Observations on the nature, kinds, causes, and prevention, of insanity / by Thomas Arnold.

Date:
1806
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on the nature, kinds, causes, and prevention, of insanity / by Thomas Arnold. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

    147/376 (page 73)
    few lines after he adds—“ Hence wisdom is sanity of mind, and folly is insanity, which is likewise called dementia, and is that state in which a man may be said to be out of his mind. These cir- cumstances are much better pointed out in the Latin language, than in the Greek ; an observation which may be made on many other occasions, as well as on this*.”—He then subjoins the following observation in favour of his native language:— “ The very meaning, therefore, of the word itself, completely illustrates the objedl of our present in- quiry, and clearly explains the true nature of insa- nity-^.”—After a few obsevations on the stridl pro- priety of the common modes of expression in the Latin language on this subjedl of moral insanity, most of which have been quoted above, he adds, as we have already seen,—how the Greeks came to give to this the appellation of mania, might not be very easy to determine:”—and that with very good reason ; since none of its uncer- tain etymologies render it strikingly applicable to this moral insanity of the philosophers: since it is commonly used, by writers of every class, to ex- press impetuosity of passion ; and by medical wri- * “ Ita fit ut sapientia sanitas sit animi: insipientia autem quasi insanitas quaedam, quae est insania, eademque dementia. Multoque melius haec notata sunt verbis Latinis, quam Graecis; quod aliis qn.oque multis locis reperietur.”—Id. ih. f Totum igitur id, quod quaerimus, quid et qqale sit, verbi vis ipsa declarat.”—Id. ih. ' ters