The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1848-08-29 00:00:00

TIDE TABLE.
Mons. lEVENG.I HGI:T. 1 HOLYDAYS, ETC.

Tuesday....
NVednesday
Thursday ..311
Friday Sept.
Saturday . 2
Sunday .... 3
Nlohday .... 4

h. m. h. m.
11 33 11 51
0 9
0 26 0 43 .1
1 0 1 17
132 149
2 6 2 23
242 3 0

ft. in.
17 4
17 9
17 4
16 11
15 11
14 11
13 8

PEST
IDirect.

Australia
Bahia
Ilarbacloes

!June23l

'llth Sund. aft. Trinity

DATES AT LIVERPOOL.
Indirect.', Direct.' Indirect:,

IMay 151 Lima
.. INlaranharn July 6'
iJuly 27;Mauritius

Bombay .. .. I,,Mobil. 1 'Aug. 1
B. Ayres ~ .. June —Monte Video .. June 13
Calcutta .. July 3;New Orleans .. IJul y 30
C. G. Hope. .. May 31lNew York... ' .. ;Aug. 3
Cliariestc,n . - .. Aug. ePeniambuco.' • . July' ' 2
China .. June 24!,1ti0 Janeiro.; .. n.
Demerara .. July 15;:.-iitranitali .. • • Aug. 4
Havana .. .. 2i'llSt. Helena.. .. !June 30
Jamaica .. .. 22'
.Valparaiso .. ' .. 'May 29
La Guavra

THE EFFECTS OF REVOLUTIONS.
(From the Lancet)
ON THE INFLUENCE OF TIIE lIEVOLUTION OP FEBRUT
ARY, 1818, AND THE INSURRECTION OP. JUNE, ON
DEVELOPING INSANITY IN PARIS.
Dr. Brierre de Boismont, physician to one of the best--
conducted private asylums of Paris, has addressed to
l' Union Medicate the following letter, remarkable both
for the facts it contains, and the kindly and sensible tone
in which it is written :

" Hardly had the last shots been fired, last February;
when I received in my establishment several victims of
that revolution, which, as M. Goudchaux, minister of
finances, justly says, has been effected much too fasts
These first patients were generally sad, melancholic, and
despondent. Their fancies were of ,a heart-rending de.
scription, as they expressed a constant fear of being
slaughtered and assassinated. One of these, a man of
great learning, and the author of several scientific works,
motionless, and with a fixed stare, hardly uttered a word;
he was under the impression that he was going to be cast
into a sewer, and there stifled. Another was ever ex-
claiming, ' Here they are; they are breaking down the
door; they are going to seize me and shoot nie !' Others •
fancied they heard threatening voices, telling them that
they should be guillotined along with their families ; or
they constantly heard the reports of fire-arms. The pa-
tients of this class mostly belonged to the respectable
trading part of the community; and many of them had,
by industry and perseverance, succeeded in amassing
some property, which people now wish to possess without
taking any trouble at all. In order to escape the misfora-
tunes they dreaded, some of these patients tried to des
stroy themselves, and the most careful watching was ne.
cessary to prevent them from doing so. Several, per,
ceiving that they were closely watched, resolved to die
with hunger, and persisted in their purpose with a sort of
wild energy. Out of six of these, who all thought them-
selves great cr urinals, or ruined and betrayed by their
neighbours, two died in spite of the employment of the
oesophageal. tube. One of these two laboured tinder one
of the strongest delusions which I ever observed. He
had persuaded himself that his oesophagus had been
walled in, and that no food could pass. ' [low is a man
to live,' he used to say, ' when aliments are thrust into
his windpipe ? You are choking me, and 1 shall soon be
dead.' But some time afterwards we received specimens
of another description of patients, whose derangement
might be fairly attributed to the working of the new poli-
tical ideas. These were not dejected and sad; on the
contrary, they had proud, gay, and enthusiastic looks,-
and were very loquacious; they were constantly writing•.
memorials, constitutions, &c., proclaimed themselves
great men, the deliverers of the country, and took this_
rank of generals, members of the government, &c.
It has long been maintained that madness often-
bears the imprint of pride. I declare that I never saw
this fact so forcibly borne out as with the patients whom
the revolution of February drove mad, particularly those
who, imbued with socialist, communist, and regenerating
ideas, believed themselves destined to play a conspicuous
part in the world. Going through the wards, a few days
ago, with one of my professional brethren, we stopped-
with one of those patients whose disposition was origi-
nally of a kind and peaceful description, but who had-
grown restless and enthusiastic, by being torn from his
usual and regular occupations by the excitement of the
times, and flung into the street, the clubs, and amidst
the working classes. He spoke as follows, after having_
discussed two points which have been much debated of
late :—' I perceive that people want to make it appear
that I eta mad, but I am proud of the glory which will
be shed on my name when posterity will do justice to me,
and ask, with painful astonishment, how the author of
such useful and philanthropic views could ever have been
thought mad ! Why should I grieve at this injustice,
however ; was not Taaso locked up under the same sus-
picion ? '
•"fhe terrible insurrection of Juno has already begun
to bear its fruits. I have received inure than twenty pa-
tients already, and I know that the proportion is equally
large in other establishments. Among this number there:
were several cases of mania ; those who were thus mani-
acal were threatening to kill, shoot, massacre everybody;
they. were constantly calling out 4 murder,' and ` help,'
and Were, in fact, in a state of indescribable excitement
I have been told that a patient thus affected, and lying in
a hospital for a wound, said, ' I- want to eat the flesh of
a national guard, soaked in the blood of a garde mobile.'
Although I do not vouch for the truth of this report, I
can state, that what /heard in my establishment is fully
es bad as this savage wish. the excitement caused by
the tiring of the musketry and artillery even seized upon
women. One of tnem, who was brought to this asylum,-
after having been removed from a barricade where she
was holding forth in a furious manner, told me that she,
had left her husband without knowing what she was
about, and that she remembered neither the words nor
the acts that were attributed to her. This lady, who has
a cultivated mind, is full of talent, and writes excellent
poetry, seems to me to have been under the influence of
a febrile over-excitement, brought on by the agency of
terrible events upon a naturally sensitive and nervous
disposition. But the greater number of these patients
belong to the melancholic form of the disease. Like the
February patients of the same category, they talk of
death, the guillotine, ruin, pillage, fire, &c., &c. The
terrible scenes which they have had under their eyes have
plunged them into a sort of stupor. A lady, inmate of
the asylum, was telling me yesterday : —' Before this
dreadful revolution I Wila of a cheerful disposition; but
how is it possible not to go mad, when one is in constant
apprehension for the life of one's children, for one's pro-
perty, and where the certainty of being stripped Of every-
thing stares ono in the face ? These fearful events have
plunged me into this wretched state. I am a prey to
constant frights—the least movement, the least noise,
makes me shudder. I endeavour to reason myself into es,
calmer state, but I feel powerless.' It should be no-
ticed, that our civil discords have not been the direct
cause of derangement with all the patients. There were
some among them who, for some time previousl , had
shown symptoms of aberration of mind, laid • our the
revolution has hastened the appearance ath .obfilenicl' -,., e,„
disease. Others had had anterior attax...kal ,but about half
urrly
'4,
of them had been in the full enjoyment. ohtheir mbntaki . •-•" -
faculties, and their madness had no other cli.use than out ' '"" ~„,
fearful political commotion's," • .
...„ . ~ —i :-.e -4
...
i v... el.
J. L • ,
lif
I ~.......- .o A.- is,
- .
....C4,, .....A.L:
4: ( t 2,9 -,',. . 1-• 4- :: -,,W 0
4 Te•-‘4..;',iifit',,,zi.,
- -

- ,--.-......-.--,.
~ 7 r/.2 CT
.......I_-..1.-•••••