Genre:

Reportage, Literary Gossip

Subjects:

Hospitals, Mental Illness, Politics, Gender | Astronomy, Metallurgy | Chemistry, Nutrition | Invention, Machinery

People mentioned:

Joseph J L de Lalande , Friedrich W Bessel, Antoine A Ravrio

Institutions mentioned:

Institut Nationale, Paris, Königlichen Universitäts-Sternwarte, Königsberg , Académie des Sciences, Paris

    Gives an account of the death rates and patient numbers in the hospitaux and hospices of Paris from 1804 to 1814. States: 'It appears, that among the maniacs the number of women is generally greater than men. Among the younger females, love is the most common cause of insanity; and among the others jealousy or domestic discord. Among the younger males, it is to speedy development of the passions, and with others, the derangement of affairs, that most frequently produces this effect. The calamities of the revolution were another cause of madness in both sexes; it is worthy of remark, that the men were mad with aristocracy, the women democracy. Excessive grief occasioned lunacy in men; whereas the minds of females were deranged by ideas of independence and equality'. A separate report relates that 'the grand desideratum of rendering sea water potable, seems at length to be obtained by simple distillation'. Describes the method of distillation developed by French chemists. Also states that M Maillardet of Neuchatel has announced, in a foreign journal, that he has succeeded in resolving the celebrated problem of perpetual motion, so long regarded a scientific chimera'. (191)