Illustrations of Madness (Psychology Revivals)

John Haslam, Roy Porter

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9780415712507
• eBook ISBN: 9781134665235
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

John Haslam's Illustrations of Madness, written in 1810, occupies a special place in psychiatric history, it was the first book-length account of one single psychiatric case written by a British psychiatrist. John Haslam, apothecary to London's Bethlem Hospital, and a leading psychiatrist of the early-nineteenth century, details the case of James Tilly Matthews, who had been a patient in the hospital for some ten years. Matthews claimed he was sane, as did his friends and certain doctors. Haslam, on behalf of the Bethlem authorities, contended he was insane, and attempted to demonstrate this by presenting a detailed account of Matthew's own delusional system, as far as possible in Matthew's own words.

Originally published in 1988 as part of the Tavistock Classics in the History of Psychiatry series, Roy Porter's Introduction to this facsimile reprint of an historic book goes beyond Haslam's text to reveal the extraordinary psychiatric politics surrounding Matthew's confinement and the court case it produced, leading up to Haslam's dismissal from his post. Still relevant today, Haslam's account can be used as material upon which to base a modern diagnosis of Matthew's disorder.

APPENDIX 1

Bibliography of the Writings of John Haslam

 

 

J. Haslam (1798) Observations on Insanity, with Practical Remarks on the Disease and an Account of the Morbid Appearance on Dissection, London: F. & C. Rivington.

J. Haslam (1809) Observations on Madness and Melancholy, including Practical Remarks on those Diseases; together with Cases: and an Account of the Morbid Appearances on Dissection, 2nd edn, considerably enlarged, London: J. Callow.

J. Haslam (1810) Illustrations of Madness: Exhibiting a Singular Case of Insanity, and No Less Remarkable Difference of Medical Opinion: Developing the Nature of Assailment, and the Manner of Working Events; with a Description of the Tortures Experienced by Bomb-Bursting, Lobster-Cracking, and Lengthening the Brain, Embellished with a Curious Plate, London: Rivingtons, Robinsons, Callow, Murray & Greenland.

J. Haslam (1816) Observations of the Physician and Apothecary of Bethlem Hospital, upon the Evidence Taken Before the Committee of the Hon. House of Commons for Regulating Mad-Houses, London: H. Bryer.

J. Haslam (1817) Considerations on the Moral Management of Insane Persons, London: R. Hunter.

J. Haslam (1817) Medical Jurisprudence, as it Relates to Insanity, According to the Law of England, London: R. Hunter.

J. Haslam (1818) A Letter to the Governors of Bethlem Hospital, Containing an Account of their Management of that Institution for the Last Twenty Years; Elucidated by Original Letters and Authentic Documents; with a Correct Narrative of the Confinement of James Norris, by Order of their Subcommittee; and Interesting Observations on the Parliamentary Proceedings, London: Taylor & Hessey.

J. Haslam (1819) Sound Mind; or, Contributions to the Natural History and Physiology of the Human Intellect, London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme & Brown.

J. Haslam (1823) A Letter to the Right Honourable, the Lord Chancellor, on the Nature and Interpretation of Unsoundness of Mind, and Imbecility of Intellect, London: R. Hunter.

J. Haslam (1827–8) ‘Lectures on the Intellectual Composition of Man’, The Lancet, 1: 38, 71, 119, 207, 288, 335.

J. Haslam (1835) On the Nature of Thought, or the Act of Thinking, and its Connexion with a Perspicuous Sentence, London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Greene & Longman.

J. Haslam (1850) Selection of Papers and Prize Essays on Subjects Connected with Insanity, Read Before the Society for Improving the Conditions of the Insane, London: published by the Society.

APPENDIX 2

Deposition of James Haslam before King’s Bench November 1809

In the Kings Bench

John Haslam the Apothecary of Bethlem Hospital maketh oath and saith that he has been upwards of 25 years engaged in the profession of medicine during which time his attention has been principally directed to the cure and treatment of mental diseases that during such time he has had the examination of several thousand Patients and from his particular situation at Bethlem Hospital for the last 14 years or thereabouts has had the most constant opportunities of studying this disease in all its forms.

And this Deponent saith that he has been acquainted with the case of the Patient James Tilley Matthews from the time of his first coming into the Hospital which was on the 28th January 1797 down to the present period, and that it is his decided opinion, as it has ever been, that such Patient is a person of insane and disordered mind and that his insanity is of a tendency so dangerous to his Majesty and his Family in the particular as to the Judicature and Magistracy of the Country in general that it would be highly unsafe for him to be at large until he be sufficiently recovered to perceive the incongruity of his former opinions and to show that his renunciation of them is sincere.

And this Deponent in confirmation of the above statement further saith that at the time of the Patient first coming into the Hospital the Parish of Camberwell were his securities who were either induced or obliged by the Magistrates of Bow Street to enter into the usual Bond for him. From the notes of his case taken at that period by this Deponent it appears that 3 months before that time he had cried out Treason in the House of Commons at the time the House was sitting and his own account of himself to this Deponent at his admission was that he had been employed by the French and English Governments to negotiate a peace but that he had never received any reward, not even his travelling expences. That he had been Four times backwards and forwards from France to England. That at his suggestion of its propriety, the Committee of Public Safety in France was formed and that it was in order to prevent his letters from reaching France and himself from going over there that the Traitorous Correspondence Bill in this country was received. That when he communicated to the Ministry of this Country some valuable and important secrets they betrayed him, and when he afterwards went to Paris he was there told he was betrayed and that his ruin was endeavoured to be accomplished. That they sought out in all the Provinces of France for persons of the names of Pitt and Grenville who were brought forward to claim acquaintance with him in order to destroy him. That when he was in Flanders the Duke of York caused his army to make various marches and countermarches to beset him, and wished to deliver him over to the Enemy as a spy. That the report of the Jewels of the Queen of France being stolen was a deception. They were sent over to this country as a bribe to some of the Royal Family to betray this nation and to dismember Scotland and Ireland from this Country. That the King of Prussia was at the bottom of a deception scheme by which the Duke of York was to have been made King of France and that the Princesses of this country were to have intermarried with some of the Emigrant Princes. That the King of Prussia also had formed a plan of destroying General Washington and to have divided America into two Monarchies which were to have been ruled by two of the younger Princes of this country, and that the discovery of this scheme was the cause of the late resignation of the Presidentship of the United States. That he (Matthews) hoped he should live and that he would never rest until he had brought some people in administration and also some of the Royal Family to the Block, and that when he called out Treason in the House of Commons they durst not arrest him lest he should discover the authors of the Plot.

And this Deponent further saith that he is enabled to state from his Note book that on the 10th March following his admission, he the said Matthews came down to the gate and said there was a conspiracy to destroy his Wife and Family, and that this Deponent was under the direction and influence of the Duke of Portland to detain him in the Hospital and that he would be revenged on this Deponent for detaining him there unjustly and that the water of the Pump was poisoned.

And this Deponent saith (having refreshed his memory from his said Note Book of that period) that the said Patient on the 11th March said that his being under confinement was only a part of a grand conspiracy to deprive him of his liberty which had for many years been attempted in the different Courts of Europe that he was determined to prosecute theHospital, the Committee this Deponent. He further said that whenever he went out there were persons before and behind him to watch where he went and that those people were employed by one of the Secretaries to Mr Pitt. That his being detained in the Hospital was to prevent his impeaching some of the Ministers of this Country and some of our Royal Family of High Treason. That Lord Mansfield, the Marquis of Bath and the Empress of Russia died of poison.

And this Deponent further saith that on the 14th April then following the Patient refused to associate with any of the said Patients in the Hospital alledging as his reason that he conceived them not to be mad, but instruments of intrigue who were paid by certain Agents to counterfeit the disease.

And this Deponent saith that the persons so alledged by the said Matthews to be hired as agents for the purpose of deception were not persons of that description but were actually insane Patients in the Hospital for medical treatment and cure. And the said Matthews further said that he believed certain pains in his joints had been produced by medicine as drugs secretly conveyed into his food and he suspected there was going on certain chemical or magnetical influence in the Hospital to his prejudice. In the August following when the Patient’s Brother came to Matthews he (Matthews) said that some intrigue had forced him his Brother up to town to destroy his (the said Matthews) happiness and ruin him, although the said brother came from Birmingham with another Patient as this Deponent has been informed and believes.

And this Deponent saith that on the 10th January 1798 the Patient said there was the figure of a man on the top of Bloomsbury Church who had got a Book under his Arm. That it was Doomsday book, and that no one could open that book but himself the said Matthews. And that from the moment he the said Matthews came into the Hospital the whole of its revenues became his property.

And this Deponent further saith that after the said patient had continued in the Hospital a year, the usual period of probation, he was upon examination and consideration of his case by the proper medical officers and Committee declared a fit object to continue in the House as an incurable: Patient and more particularly from his madness having assumed the most marked features of hostility and vengeance to their Majesties and many branches of the Royal Family from his having accused the persons in power of treasonable practices from his contempt of all constituted authorities together with threats of personal revenge to the Governors Officers of Bethlem Hospital.

And this Deponent saith that in or about the year 1800, as nearly as to the time as this Deponent is able to speak from recollection, the said Matthews was brought up before the late Lord Kenyon the Lord Chief Justice of the Court of Kings Bench at his Lordships house in Lincolns Inn Fields where he was attended by the Physician, by this Deponent and the Porter of the Hospital and that after a short intercession in which his Lordship was fully convinced of the Insanity of the Patient (he having insisted before Lord Kenyon that the Queen of England had for treasonable purposes become possessed of the Jewels of the Queen of France) he was upon the said conviction of his Lordship as to his Insanity remanded to Bethlem Hospital.

And this Deponent saith that after this period his derangement of mind became more systematic and embraced a greater variety of objects. He conceived himself to be the Emperor of the whole world and that the reigning Sovereigns, were Impostors and Usurpers and more, particularly directed his threats towards his present Majesty and the Royal Family deriving his own right to the Crown from King Edward the 3rd. And there is in this Deponent’s possession a very large quantity of documents in the hand writing of the said Patient which are very voluminous and to which it is therefore impossible to do more than refer – but which are open to inspection and contain the most solemn assertions of his own titles and dignities being paramount to all [illeg.] and denouncing vengeance and death against his Majesty, the Members of the Divine Council, Secretaries of State, Judges, Governors of the Hospital and all other authorities offering different rewards for their lives and complaining of the most tyrannical, illegal and cruel treatment.

And this Deponent further saith that after the period of his return from the examination by Lord Kenyon the Patients told this Deponent that a magnet was placed in the centre of his brain by which a number of event workers and political chemists were enabled to attain his thoughts and persisted that these persons he said he constantly heard. They forced him to utter various noises and had the power of directing his thoughts; they also endeavoured to poison him by admitting into his room various stenches – From this period until the applications which have been made within the last year or two by his friends, the patient has on examination unequivocally shown abundant proofs of insanity to this Deponent and as this Deponent believes to all such medical persons as have occasionally examined him but for about the said period of a year or two past the said patient appears to have been aware that his particular hallucination or weak part was Politics and that when he has been interrogated upon the subjects of his former opinions he has generally replied that he should give no answer to such questions that he had firmly resolved never to commit himself upon the subject of Politics, and that whatever attempts might be made no power on earth should ever induce him to advert to the subject again, but this Deponent saith that when he has been asked whether he renounced any of those opinions formerly held by him he has declared that he remained of the same opinions and never would renounce them – when he has been asked whether he was ever insane, he has always declared that he never was insane at any period of his life but always in his perfect senses and that his whole confinement in the hospital has been an injust imprisonment without having for its real cause that which had been always assigned, namely.

And this Deponent further saith that he apprehends as a medical question he is well warranted in putting the question of his sanity or insanity upon such issue and in stating that the Patient is not now of sound mind or he could have no objection to converse or be questioned upon those subjects where he is well aware his derangement would be manifest.

And this Deponent further saith that so far from having been able to obtain from the Patient a renunciation of his former errors he never would confess that he was at any time under the influence of an unsound judgment under which in this Deponent’s opinion he still remains and which is among the reasons of the Patient’s not being able to satisfy such persons as have been more particularly accustomed to the treatment of mental di...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction by Roy Porter
• Appendix 1
• Appendix 2
• Appendix 3
• Preface
• Illustrations of Madness by John Haslam