| Description Of Item | Illustration from the collection of Alexander Morison. Plate 75 of Morison’s 'The Physiognomy of Mental Diseases' (1840). Signed A J [Alexander Johnston].
'Portrait of C. L. aged 62; a married woman, with a family of children, who has been ten years insane, originally monomania with ideas of grandeur, now combined with incoherence of ideas. She still calls herself a queen, sometimes queen Jesus; she frequently knocks violently against her bed, and speaks in a loud voice against devils who disturb her: a singular feature in this poor woman's case is that when a book is placed in her hand, after a short time, apparently spent in preparing, she commences in a loud voice a long discourse, the subject of which is generally religious, sometimes obscene; this, as might be expected, is very incoherent. She is quite blind.' |