John Jones (2485)

Admission Details for Patient: John Jones (2485)

Gender: Male Age: 45
Marital Status: Married Religion: Baptist
Occupation: Labourer
Address: Liverpool, Lancs

Date of Admission: August 20, 1875
Date of Discharge: February 18, 1876
Discharge Category: Recovered

Disease: Recurrent mania
Supposed Cause: Overstudy

Medical Certificate:
Incoherence of speech. A confusion of ideas. Incapability to form deductions. Loss of memory and a feeling of some foreign body in the head. By others: Wandering about at night. Fits of passion when checked for non-discharge of duty. William Jones Morris, Bank Place, Portmadoc.

Approximate duration of present attack: 10 days

Number of Previous Attacks: 1

Number of Previous Admissions: 0

Number of Subsequent Admissions: 1

Total Number of Admissions: 2

Relatives affected:

Number of Previous Attacks: 1

Epileptic: No

Suicidal: No

Dangerous: Inclined to be so

Clean Habit: Yes

Food Refusal: No

Sleep Habit: Bad

Destructive Habit: No

Disposition: Sober and industrious

Education: Imperfect

Physical/Mental State at Examination: Moderate health. Somewhat emaciated. Muscles firm. Slight emphysema. He was quiet and calm on admission and appeared to know where he was and what brought him here. He seems to be under deep religious convictions. Also says that he is able to build ships but that if he built one at all it would be such that in bad weather it would turn upside down and so be more stable in the water. He has been previously confined in Chester Asylum - about 23 years ago and admits that he is not quite right in the head and considers that there is a large stone rolling about in his brain which is the cause of his ailment.

Current Diagnosis: Acute Transient Psychosis (F23.2)

Case Notes

1875 Aug 21 - Slept well last night.

Says he does not (know) what can be the matter with him and has a peculiarly puzzled expression of countenance.

Thinks there must be a stone lodged in his head after a fall some years ago.

Aug 22 - Eats and sleeps well. Quiet but talks very foolishly. Sept 6 - Beginning to get troublesome, excitable and quarrelsome and somewhat restless at night.

Sept 13 - Getting much worse. Obviously labouring under some delusions, fancying that he is being ill-treated.

In good health. To sleep in single room.

Sept 15 - This morning on getting out of bed he smashed a large pane of glass. He said he could give no reason why he did it.

He was kept in the refractory ward during the day.

1876 Jan 13 - Has much improved.

Answers questions well and has written several rational letters to his wife.

His memory has returned and he can speak of the time he worked at Laird's shipbuilding.

Says that he worked on board the 'Vanguard' and was employed with the smith.*

Jan 28 - Still continues to improve, will talk intelligently and well about affairs connected with his trade.

Medications/Treatments: Refractory Ward by day.

Additional Notes

*

The ‘Vanguard’ was built at Cammel Laird’s, Birkenhead, for the Royal Navy in 1870. Powered by sail she was lost on 1st September 1875 when she was rammed by HMS ‘Iron Duke’ while in convoy between Dunloaghaire and Cork in thick fog. John Jones may have learned of the sinking of the warship from the newspapers which were distributed for the asylum patients to read.

Readmission:

11th July 1883 (no. 3385) from Portmadoc.

Medical Certificate reads: I. His appearance, manner and actions, his constant irrational and irreverent talk positively show that the man is out of his mind.

II.

His wife and neighbours inform me that for some time he has been very restless and sleepless, and for the last two days wandering about the roads, threatening to jump into the harbour for a bath. R Roberts, MRCS Lond. 10th July 1883.

John Jones was admitted on this occasion from Portmadoc where he was working as a wharf labourer.

He collapsed suddenly on 17th June 1884 and died the same day.

The cause of death was recorded as cerebral apoplexy.