| Description Of Item | Journal article cutting on [Alexandre Jacques François Brière] De Boismont’s ‘On Hallucinations’, with handwritten markings. This journal article cutting is from the collection of Thomas Laycock. Details useful treatments of hallucination: bloodletting, baths, purgatives, blisters, occupation, and exercise. With hallucinations with excitement, baths of six to ten hours of duration with irrigation are a suggested cure. To cure delirium tremens (alcohol withdrawal), thirty leeches and a saggital suture are suggested. Opium is suggested to ‘[break] the chain of ideas], meaning the patient experiencing hallucinations would sleep longer than accustomed. A patient case is detailed where they believed a magnetiser resided in his belly. To cure this – two large blisters were applied to his legs and he was distracted with intellectual labours. A patient case is detailed where she hallucinated seeing her lover everywhere. Details of her cure included long baths and simultaneous head rinsing. A patient case details how after two hours of irrigation, the patient knew her illusions were caused by her fever - and within eight days she was ‘perfectly well’ and released to her family. |