Account of the epidemic religious monomania in Sweden in the years 1841 and 1842 / by the editor.

  • Smith, Samuel Hanbury, 1810-1894.
Date:
[1850]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Account of the epidemic religious monomania in Sweden in the years 1841 and 1842 / by the editor. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    and receive as an axiom, that somatic and psychical phenom- ena never occur independent of each other. It is true, that under different circumstances, now the one now the other pre- ponderate, even to such a degree that the one maj be entirely- lost to view in the exaggerated development of the other.— True, also, we distinguish two great classes of disease affect- ing the brain, namely, organic, such as congenital deformities, inllamation, extravasation, suppuration, effusion, degeneration, the consequences of external violence, &c; in a word, visible, tangible, organic changes—and functional, as disordered sus- ceptibility to impressions, paralysis, disordered mental and moral manifestations, exaggerated passion and emotion, par- alysis of the will, &c; science very properly makes a distinc- tion between these two classes, but experience teaches us their mutual dependence and intimate relation in the majority of cases, and we are compelled to believe that however dimly revealed, sometimes indeed concealed from us, this intimate connection and dependence is invariable as it is necessary. JIow impossible, how unnatural then, to draw a line of de- markation between psychical and somatic disorders, if we re- gard the fact that organic derangements of the cerebrum may and do cause modifications in mental and moral manifesta- tions, and that mental and moral affections may and do cause organic derangements of the cerebrum. The characteristics of true chorea, are tremulous, irregular, involuntary motions of the muscles of voluntary motion, with- out pain, and more marked on one side than on the other, oc- curring sporadically; and chiefly affecting females between eight and fifteen years of age, to a certain extent under the influence of the will. The disease is, we believe, never con- tagious by intercourse with other sick, and when it occurs past the age of puberty, is very apt to prove incurable. The eyes lack lustre and expression, the look is vacant, the temper irritable, and the emotions are exagerated, often indeed no cause for their manifestation can be discovered. The only diseases of importance to our investigation, in which chorea terminates, are idiocy among the psychical, and convulsions, epilepsy, apoplexy, palsy and hydrocephalus, among the som- atic. In the disease which has been confounded with it, the con- vulsive moments are commonly symmetrical, are less under the influence of the will, and alternate with intervals of sleep or of cataleptic ecslacy. The majority of those attacked are females, from lfi to 30 years of age; and when the disease once makes its appearance, it spreads rapidly among the pre- disposed who come into contact with those already affected.