Insanity tested by science, and shown to be a disease rarely connected with permanent organic lesion of the brain. And on that account far more susceptible of cure than has hitherto been supposed / [Charles Mountford Burnett].

  • Burnett, C. M. (Charles Mountford), 1807-1866
Date:
1848
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Insanity tested by science, and shown to be a disease rarely connected with permanent organic lesion of the brain. And on that account far more susceptible of cure than has hitherto been supposed / [Charles Mountford Burnett]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Humoral pa- thology based upon sounder principles than the pa- thology of the solids. Doctrine of insanity held from time of Hippocrates to that of Cullen. -+ PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. alike reflected disgrace upon the government as upon the nation, than took place previously to those dis- closures. We might mention other circumstances which in a less degree are acting so as to retard the successful termination of insanity, but they will necessarily tran- spire in the few observations we are about to make. All due allowance being made for the errors insepa- rable from the dark period of chemical, and indeed all other science, which characterised the first propagation of the humoral pathology, it is nevertheless very generally admitted in the present day, that its tenets were based upon much sounder principles than those of the school that succeeded. And had the scientific mind been as steadily attracted to the subject of late years as it was at first, the high probability is that much more real and practical progress would have been made, both in physiology and pathology, than we can now boast of, with all the accumulated advan- tages which we derive from improvements and dis- coveries in science even in this wonderful age. From the time of Hippocrates to that of Hoffman and Cullen, physicians held the doctrine, more or less confused, that insanity owed itself to a morbid condition of the fluids of the body. Horace attributes the mad- ness of Orestes to this cause : “ Vocando Hane furiam hune aliud jussit quod splendida bilis.” Mead asserted that the blood of such persons who have been most liable to the malady was thick and sizy, and upon dissection the brain always appeared dry, and the vessels were filled with black sluggish blood.* We shall presently be able to show that this * De Insania.