Mental pathology and therapeutics / By W. Griesinger, M.D. ... Translated from the German (second edition) by C. Lockhart Robertson, M.D. ... and James Rutherford, M.D.

  • Griesinger, Wilhelm, 1817-1868.
Date:
1882
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Mental pathology and therapeutics / By W. Griesinger, M.D. ... Translated from the German (second edition) by C. Lockhart Robertson, M.D. ... and James Rutherford, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    ceed each other in a clear train of thought, and that the habit of clear thinking is lost, and the individual governed by mere sentiment, of whose influence he cannot divest himself, but thereby orders his actions and frames his life. This is the impressible character in the bad sense. He is called unimpressible, whose / is not easily affected by pleasure or pain, either on account of great weakness and dulness of all the mental powers (apathetic, very phlegmatic men), or because, upon contact of the /with the perception present, there is simultaneously produced distinct opinions in clear ideas instead of obscure sentiments (intelligent men). The man is strong-minded, in whom there is developed a firm tone of mind, who is not immediately moved by every mental excitation; he, indeed, feels events as agreeable or disagreeable, and they are accompanied by obscure opinions relating to the promotion or hindrance of the /; but the /itself, however, is not so easily shaken; he is not easily subject to general mental dis- quietude, to anger and ill-humor, and in joy and pain moderation is maintained. There is, on the other hand, loeahness of mind, where re- actions of the /, extended, but wanting in energy, are easily evoked; nearly every perception excites a sentiment; joy and sadness succeed each other with the utmost ease, and emotions become necessary to mental life: the diminished sensibility then frequently demands new and strong irri- tation, as finding pleasure in shocking and fearful events, and the / is at rest only in times of exhaustion and sleep. It is easy to recognize the identity of the last-mentioned case with what, in the sensitive motory sphere, is called irritable weakness, and is considered the most important disposition and fundamental state in many nervous diseases (for example, the spinal neuroses). This state is well called weakness, since with the single and one-sided increase of excitability there is accompanied an absolute diminution of power in the functions. In convulsions, the voluntary muscular movement is weak; in constant emotion, the thought and the will are weak and languid. These states are not only very frequently combined with each other, ^s in the tendency to emotion and the increased tendency to convulsions in many hysterical persons, but they also very often originate simultaneously in both spheres from the same causes, have in their course the same consequences, and the principles of their treatment are throughout analogous. § 32. Upon the nature, method, and facility with which the / is af- fected in the form of emotions and sentiments, depends certainly a con- siderable part of the modes of reaction, and therewith the individual peculiarities of men. In so far as the peculiar modes of the individual lie in the inner world of the disposition, and this is not opposed by the versatility of the mental states, the peculiar manner in which this change proceeds is the characteristic; it is this which gives the fundamental com- plexion and tone to our disposition. The disposition is a certain mode of behavior of the /, the fixed steadfast kernel of our individuality, with which the results of our whole mental history are associated. This may, indeed, be shaken in the emotions, but not impaired or destroyed; what else can be affected in the emotions than that group of ideas, the /? The / can be detached, and completely destroyed, in serious disorganizations of the brain (in dementia); it may succumb, and a new one arise in its place (monomania); but even this is only the case (§ 29) when the emotions which necessarily accompany the lesion and destruction of the old /have been completely pacified. The nature and the manner in which the mass of ideas representing the / is affected by what passes within the consciousness, or presses into it, determines the nature and manner of the self-sensation. Moderate and lasting changes of consciousness are, again, the foundation of the