Some atavistic mental states : being a lecture delivered before the Hongkong Branch of the British Medical Association on January 28th, 1909 / by C. Marsh Beadnell.

  • Beadnell, Charles Marsh, 1872-1947.
Date:
1909
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Some atavistic mental states : being a lecture delivered before the Hongkong Branch of the British Medical Association on January 28th, 1909 / by C. Marsh Beadnell. 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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    b as it were, messages of guidance and control. Our desires are the product of ancestral conditions reaching far back into the past and in many ways out of keeping with modern times. When angered, our first impulse is to strike the offending indivi- dual, such doubtless was the invariable course adopted by primitive ancestors. However before the order from the lower neurons can be obeyed—perhaps the hand is already uplifted to strike the deadly blow—the noblest individuals in the citadel of the mind flash down a peremptory, “ No!,” the hand is stayed and trouble averted. A starving man passes a baker’s shop, lower brain cells whisper “ Here is food, seize it and allay your pangs.” Ages ago such’an order would have been unhesitatingly complied with, just as a hungry monkey at the present day will snatch a banana irrespective of consequences. In certain stages of dreams, deliria etc: the higher brain-cells are dormant and the lower become pro tern the ruling powers. In such conditions the mind reverts to a more primitive type, sensations and thoughts are experienced, and acts performed all of which are entirely at variance with those of the healthy waking state. The con- scious or subjective states consist of (1) Sensations and Emotions; (2) Intellect; (3) Will or Volition. The simplest mental operation is a sensation, that is, the conscious reception of an impression from the outer world. Group the sensations together and so bring the object before the mind and you have a percep- tion ; just as perceptions are built up of sensations so the highest intellectual operations, known as conceptions are built up of percep- tions, e.g. by smelling, tasting or seeing a certain object we t experience a sensation, grouping these together we have the per- ception, apple, and ultimately we arrive at the conception, fruit. Most people have experienced that horrible nightmare of 1 falling over a precipice. Usually just as the victim is about to be dashed to pieces at the bottom of the imaginary cliff he awakes with a startled cry, thus, though suffering all the mental tortures of “ falling ” he escapes the more serious shock of the actual “stopping”; this latter fact has an interesting explanation. Our remote ancestors, in order to escape their nocturnal foes, slept like many existing simians, cradled in the tree tops. To fall from their perches during sleep or boisterous