Genre:

Review-Essay, Drollery

Publications reviewed:

Wilkinson 1857

Subjects:

Mental Illness, Spiritualism, Homeopathy, Hospitals, Medical Treatment, Analogy

    Notes that the work 'propounds a scheme for the cure of Insanity, on the principle that like cures like, by subjecting the lunatic to spiritual agency'. Puzzles over how such a cure is effected and the 'idea of infinitesimal doses of spiritualism'. Draws attention to an article in the Quarterly Review about the use of dancing to cure insanity and, noting that 'no sane man ever dances', wonders whether dancing, like spiritualism, may work 'on the principle of like cures like?'.