500 THE "PRIVATE LUNACY COMMITTEE" AND THE COMMISSIONERS IN LUNACY. WE have received a printed circular, published at the instigation of a "Private Committee," formed to protect the interests of those connected with private asylums for the treatment of the insane. It refers to an official communication made a few months back by the Commissioners in Lunacy to the proprietors of all the private asylums, requesting them to keep at their respective establishments for the inspection of the Commissioners in Lunacy at the time of their visi tation, a list of the patients under care and treatment, stating exactly the amount paid for their board and maintenance! Before making the slightest comment upon the question at issue, we beg to say that we are in entire ignorance of the gentlemen connected with this "Private Committee," and, in fact, we had no knowledge of its existence, until we received, by post, the printed circular referred to. It would appear that the opinion of Her Majesty's Solicitor-General (Sir R. Bethel) has been taken on the point, and this able and distinguished lawyer is clearly of opinion that the Commissioners in Lunacy, in exacting such a return from the proprietors of private asylums, have exceeded the authority vested in them by the Act of Parliament under which they act. Sir R. Bethel, however, judiciously suggests that those connected with private asylums should respectfully protest against the course which the commissioners have adopted, and leave, for the present, the matter in their hands. We consider this excellent advice, and we hope it will have proper weight with those to whom it is addressed. We have no doubt that the Commissioners in Lunacy will, in deference to the opinions of one of the most accomplished and erudite lawyers of the day, either withdraw their circular altogether, or materially modify its requirements. It is certainly very desirable that the Commissioners should possess the power of ascertaining in certain cases whether a sufficient sum is allowed and appropriated for maintenance and medical care, and to this reasonable power no sensible man can raise an objection; but we must confess we cannot recognise the justice of the attempt to compel every proprietor of an asylum to expose his private pecuniary affairs to the inspection of the Commissioners in Lunacy, or any person deputed by them to officially inspect the private asylums for the insane existing in this country. It has the appearance of being an un-English and inquisitorial mode of procedure, and cannot be otherwise than objectionable to gentlemen of refined and sensitive feelings. We feel satisfied that the Commissioners, in carrying out the provisions of the law, are only influenced by the purest and most honourable intentions, and that they will, in deference to the opinion of the "Private Committee," re-consider their questions at an early meeting of the Board, and will (if they are satisfied that they have inadvertently exceeded the powers legally intrusted to them) at once meet the objections that have been raised, and withdraw the circular which has given such offence. We again state that the Editor of this Journal was not consulted in respect to the formation of this Committee, and does not even know the name of a single individual associated with it. Psychological Quarterly Retrospect. OUR last quarterly retrospect was omitted. So plentiful are the subjects that present themselves to our notice this quarter that we have only to stop and gather them as we pass, and the difficulty, if any, rather lies in the selection of our materials, than in the want of them. The daily press collects everything. Little and great, the grand and the insignificant, are equally to be found recorded in its columns; and we live in an age when the passing events of the world range themselves, almost like words, under their proper letters in a vast index, as easy of access as they are of value to every class of enquirers. We have been much struck with the following affecting account (extracted from Lord John Russell's Life and Correspondence of the Poet) of the last days of the author of the Irish Melodies. "Moore's sun set in gloom; and the years which closed his chequered carcer were clouded, not only with pecuniary embarrassments, but with such dismal events as the death of his two sons, which left him in the melancholy position of surviving his five children. "The death of his only remaining child, and his last and most beloved sister, deeply affected the health, crushed the spirits, and impaired the mind of Moore. An illness of an alarming nature shook his frame, and for a long time made him incapable of any exertion. When he recovered, he was a different man. His memory was perpetually at fault, and nothing seemed to rest upon his mind. He made engagements to dinners and parties, but usually forgot half of them. When he did appear, his gay flow of spirits, happy application of humorous stories, and constant and congenial ease, were all wanting. The brilliant hues of his varied conversation had failed, and the strong powers of his intellect had manifestly sunk. There was something peculiarly sad in the change. It is not unusual to observe the faculties grow weaker with age; and in the retirement of a man's own home, there may be 'no unpleasing melancholy' in the task of watching such a decline. But when in the midst of the gay and the convivial, the wit appeared without his gaiety, and the guest without his conviviality-when the fine fancy appeared not so much sobered as saddened, it was a cheerless sight. "Moore's last days were calin and peaceful. His domestic sorrows, his literary triumphs, seem to have faded away alike into a calm repose. He retained to his last moments a pious submission to God, and a grateful sense of the kindness of her whose tender office it was to watch over his decline." The Edinburgh Review, for July, 1856, gives a similar picture of an acquaintance, if not the companion, of Moore :— "Till near ninety, Rogers was a striking exception to the rule of the decay of the mind before that of the body.' He then gradually dropped into that NO. IV.-NEW SERIES. f state, mental and bodily, which raises a reasonable doubt whether prolonged life be a blessing or a curse 'Omni Membrorum damno major dementia, quæ nec Although his impressions of long past events were as fresh as ever, he forgot the names of his relations and oldest friends, whilst they were sitting with him, and told the same stories to the same people, two or three times over in the same interview. But there were frequent glimpses of intellect in all its original brightness, of tenderness, of refinement, and of grace. Once driving out with him,' says a female correspondent, I asked him after a lady whom he could not recollect. He pulled the check-string, and appealed to his servant. 'Do I know Lady MP' M- The reply was, 'Yes, sir.' This was a painful moment to us both. Taking my hand, he said, 'Never mind, my dear, I am not yet reduced to stop the carriage and ask if I know you. A friend of the Editor once ventured to ask Rogers if he remembered what Lord Byron had said after visiting his house and admiring the choiceness of its style. "What must this man not have suffered to have accomplished all this ?" "It is perfectly true," replied Mr. Rogers, pinching up his skinny cheeks between his forefinger and thumb; "it is perfectly true-they have left me nothing but this!" The anecdote, thus related, took place at the London Institution, in the private library of his friend Mr. Maltby, with whom the party alluded to was well acquainted—it was in the year 1834 or 1835. Mr. Maltby himself, the clever connoisseur of a title-page, and a bookworm of no mean note, died at the advanced age of ninety, feeble, but in the possession of his faculties. Humboldt is an instance of intellect undecayed by age. Strabo wrote his Geography, it is said, at eighty-two; and Michael Angelo, who died at eighty-eight, preserved his mind and genius to the last. His last will and testament was as grand as it was laconic, while critics are disposed to consider his last productions better than his first. On the other hand, the brightest efforts of genius have been conceived and executed before the meridian of life; of which Byron, Scott, Pope the poet, Mozart, Weber, Tasso, Shakespeare, Sir Isaac Newton and others, are illustrious examples. It is popularly supposed, that Homer composed his immortal epic in advanced life, and in painting and statuary he is usually represented as the blind old bard. Yet this was not the case. Perhaps the mistake arose from the Homer who recited those wonderful verses to his admiring hearers not being the Homer who had composed them. It is the opinion of the master critic, Longinus, that the Iliad was the production of a mind in the vigour of manhood, and the Odyssey the poetic recreation or repetition of the evening of life. We agree with the great Longinus. For there are, as he says, some puerilities in the Odyssey, while there are none in the Iliad; and the order of events forbids the conjecture that the latter was composed before the former; and it must be owned, that with all its quiet beauties, the Odyssey wants the pathos, the depth of colouring, the majestic ease and force of the Iliad. The preservation of the intellect to the latest period of age depends upon circumstances, over many of which we have no control. The nerves may be weak by nature, or accidentally decay the first; or there may be a scrofulous or gouty taint, the heirloom of the family; or a failure in the functions of the heart or stomach, natural or acquired. The early part of life may have been corroded by anxiety, weakened by privations, or overstrained by toil, which neither we nor our progenitors could either foresee or prevent. Wine or ardent spirits may have been too freely indulged in, and their use apologized for upon the plea of social engagements or a feeble constitution; while the more sensual passions may not have been held in with the curb of a tightened rein. Fortune may have arrived when she has ceased to be sought for, and reputation or celebrity bestowed or achieved when it is too late to facilitate the happiness of ourselves, and more especially of those with whom we are surrounded. In each of these instances, the mind decays early, and the earlier, the sooner the stimulus of necessity is withdrawn or suppressed. Besides all this, there is a climacteric period in man as well as in woman. In woman it occurs soon after forty, or at the latest at fifty; but in man it varies between his thirty-fifth and sixty-fifth years. When it takes place in man, his character and figure both undergo a change, sometimes for the better, but sometimes for the worse. He becomes fat or thin, attenuated or obese. Old age sets in apace. The hair turns grey or white, the affections congeal, virility ceases; or, on the other hand, the figure remains lean and lank, the features are shrivelled, the hair falls off, and the complexion tans, while the mind improves, the wit sparkles, the understanding solidifies, and the flash of genius burns brighter than ever. The experience of a whole life comes into play; and the tardy seedlings of spring embrown the autumn of our days with fruit. In these cases, the organic life suffers at the cost of the cerebro-spinal system. But, on the contrary, we see the mind degenerate without our being able to account for it, in the most pitiable manner possible. Follies of the most deplorable kind are committed. The old man marries a young girl; and after having been respected for his frugality and prudence, suddenly breaks out and affects to play the boy, the gallant, and the fop. Sometimes, something worse than folly ensues. The religious man turns a worldling, the upright a spendthrift, the trustworthy a swindler; or he falls a dupe to religious enthusiasts and knaves, mistakes idealities for faith, fasts, prays, preaches, and insults the world. No doubt, alteration of the brain is taking place pari passu with these alterations of character. It may be atrophy indicated by the loss of memory, slowness of speech and manner, and debility of gait and action. Or the circulation through the encephalon may be checked or impeded by ossification of the arteries, or softening of the coats of the cerebral arteries, or more distant disease about the heart and large vessels; or the neurine itself may be undergoing a change, particularly on its peripheral surface, as well as on the surfaces of its several ventricles or cavities. The convolutions become paler and the furrows shallower. The weight of the whole cerebrum and cerebellum is lighter, less complex, and seems to be reduced to the condition of the brain in early life. Softening of the surface of that delicate character which is detected only by letting a slender stream of water flow gently over it is sometimes the only discoverable alteration. But what is a very usual occurrence, and yet one that is often passed by unnoticed, because it is discernible only to a well-practised eye, which may not be present at the right moment for observing its attack, is a very slight fit of apoplexy and paralysis--so slight, indeed, that it occurs and passes away unperceived, and is recognised only in its after consequences and permanent effects. This appears to us to have been the case in Moore and Rogers; we have witnessed it more than once in private practice, and though loss of life does not ensue from it immediately, yet its ultimate effects are sooner or later fatal, and from the moment of its infliction, the patient is an altered being-he never recovers himself, but continues to exist, like a venerable ruin, with the marks of decay indelibly imprinted on his front. Dean Swift used to say, there is no such thing as a fine old man, for if his head and heart had been worth anything, they would have worn him out long ago. This was the case with the late Sir William Hamilton, Bart., Professor of Logic and Metaphysics in the University of Edinburgh. He was an immense student; his head was a compendium of knowledge; he did not belong to the present world, but he was a living fossil of the age of Aristotle and Plato; the schoolmen of the middle ages, the writers of tough German, ideal Italians, and erudite Frenchmen. He spoke the language of another world, and nobody scarcely ever supposed he belonged to this. He was at work early and late, when he was young and when he was old, at meal time and at play; his mind knew no rest; and the consequence was that he was paralysed in the midst of his lucubrations and literary labours. His lamp went out, and darkness closed upon him before he could justly be said to be old. This was apparently a case of apoplexy with sanguineous extravasation upon or within the brain; and, perhaps, some softening besides. We speak under correction, as we are not |