On man's power over himself to prevent or control insanity / [John Barlow].

  • John Barlow
Date:
1849
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On man's power over himself to prevent or control insanity / [John Barlow]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    rational treatment, instead of the chains and whips of former times. Still, if I might credit the assertion of a gentleman whose experience gives him a claim to attention, Dr. Thomas Mayo, though facts were accumulated, an hypo- thesis, which should give these facts the cha- racter of results from great principles, was wanting: — and I asked myself further, if a theory, which coincided with the views of so many men illustrious in science, might not have enough of the characters of truth to supply the desideratum which Dr. Mayo points out. 2. In order to make myself clearly under- stood, it will be necessary to take a brief view of the structure and functions of the brain and nerves, as explained in my former communica- tion. This apparatus consists of exceedingly minute hollow filaments, filled with a semi-fluid substance. These filaments are either com- pressed into a mass, as is the case in the brain and those brainlike structures called ganglia — or else extend from the brain down the back, as spinal marrow; and from thence they are distributed to the remotest parts of the body in the form of nerves: some employed in carrying intelligence to the brain, others in executing its mandates.
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