yet the sentiments of veneration for our Creator,--the hope of rewards, and the fear of punishments in a future state of existence, operate, and will forever operate powerfully on the minds of men, till their nature becomes completely changed. Religion may be abused, and superstition erected in its stead; but still the worship of a Deity must prevail in some form or other. The devout Gustavus Adolphus, and the sanguinary Suwarrow, equally invoked the Supreme Being to crown their arms with success Louis the Eleventh and Philip considered themselves as raising the most grateful incense to their God, by the Auto da fé, and the tortures of the Inquisition. While, on the other hand, the sublimest philosophers, as Newton, Haller, and a thousand others, have acknowledged their conviction of a Deity, by their admiration of his works. But, in weak minds, superstition, or even religion is sometimes too spiritual to be much discussed or contemplated with safety. Each individual forms his notions of Heaven and Hell, according to the nature of his constitution. The violent, the melancholic, the austere individual forms ideas of the Deity, on the model of his own mind, or rather temperament,--clothing the Omnipotent with sentiments and dispositions analogous to his own! takes place between the dictates of Nature, and the rigid restrictions of a gloomy superstition. Pinel relates the case of a young woman, who was brought up under very severe religious discipline, and who was afterwards exposed to the temptations of love.. The struggle between the affections of the heart and the sense of religious duty deprived her of reason, and in this state she was carried to the Lunatic Hospital,-her incongruous soliloquies betraying the nature of the terrible struggle in her mind. The alarms respecting supposed crimes and breaches of divine laws are frequently the occasion of mental alienation, and even of suicide! These are some of the evils attendant on religion; but which are not chargeable to it, but to the weakness of our Nature. leges accorded to the human "Notwithstanding the privirace, our nature is so feeble, that those sentiments which are most capable of rendering us dignified and happy, if carried to excess, become the source of our greatest misery.' "" by his fulminating declamations, A missionary, says M. Pinel, and the frightful images which he drew of future punishments, so worked on the imagination of a credulous vinedresser, that the latter conceived himself doomed to eternal fires, and that he could punishment to his family, than by no otherwise prevent the same what is called the baptism of blood. He first, therefore, attempted the murder of his wife, and nearly effected his dreadful purpose; but failing in this, he quickly immolated two of his younger children, with the view of procuring them eternal salvation! While confined in prison, before trial, he strangled a fellow prisoner with his own hands, and all under the impression of performing an act of expiation! He was now clearly ascertained to be insane, and was immured in one of the cells of the Bicêtre. Here a long reflection on what had passed, and a profound meditation on the circumstance of his not being executed for so many murders, convinced him that he was the fourth person of the Trinity, and that all the tribunals and potentates on earth were incapable of injuring a hair of his head. In this case, as in almost all others of a melancholy character, the insanity was partial. On every other subject, except that of religion, he was perfectly rational. After ten years of solitary confinement, he became so calm as to be permitted the range of the hospital court, and four more years seemed to confirm the idea of his being now harmless. But a horrible scene was all this time preparing in the monomaniac's mind. Having secreted a formidable weapon, he sallied forth one evening, and first aimed a terrible blow at one of the keepers, which happily did not kill him--he then cut the throats of two lunatics who came in his way, and was proceeding in his career of blood, when he was mastered and disarmed with great difficulty! The histories of suicidal maniacs, urged to the dreadful deed by religious, or rather fanatical impulses, would fill volumes; and need no further notice in this place. We must pass over the chapter on the influence of manners and customs, in the production of insanity. In this, as in all other parts of the work, our author labors to prove that the causes of this terrible affliction act directly on the brain, the immediate organ of the mind. We differ from him on this point.--Med. Chir. Rev. We shall pursue this subject next week. The Albany Gazette publishes a statement made by the coroner of the city, in which the death of a man named John Hogle is attributed to the prescriptions of a miserable quack named Warren. On an examination being made by two physicians, it was discovered that arsenic, nearly in its pure state, had been administered. Warren had made his escape. Some thieves were lately detected in England by their having employed a carrier pigeon to convey a letter to one of their gang. He became exhausted, and fell in the road; and on being taken up, the letter was found It was on an incident of this kind that Miss Edgeworth founded her interesting little story of "The White Pigeon." We should feel sorrow, but not sink under its oppression; the heart of a wise man should resemble a mirror, which reflects every object without being sullied by any.-Confu cius. thought to look ill than old: because People had much rather be it is possible to recover from sickness, but there is no recovering from age. in the sixth regulation enacted at BOSTON, TUESDAY, OCT. 16, 1827. Northampton. In the meantime, it THE MEDICAL SCHOOL OF HARVARD COLLEGE. To the Ed. of the Med. Intelligencer. SIR-A medical student who is desirous of obtaining a medical diploma, wishes to be informed on what subjects lectures are given in your medical school, and whether the lectures on anatomy and surgery are equal to what is required by the 6th regulation adopted by the convention of medical delegates lately assembled at Northampton. E. G. Bristol county, Aug. 1827. We owe E. G. an apology for not baving replied to his inquiries before; the delay, however, has not been voluntary or intentional on our part, but has arisen from another source. In this school five courses of lectures are annually given, on the following subjects:--1, Anatomy and Surgery. 2, Theory and Practice of Physic. 3, Midwifery and Medical Jurisprudence. 4, Materia Medica. 5, Chemistry. The sixth regulation adopted by the late convention of Medical Delegates held at Northampton, Ms., requires that every candidate for the degree of Doctor of Medicine, shall have attended, during the period of his medical pupilage, two full courses of lectures on Anatomy and Physiology, and on Surgery. Now as the lectures on Anatomy are here blended into one course, and given by the same individual, we have neither the ability nor the inclination to decide, whether this single course of lectures on these two branches of instruction, is equal, or not, to what is required cannot be doubted that every friend to medical science, for the improvement of which the convention at Northampton have so commendably labored, would rejoice to see established in all our medical schools, two distinct professorships, one for anatomy and physiology, and one for the operations in surgery, and the treatment of surgical diseases. Each of these primary and most important branches of medical education, requires and demands an entire and separate course of lectures. An apprehension has been entertained on this subject, that if this were the case it would lessen the number of students and others who might come here to avail themselves of the many superior comparative advantages of this seminary. We are not of this opinion. If at this period when a good education in every profession and situation in life, is more justly, and consequently more highly estimated, while some individuals of limited means, are obliged to be too much governed by the consideration of expense, others are able and willing to pay the highest prices for their equivalent advantages. We have cheap, and ordinary and wretched schools enough, and more than enough, of all sorts; let us have a few then of elevated character. We would not say that high charges are not an evil in every useful seminary, because they may exclude individuals who would, if well instructed, be the most valuable members of society. This consideration, however, is frequently car |