Observations on Insanity

John Haslam, english apothecary, physician and medical writer (1764-1844). Excerpt from Observations on Insanity: "Practitioners in general have scanty opportunities of acquiring a knowledge of the symptoms of insanity, that a work of this nature, from a person who has many instances of the disease always before his eyes, must be highly acceptable to the profession....The collection of cases, and the account of dissections, which seem to be accurately drawn up, form the most valuable part of this work....Mr. Haslam thinks that vomiting is useless, and that purgatives are the remedies best adapted to the cure of insanity."