The border-land of insanity / by W.B. Kesteven.

  • Kesteven, W. B. (William Bedford), 1812-1891.
Date:
1885
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The border-land of insanity / by W.B. Kesteven. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    admit the possibility of such an occurrence as insanity in their, families. The bare- suggestion will sometimes give offence, influenced by the superstitious feehngs of past ages, that insanity conveys a stigma upon the character. Vagaries of conduct that should arouse the vigilance of friends are to be passed over as mere eccentricities. The more especially is this the case if there should happen really to exist an hereditary disposition in the direction of insanity. Any allusion to the fact is very likely to be pooh-poohed, with the cynical remark, All are mad on some point 1 The conditions of life in modern civilization favour the development of all forms of Neuroses, and engender a psychological condition not far removed from mental dis- order. That the nervous system is sooner exhausted than in past times is a fact with which medical practi- tioners are daily made familiar, and which has come to be recognised in the absolute necessity for a periodical holiday, to all engaged in the wear and tear of the battle of life, and which has taken concrete manifestation in the parliamentary enactment of Bank Holidays, through the benevolent action of Sir John Lubbock. One of the outcomes of this general morbid neuro- logical condition is that of nervous dulness, which also is, doubtless, often due to hereditary causes. As we see external deformities produced and re- produced, generation after generation, by subjection of individuals to pernicious influences, so we see this nervous deformity produced and reproduced in certain families. This condition of nervous dulness does not neces- sarily involve intellectual deficiency. The subject thereof may be capable of reasoning, not directly injurious