Medical Inquiries And Observations Upon the Diseases of the Mind

ster the remedies that are indicated under our first head, it will be proper carefully to review the history of all the remote and exciting causes of this disease, and, when possible, to remove them. If this be impracticable, or if the disease continue from habit, after all its causes have been removed, recourse should be had to, 1. Bloodletting, if the pulse be tense, or full; or depressed, without either fulness, or tension. I have prescribed this remedy with success, and thereby in several instances suddenly prepared the way for its being cured in a few days by other medicines. I was led to use it by the following fact, communicated to me by the late Dr. Thomas Bond. A preacher among the Friends called upon him, to consult him in this state of madness. He said he was possessed of a devil, and that he felt him constantly in aches and pains in every part of his body. The Doctor felt his pulse, which he found to be full and tense. He advised him to sit down in his parlour, and persuaded him to let him open a vein in his arm. While the blood was flowing the patient cried out, " I am relieved, I felt the devil fly out of the orifice in my vein as soon as it was opened." From this time he recovered rapidly from his derangement. The advantages of bleeding are evinced still further by the relief obtained in this disease by the loss of blood from the haemorrhoidal vessels, and by other accidental haemorrhages. But, if experience had not thus established the ...