Page:The Harveian oration 1866.djvu/55

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47

Note (x). Page 28.

"Bicêtre en 1792."

"De l'abolition des chaines." Par Scipion Pinel. Mémoires de l'Académie Royale de Médecine. 1836.

Also in Traité du Régime sanitaire des Aliénés. Par Scipion Pinel. Paris, 1836.

Note (y). Page 34.

Time would not have permitted me to give a complete history of the improvement in the treatment of the insane, even if I had proposed so to do. Such a history would have required some reference to the efforts of the philanthropic Duc de la Rochefoucauld, and a more particular mention of the aid given to Pinel by his assistant, Pussin, an unlettered but very remarkable man. Living in the midst of the insane, Pussin had a thorough insight into their habits and all their symptoms. From him Pinel acquired much knowledge of details. He had even anticipated Pinel in venturing to release some of the madmen from their fetters. When, three years after the reform at Bicêtre, Pinel was solicited to undertake the like task at the other great hospital, La Salpêtrière, he made it a condition of his acceptance of the charge, that there also he should have the aid of Pussin.

The reform in the treatment of lunatics in England had its origin in the well-known "Retreat," near York. This asylum was projected by William Tuke and other