19th Century part 2

     This is like one of those episodes of a t.v series that doesn't really go farther with the plot, but rather fleshes out some of the other characters. I'm sorry everybody, but the suspense of the 20th century will have to continue, for this time we move to the writings of Phillipe Pinel and Samuel Tuke. While their writings were published in 1806 and 1813, their writings are more progressive than those of Hallaran and Haslam.

     Under Pinel and Tuke both, their writings indicate that Dr. Jekyll would be diagnosed with mania. Pinel, however, had 5 classifications of insanity, and so he would go more in depth with Dr. Jekyll's diagnosis to say that he has mania with delirium (which I would say in understandable because at his illness' peak moment, he even undertook another name). We can see already that diagnoses are improving, but the real advancement in Pinel and Tuke's writings are the way they treat people.

     Both Pinel and Tuke were big into what was a newly coined term "moral treatment." This type of treatment was less about treating the actual illness, but rather treating the symptoms of it. Their philosophy seemed to be that it doesn't matter if you have, say, melancholia, if their treatment meant you never experienced any symptoms. To treat patients like Dr. Jekyll, they would give him labourous and meaningful work to do. This would have to results: it would tire him out to make him less likely to get violent, and it would also help him build ties with his community. On top of this, they would set up ways to help him avoid excitation, such as keeping him in a cool, padded room during times where he seemed on edge so that he was less likely to get angry, and if he did, he would not be able to harm himself or others in a fit. These two writers show us the beginning of what would be non-medical treatments to mental illness. While those being treated still are not being called "patients" (something not done until 1845 (I'll get more in too this later)), large improvements can be seen since the first two writings explored only 100 years ago. Maybe next time we'll see what 100 years in the future will hold.