| Description Of Item | Illustration from the collection of Alexander Morison. Signed C [Charles] Gow. Reproduced in Morison’s 'Outlines of Lectures' (1848) plate 10. Sitter identified as 'Anne B [Bristow]'.
'Anne B: Aged forty-five, single, a dressmaker, of sober habits, was admitted into Bethlehem Hospital on the 10th October, 1845, labouring under a fourth attack of insanity, of five months duration. In this case, there was strong hereditary predisposition to insanity. The presumed cause of the present attack, was grief at the death of her father in an asylum. The menstrual discharge was very irregular, but not entirely suppressed. The character of her disorder was partial insanity, with depression, and propensity to suicide; she fancied herself to be forsaken of God, and was continually bemoaning her unhappy condition. During the whole period that she remained in Bethlehem Hospital, she continued in the same miserable state; and was continually attempting to strangle herself: she was also in the habit of eating her faeces, but did not assign any reason for so doing. Her language was frequently very blasphemous; and she declared that she was only feigning insanity.' |