A theory as to the proximate cause of insanity : together with some observations upon the remote causes of the disease / by Beverley R. Morris.

  • Morris, Beverley Robinson.
Date:
1844
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A theory as to the proximate cause of insanity : together with some observations upon the remote causes of the disease / by Beverley R. Morris. 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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    CHAPTER 11. ON THE REMOTE OR EXCITING CAUSES OF INSANITY. It will be seen from the preceding remarks on the Proximate Cause of Insanity, that I believe it to originate in a peculiar state of the brain, present in every case of the disease, and that I look upon what have hitherto been called the causes of insanity only in the light of remote or exciting causes; in which supposition I am borne out by the fact, as I believe, of every one of those causes, as they are called, existing in certain states of the system, without a development of insanity following, as the constant and necessary consequence. This irregularity and uncertainty led to a very great multiplication of these supposed causes; any lesion—more especially of the brain—which was found coexisting with insanity, was set down as its cause in that instance, and these particular instances having frequently been treated of as general, much confusion has, in consequence, arisen. I do not mean to assert that these alleged causes exercise no influence in in- ducing insanity, but that their influence consists only in their producing a certain state of the general system, which is peculiarly favourable to the development of irritation of the brain—the actual physical cause, as I conceive, of insanity. Such a state of the system I believe to be one of debility; and though insanity may, and occasionally does, occur along with a full bounding pulse, or with inflammation of some of the parts within the cranium, yet all these cases appear to me to be complications, such as insanity complicated with inflammation of the arachnoid, &c., just as we have compli- cations of disease in other parts of the body—as, for instancCj tubercular phthisis, complicated with pleuritis, &c. I have before stated that I referred all the remote or ex- citing causes of insanity to two classes—to the one, those which