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.

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    be allows that in the malum h y poc h ond r i- ACUM, to a certain degree fear, and anxiety, may exist relative to the health of the suf- ferer, that the imagination may on this sub- ject be disturbed, and reason may somewhat deviate from the course of perfect firmness; but that till a fixed derangement takes place, of which these symptoms are often the fore- runners, the disorder can only be reckoned a high degree of hypochondriacal affection: that when actual derangement begins, which may easily be distinguished by the obstinacy of error, in opposition to the most cogent reasoning, and even to absolute demonstra- tion, then, and not till then, the disorder drops the name of hypochondriasis, and as- sumes that of MELANCHOLIA HYPOCHON- DRIAC A, in the common and established language of medicine : and, let me add, if it answers to my definition of that disorder, in the language of my arrangement it takes the name of hypochondriacal insa- nity; or if it be accompanied with certain errors of sensation, *it changes its character from notional to ideal, and takes the appella- tion of SENSITIVE insanity. The late Dr. Darwin, in his Zoonomia, says