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A LETTER

TO

_THE LORD CHANCELLOR_.




A

LETTER

TO

THE RIGHT HONORABLE

THE

LORD CHANCELLOR,

ON THE

NATURE AND INTERPRETATION

OF

UNSOUNDNESS OF MIND,

AND

_IMBECILITY OF INTELLECT_.


BY

JOHN HASLAM, M.D.

LATE OF PEMBROKE HALL, CAMBRIDGE.


_LONDON:_

PUBLISHED BY R. HUNTER,

ST. PAUL'S CHURCH YARD.

***

1823.


PRINTED BY G. HAYDEN,

Little College Street, Westminster.




A LETTER.


MY LORD,

THE present address originates in an anxious wish for the advancement of
medical knowledge, where it is connected with those maladies of the
human mind, that are referable to the court, wherein your Lordship has
so long administered impartial justice. The disorders which affect the
body are, in general, the exclusive province of the medical
practitioner; but, by a wise provision, that has descended to us from
the enlightened nations of antiquity, the law has considered those
persons, whose intellectual derangement rendered them inadequate to the
governance of themselves in society, or incapable of managing their
affairs, entitled to its special protection. If your Lordship should
feel surprized at this communication, or deem my conduct presumptuous,
the thirst of information on an important subject is my only apology;
and I have sought to allay it in the pure stream that issues from the
fountain-head, rather than from subordinate channels or distant
distributions. Although personally a stranger to your Lordship, nearly
thirty years of my life have been devoted to the investigation and
treatment of insanity: of which more than twenty have been
professionally passed in the largest receptacle for lunatics;--and the
press has diffused, in several publications, my opinions and experience
concerning the human mind, both in its sound state and morbid condition.

The medical profession, of which I am an humble member, entertains very
different notions concerning the nature of UNSOUNDNESS of mind, and
IMBECILITY of intellect;--and this difference of opinion has been
displayed on many solemn occasions, where medical testimony has been
deposed.

If a physician were to attempt to search into the existing records and
procedures on insanity, to collect its legal interpretation, such
investigation would probably be a waste of his time, the source of
abundant, and perhaps of incurable error; but to these inconveniences he
will not be subjected in attentively considering your Lordship's
judgments, of which I have availed myself on the present occasion, and
which, having been taken down at the time they were delivered, may be
presumed not materially incorrect. The documents to which I refer are
the judgments of the 22d April, 1815, and the 17th December, 1822, on
the Portsmouth petitions, together with the minutes of conference
between your Lordship and certain physicians, on the 7th January, 1823.
In the judgment on the petition of 1815, it is stated by your
Lordship,[A] "I have searched, and caused a most careful search to be
made into all the records and procedures on lunacy which are extant. I
believe, and I think I may venture to say, that originally commissions
of this sort were of two kinds; a commission aiming at, and enquiring
whether, the individual had been an idiot ex nativitate, or whether, on
the other hand, he was a lunatic. The question whether he was a
lunatic, being a question, admitting in the solution of it, of a
decision that imputed to him at one time an extremely sound mind, but at
other times, an occurrence of insanity, with reference to which, it was
necessary