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that the idea of mere security naturally predominates in the bystanders ; and this would seem to be most readily obtained by continuing the restraints , and superadding seclusion and darkness . These ready means were formerly wlolly relied upon ; and starvation , dirt , and severities of many kinds as naturally foMo-wed in their train . But it is a part of the non-restraint system to remember , whatever the state arid circumstances of a newly admitted patient may be , that he comes to the asylum , to be cured , or , £ f incurable , to be protected and taken care of , and kept out of mischief , arid tranquillized ; and that the strait-waistcoat effects none of these objects . Therefore , although , the patients may arrive bound so securely as scarcely to be able to move , they are at once released from every ligature andfcond and fetter that may have
been imposed upon them . They appear generally to be themselves surprised at - this proceeding ; and for a time are tranquil , yet often distrustful , and uncertain in their movements . Now and then the tranquillizing effect of this unexpected lib erty is permanent : more frequently it is but temporary . But every newly admitted patient 5 s as soon as possible visited by the medical officers of the asylum . They assure the stranger , by a few kind words , that no ill-treatment is any longer to be feared . This assurance sometimes gains the confidence of the patient at once , and is ever afterward remembered : but in many cases the patient is too much confused to be able to comprehend it . Few or none , however , are quite insensible to th < c measures immediately adopted in conformity to it .
The wretched clothes are removed ; the patient is taken gently to the bath-room , and has , probably for the first time , the comfort of a warm bath ; which often occasions expressions of remarkable satisfaction . The refreshed patient is taken out of the bath , carefully dried , and has clean and comfortable clothing put on : he is then led to the day-room , and offered good and ftell prepared food . The very plates , and knife aud fork , and all the simple furniture of the table , are cleaner by far than what he has lately been accustomed to , or perhaps such as in bis miserable struggling life he never knew before . A patient . seen after these preliminary parts of treatment is scarcely to be recognized as the same patient who was ; admitted only an hour before . The non-restraint treatment has commenced ; and some of its effects already appear . But the patient may be too much absorbed in delusions , or too much occupied by anger , or by fear alone , to derive immediate benefit even from these parts of a kind reception , or to admit of being consoled by the kindest words ; or , for a time , carefully medically examined . This state will not last very long , if no severity and no neglect are permitted . Whilst it does last , the . efforts of the officers are limited to such
measures as ensure the safety of the patient and of those surrounding him , and which also contribute to the return of calmness . The patients , however , are often merely restless'and fidgety ; run about 5 or are inclined to acts of harmless mischief : and in such cases much interference merely irritates them . One of the things which attendants are slowest to learn is not to iuterfere unnecessarily . If every movement of the patient is checked , and every impulse thwarted , the patient , good-tempered before , becomes angry , and strikes the attendant : and such , -where restraints are employed , is the freqnent cause of the first imposition of a strait-waistcoat . I have known many patients brought to the asylum whose first days there were passed in violence which would have been protracted by their being fastened by leather and . iron , and yet who could not be at large during those few days without dangers being incurred . Two very erroneous representations of our method of management in su « h cases have been repeated very often ; and have neither yielded to the most positive contradiction , nor to what the visitors to asylums might have learnt from their own observation .
In spite of the " danger" of madness no one is stabbed , strangled , or otherwise injured by the insane at Hamvell , and other asylums where nonrestraint is absolute ; . watchfulness on the part of attendants , accompanied by gentleness , are found bettor securities than chains and floggings . We have but indicated in a general way the nature of Dr . Coholly's volume , which is full of interesting details , and which is meant as an -emphatic-protest against any attempt to revive under any form the old system of restraint . The princi ple is clear : If once you begin to use physical restraints you must go on adding and adding to them , as tb . e violence of the patient you have irritated increases . On the co ntrnry , if once you disavow all and every physical restraint , you are forced , by your own desire for safet }' , to be kind and watchful . Only on these terms can you succeed ; they are more " troublesome" than restraint , but who will say they are not more efficacious ?
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ON THE VARIATION OF SPECIES . On the Variation of Sjwcies with especial reference to Insecta ; followed by an Inquiry into the Nature of Genera . By T . Vernon Wollaston , M . A ., F . L . S . Van Voorst . It is popularly supposed that the Scholastic Philosophy has long vanished from Eur-ope , and that , in scientific inquiries at least , we treat all metaphysical methods with contempt . That popular supposition is an error . Formally , Scholasticism may be dead , but practically it still exists , still flourishes amongst us . The Reformation destroyed the supremacy of the Papal Church m England ; but very many of the papal principles subsist to this day ; and in a similar manner modern philosophy has destroyed { scholasticism , but cherishes scholastic principles . It is not enough to have got rid of " Substantial Forms" while we retain the methods out of which they arose .
The reader lias doubtless often assisted at the numerona debates raised on the questions of Species , Varieties , and Genera- Many discussions of great moment have turned upon the definition of a species . Here is one eminent school maintaining the " fixity of species , " and here another maintaining the " mutability of species ; " one brings forward proofs that the species have never altered during thousands and thousands of years ; the fcther brings forward proofs that species are daily altering before our eyes . All this while the ¦ thing species has no existence . It cannot be fixed , it cannot vary , for it never was more than a figment of the human brain . Nature knows not species ; only scholastic philosophy lenows it ; -when men use the term with philosophic accuracy they use it as tliey use tlws term whiteness , or tho term strength , or the term beauty—namely , ns a particular mark ¦ whereb y to denote certain qualities in the object , not as a particular object
AIL these terms are used to mark the differences existing between individuals . Kemember that all individuals differ ; no two leaves on the same twig are precisely alike ; and all in some respects agree . That zoologists and botanists should quarrel over the characters which rightly constitute a species or a genus is not surprising ; man is a quarrelsome animal , and verbal disputes are always angry disputes . Inasmuch as the terms are arbitrary marks , and not representative signs , it is difficult . to come to an agreement about them . If all men agree to make the spots on a butterfly ' s wing the characters which shall determine species ; if in one case size be sufficient , in another , color ; whatever is agreed on ought to be final , since the whole nomenclature is arbitrary . But when from such agreement
arguments axe deduced , as n this matter of naming carried- with , it more than a name , and in virtue thereof we are told , to accept the dogma that species ( meaning animals ) have not changed since the creation of the world , then it is time to reeal philosophers to the fact that they are dupes of phrases , and that they argue in -the spirit of that very scholasticism they despise . . ' vMr . Vernon Wollaston , in the volume before us , has brought together with great care a niassof evidence on the variation of species in reference to climate , temperature , &c .: he has classified the organs and characters of variation , and . has a few remarks on the generic theory . For its facts and arrangement'the student will prize this volume . It is doubtful to us whether the theoretic portion will be equally admired . Mr . Vernon is a scholastic . He says : ; : ' . ' ' ¦ ' ' . — . - ' ¦ . . ' , ' . ¦ ' ¦ ' . ' . _ . :- .:. ¦'¦ - . ,
Genera are not mere phantoms of the train ( as most naturalists -will readily admit ); but they are , likewise , by no means abrupt , or well-marked , oa their outer limits ( except , indeed , by accident , —of winch hereafter ) , but merge into each other by gradations , more or less slow and perceptible . If they are not phantoms , they are entities ; they have been seen , dissected , preserved in museums , described in catalogues . Where ? When ? Again he says . : : : . ¦ ¦ - '¦ ... ¦ . . ¦ ; -. : . ; ' . '¦ . "¦ ¦ . ' : - ' - . ; ' ' ¦ ¦ ' . It will consequently be seen , from -what has been said , that the terms " genus" and " species" not only differ very considerably in importance , but in signification also . WJiilst the former is merely suggestive of a particular position "which , a creature occupies in a systematic scale ( a position , however , which depends upon the various structural peculiarities which it possesses in , common vritk other Icings , —which thus more or less resemble it ) : the latter expresses the actual creature itself : so that
while one applies to several animals ( of distinct natures and origins , though hound together by a certain bond of imitation ) , the other belongs to a single race alone , which it therefore exclusively indicates . But if such be the case , it will perhaps be asked , —Why , then , insist upon , a generic name at all , if the specific one be sufficient to denote all that is required , namely , the animal itself' ? To which , however , we may reply , that the binomial nomenclature is demanded for two elementary reasons , —first , because it is founded upon a natural truth , which ( to say the least ) it would ho unwise to violate ; and , secondly , because it is convenient , both for simplification and analysis . "We should ass-urediy be surprised were a man to object to his surname , as unnecessary , because he has a Christian Cor specific ) one which is the exponent of him alone . True it is that his family ( or generic ) title applies to the rest of his kin also , but , since there are other people ( of other families ) who may have the same individual appellation as himself , it is clearly desirable , even as a matter of expediency alone , that patronymic and Christian name should "be alike retained . ;
We are afraid to interpret this passage . Mr . vernon-probably means that the species 'V expresses the actual creature" no riiore than the name of the Smiths expresses the family ( a liirge one ) actually so named ? But if so , why discuss variations of Smith ? Smythe is no longer Smith ; Schmidt is almost anew genus . By an explicit statement at the outset that all such terms as species , variety , genus , were simple marks of convenience designating the resemblances and differences which were noticeable among animals , Mr . Vernon would have saved himself the trouble of thinking and writing many passages in this volume , and saved his readers from some perplexity .
In Nature individuals exist , but no species . When these individuals closely resemble each other we class them as belonging to the same category , wo say they are of the same sixties ; when they differ on certain minute points wo cull tbem varieties ; when they < liHer still more widely , we no longer consider them of the same species , but say they belong to the same genus ; when the difference is still greater , wo say they belong to tho same jamily ; when still greater to tho same order ; and finally to the same class
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NAPOLEON IN RUSSIA . Hisioire du Consulat et de VEmpire . By Thiers . D . Nutt . Second Notice . Narrators addicted to the marvellous , have fixed the passage of the Niemen as the date of an ominous storm that threw a cloud across the path of Napoleon . M . Ibiers , analyzing the chronology of the expedition , finds no such portent heralding the disasters of the army , which was cheered for several days by the glow of the Lithuanian summer . The forests of Poland were brightening under the June sun . It was not until the close of tho month that the remarkable change occurred which seemed to transport the invaders into . a climate of rain and shadow . On the 28 th , the sky was suddenly overcast ; the entire country was swept by a fierce wind j the roads were broken up by torrents ; th < j atmosphere became chilly and damp , and
for three days the soldiers marched and bivouacked in the midst of swamps . They were attacked by sickness ; thousands of their horses died ; and , evon at this early stage , vast trains of waggons were left in the rear of the army . To rifle tliese of their contents , as well as to pillage the chAteaux , of tho Lithuanian nobility , not fewer than from twenty-five to thirty thousand men escaped the ranks , and spread themselves over tho country . Nearly eight thousand horses and thirty thousand men were lost in four days . Napoleon , however , was not disquieted . lie hud calculated upon great obstacles , and had made great preparations . He had never hoped to subdue Russia , without . a prodigious sacrifice of human life and of treasures . What troubled him chiefly was the difficulty of keeping his vast forces together , the line of
troops , artillery , and convoys extending across whole districts , and requiring periodical halts to preserve it unbroken . From time to time , some incident of victory satisfied him with the hard conditions of his enterprize , and when the sixty thousand soldiers of Bngration weie repulsed by the twenty-eight thousand of Davoust , Bonaparta rose , in imagination , above till the perils of bis undertaking , and dreamed of winning one battle after another , until the llussian ISnipire should sue for peace . The councils of tho Russians were divided . Some were for meeting tho invader directly in tho field ; others for luring him on by a fiuae retreat ; others for hovering like Tartars upon his line of march ; and their dissensions continued until the Czar , finding himself a supernumerary in his own camp , conferred full power on l ) o Tolly ,
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September 27 , 1856 . ] THE LEADER . 929
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 27, 1856, page 929, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2160/page/17/
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