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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    may be observed even in dreaming; many repugnant ideas by their constant recurrence induce a state of despondency. As will be found on minute consid- eration, sleeplessness often arises from the continued influence of a group of ideas; whenever these disperse sleep returns. An increased production and accelerated flow of the thoughts in some degree facilitates mental combinations; therefore we sometimes observe individuals who at other times are even intellectually dull become acutO' and witty, especially in the happy expression of raillery against indi- viduals present, versification, etc. On that account we hear little wisdom from the insane. Then, even in these states where abundant material is offered to the cultivated imagination, generally disorder and incoherence very soon appear. Particularly when great numbers of per- ceptions originate in the brain, and their course is accelerated, are thej succeeded by long series of ideas; and frequently long-forgotten images^ and events, words, songs, and so forth, are renewed with the freshness of first impressions; brt, inasmuch as the perceptions so rapidly succeed each other, that they cannot enter into the necessary combinations, and inasmuch as the multiplicity of thoughts is attended by corresponding^ changes in the sentiments, the only result is extreme agitation and tumult of ideas. All is hurried along in the most confused succession, and it is a chance if here and there in this turmoil the elements of a quaint idea meet together which is in the least more rational than what surrounds it. The latter states appear principally in mania. There is often appar- ently great mental vivacity, especially at their commencement, and we have known cases where it was the invariable symptom of an approaching attack when the patient became witty. Incoherence of the ideas does not, however, solely originate in this way, namely, through over-fnlness of the consciousness. There is also incoherence of thought and speech corresponding to projections of the thoughts and of the emotions, as anger, and still another which proceeds from complete abolition and deep destruction of the mental processes. The psychological mechanism of thi& last condition is still very obscure in its details, it appears that the incoherence frequently depends on the fact that the perceptions are called forth, not only according to their (similar or contrasting) contents, but especially according to external similarity of sound in the words. Perhaps deficient reciprocal action of the two halves of the brain may have some influence in producing incoherence. Incoherence is frequent at the commencement of mental diseases, where there is •Violent disturbance of the emotions, and here it is no more an evil indication than it is in the delirium of fever cr in dreams. On the other hand, the incoherence which first appears after a long continuance of melancholia and mania, or at the commencement of chronic insanity, is significant of a transition to the incurable forms of dementia. Two marked examples of temporary incoherence from transient disturbance of the brain in otherwise healthy persons, with a clear description of the progress of the symptoms, by Spalding and Gadike, niay be seen in Jessen, Versuch einer wissenschaftlichen Begriindung, etc., 1855, p. 180. To the morbid states of thought described in this paragraph there are found many psychological analogies, partly in the determined persistence with which disagreeable ideas often follow us, in intimidation of the judgment by an adverse occurrence, also in so-called sulkiness and in confusion of the ideas owing to fright. To the second series in loquaciousness without ideas, in the internal con- fusion which originates from abundant simultaneous reception of ideas which have no common characteristic or leading direction, or in the incoherence of images in dreams. § 43. Memory in particular is very variously affected in mental dis- ease. Sometimes it is unimpaired as regards the events of the former life as well as the occurrences during the disease. In the preceding