On the naming and classification of mental diseases and defects / by Thomas Laycock.

  • Laycock, Thomas, 1812-1876.
Date:
1863
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the naming and classification of mental diseases and defects / by Thomas Laycock. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    ON THE NAMING AND CLASSIFICATION OF MENTAL DISExiSES AND DEFECTS. By THOMAS LATCOCK, M.D. (This paper is the substance of the Lecture of Dr. Laycock's course, introductory to his nosological arrangement.) If asked What's in a name one might fairly answer our knowledge of the thing named. Certainly, the primary meaning of the word seems to im])ly as much. There is a petrified philosopliy in language/' Professor Max Miiller remarks ; and if we examine the most ancient word for name, we find it is ndinan in Sanscrit, nomen in Latin, namo in Gothic. This ndman stands for gndman, which is preserved in the Latin co-gnomen. * Numan, there- fore, or name, meant originally that by which we know a thing.'' And since we know a thing by its qualities or attributes, it follows that all nouns or names express originally one out of the many attributes of a thing, and that attribute, whether it be a quahty or action, is necessarily a general idea. * * * * The fiu't that every word is originally a predicate, that names, though signs of individual conceptions, are all, without exception, derived from general ideas, is one of the most important discoveries in the science of language.^ I have quoted these sentences because it is necessary that we should know exactly what we are about wlien giving names to morbid * ' Lectures on the Science of Language,' p. 368. I learn from Professor Aufreclit, of this university, that the Sanscrit word is also held to mean memory, or knowledge by memory.