| Description Of Item | Illustration from the collection of Alexander Morison. Plate 66 of Morison’s 'The Physiognomy of Mental Diseases' (1840). Unsigned [Alexander Johnston].
'Portrait of G. B., aged 46.
This man, a blacksmith by trade, and, consequently, familiar with large fires, after the death of his father, who had taken care of him and had brought him up to his own trade, became distressed in circumstances and in mind; he wandered about the country for some time, and shewed perfect indifference to what became of him; in order, as he said, to be taken up, he set fire to a stack of corn. He is a man of weak intellect, and both his eyes are injured, but not so much as to deprive him of sight; he is harmless, and willing to make himself useful.' |