Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1876 edition. Excerpt: ... met with in the States, amounting to nearly a hundred, I only met two who mentioned to me that they had visited our asylums, and had really studied our system, and both of them were ardent admirers of it* The first of these was Dr. Edward Jarvis, the well-recognised head of his profession, but, alas, now a head enfeebled by age and infirmity. This most able man urged me to travel the States on a mission of reform, which, unfortunately, my own health rendered me quite incapable of doing. The other person was the senior assistant-physician to the McLean Hospital for the Insane, whose name I forget, but who, while earnestly studying the treatment of the insane in England, lost his promotion in America. He also had become a thorough convert to our opinions and practice, which I truly hope will not prejudice him in the eyes of his professional brethren. And here I may very fairly ask why the leaders of medical opinion in America do not come to this country, and really study this most important question fully and conscientiously? The result would not be doubtful. The leading men of mental medicine in France and Germany did so, and were convinced. The illustrious Griesinger * Dr. Isaac Ray's visit to this country, which he refers to in The Lancet of May 27th, was I believe, thirty years ago. has told us in noble words how his adverse opinions were changed to joyful astonishment by personal observation of the working of the non-restraint system from one end of England to the other, and that objections to the system proceed entirely from those who have not either practised it or seen it in practice* Westphal, the eminent successor of this greatest of modern alienists, perhaps never stood in the position to be converted; no more staunch upholder...
