By Wm. M. Awl, Superintendent of the Ohio Lunatic Asylum
Of all the forms of insanity the epileptic is certainly the most hopeless and severe. They are a highly excitable, troublesome and dangerous class of mad folks, and very few have been known to recover, either in this or any other institution within our knowledge. In some hospitals we believe they are excluded altogether, on account of their impulsive violence and the very unpleasant effects of their paroxysms upon other patients. We look upon the epileptic with great compassion. Many of them exhibit the best traits of human nature during their lucid intervals, but at other times they are perfectly uncontrollable, disregarding alike both friends and foes, and we know of no class more dangerous to go at large.
Excerpted from: "Recovery From Insanity Produced by Different Causes", 1844,
The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. XXIX, No, 26
IMAGE: The First Ohio Lunatic Asylum
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