An exposition of the signs and symptoms of pregnancy : the period of human gestation, and the signs of delivery / By W.F. Montgomery.

  • Montgomery, W. F. (William Fetherston Haugh), 1797-1859.
Date:
1839
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An exposition of the signs and symptoms of pregnancy : the period of human gestation, and the signs of delivery / By W.F. Montgomery. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Lamar Soutter Library, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Lamar Soutter Library at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.

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    In estimating the relations of insanity to physical phenomena, we have omitted to notice a topic of extreme importance, which has been brought forward most ably by M. Esquirol; we will advert to it in his own terms, namely, as the critical terminations of Insanity.1 Among these, however, M. Esquirol classes some phenomena, which give the term an unusually extensive meaning. The occurrence of spontaneous salivation : of eruptive complaints in persons previously subject to them; of copious diarrhoea; of corpulency in persons previously rendered meager by the complaint; of suppressed hemorrhages; and above all, of the suppressed cata- menia, are the heads most worthy of notice in this general use of the term. The extreme importance of the uterine relief has, per- haps, occasioned less importance to be attached to the diminution and reappearance, or to the sudden increase of other secretions and excretions. The treatment of the insane state or the insane predisposition consists in a series of moral and medical measures, which are next considered. The points of view, in which insanity is contemplated in relation to treatment, or in other words, the division which may be made of it into species, corresponds in our scheme with the diversities of temperament; by which word we mean certain com- binations of physical and moral properties, which are most fre- quently observed to exist in nature, and have been so designated. In describing medical treatment I have to regret a very important omission ; namely, the use of nauseating remedies in this disease. The large doses in which ipecacuanha and the tartrate of antimony are borne by the patient, without exciting the effort to vomit, and the decisive effect which they produce in shortening and mitigating the second stage of the disease, entitle them to the highest attention. In recommending measures, that may tranquillise the insane mind, I have omitted the important topic of employment. This, indeed, if cautiously managed, conduces to tranquillity. Gentle manual employment is of great avail in diverting mental irritation ; and in this point the habits of females give them a valuable advantage. Of the intellectual faculties that of observation may be cultivated with the greatest advantage ; it does not imply the continuity of action, which easily runs on into incoherent thought in the insane intellect; and it tends gradually to wean such an intellect from false percep- tions. In regard to the relative importance of physical and mental treat- ment, the views which I have taken of the symptoms of insanity, as being most conspicuously mental, need involve no difficulty. We are so constituted, that every physical and every mental change in us must on each side involve a reciprocal and sympathetic change. To leave the struggles of our mental nature unaided by physical expedients, would involve an arrogant neglect of advantages placed within our reach ; to resign ourselves to such regulation, and to be ' Vol. i. p. 336—397.
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