Reprint of the original, first published in 1869.

Excerpt from The Trial of Ebenezer Haskell, in Lunacy, and His Acquittal Before Judge Brewster, in November, 1868: Together With a Brief Sketch of the Mode of Treatment of Lunatics in Different Asylums in This Country and in England A brief outline of the facts connected with the confinement of Ebenezer Haskell in the Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane. Ebenezer Haskell, an industrious, sober citizen, more than forty years a resident of Philadelphia, and long and well known amongst the leading business men of that city as an energetic and successful mechanic, on the 8th of April, 1866, being over 60 years of age, files a Petition in the Orphans' Court of Montgomery County, in the right of his wife, Adelaide A., the daughter of Henry Horn, deceased, praying a citation for an account against the Executor, James H Horn, of the said Henry Horn, who had then been more than four years in possession of the trust, without showing any account. This causes disturbance in the immediate family of Mr. Haskell, consisting of himself, wife, three sons and one daughter. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

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A man desperately tries to keep his pact with the Devil, a woman is imprisoned in an insane asylum by her husband because of religious differences, and, on the testimony of a mere stranger, "a London citizen" is sentenced to a private madhouse. This anthology of writings by mad and allegedly mad people is a comprehensive overview of the history of mental illness for the past five hundred years-from the viewpoint of the patients themselves.Dale Peterson has compiled twenty-seven selections dating from 1436 through 1976. He prefaces each excerpt with biographical information about the writer. Peterson's running commentary explains the national differences in mental health care and the historical changes that have take place in symptoms and treatment. He traces the development of the private madhouse system in England and the state-run asylum system in the United States. Included is the first comprehensive bibliography of writings by the mentally ill.

"This important study explores the medicalization of alcohol abuse in the 19th century US” and its influence on American literature and popular culture (Choice). In Rum Maniacs, Matthew Warner Osborn examines the rise of pathological drinking as a subject of medical interest, social controversy, and lurid fascination in 19th century America. At the heart of that story is the disease that afflicted Edgar Allen Poe: delirium tremens. Poe’s alcohol addiction was so severe that it gave him hallucinations, such as his vivid recollection of standing in a prison cell, fearing for his life, as he watched men mutilate his mother’s body—an event that never happened. First described in 1813, delirium tremens and its characteristic hallucinations inspired sweeping changes in how the medical profession saw and treated the problems of alcohol abuse. Based on new theories of pathological anatomy, human physiology, and mental illness, the new diagnosis established the popular belief that habitual drinking could become a psychological and physiological disease. By midcentury, delirium tremens had inspired a wide range of popular theater, poetry, fiction, and illustration. This romantic fascination endured into the twentieth century, most notably in the classic Disney cartoon Dumbo, in which a pink pachyderm marching band haunts a drunken young elephant. Rum Maniacs reveals just how delirium tremens shaped the modern experience of alcohol addiction as a psychic struggle with inner demons.