Note 132 — Chapter III · EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY ASYLUMS—FOUNDATION OF THE YORK RETREAT.

Referring to the practice at the Retreat as given in the "Description," the editor of the Medical Repository, 1817, after observing, "We are told that in violent maniacal paroxysms, depletion having failed to procure quiescence, a full meal of meat and good porter for supper produced the desired effect, and that this mode has since been very frequently and successfully employed," adds that if this be true, the general system of well-known physicians, that of pursuing depletion through "paroxysm and remission," cannot be right.