Nervous diseases and their diagnosis : a treatise upon the phenomena produced by diseases of the nervous system, with especial reference to the recognition of their causes [Autographed].

  • Wood, Horatio C.
Date:
1887
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Nervous diseases and their diagnosis : a treatise upon the phenomena produced by diseases of the nervous system, with especial reference to the recognition of their causes [Autographed]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)

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    to the distinction between systematized and unsystematized delu- sions, and much has been predicated upon it in the classification of insanities. According to my experience, however, in nature every gradation is to be found between the most thoroughly sys- tematized delusion and that which is most completely isolated. I have seen various cases in which it was doubtful whether the delusion should be classed as systematized or unsystematized; and, whilst I acknowledge that in typical partial insanities the delu- sions are systematized and in typical general insanities they are unsystematized, I am of the opinion that in this character, as in others, the two groups of general and partial insanities pass in nature insensibly into each other. There are certain conceptions or general ideas which may arise in the brain of a person, and to a greater or less degree dominate his actions, although the reason may not be unsettled, and the fal- sity of the conception may be recognized by the individual whom it controls. Such a phenomenon is known as an Imperative Con- ception, and differs from a delusion in that its falsity is recognized, although the individual is powerless to withstand its influence. Closely allied to the imperative conception is the Morbid Impulse. Some alienists, indeed, teach that the imperative conception gives rise to the morbid impulse. In certain cases this undoubtedly happens, as when the imperative conception of personal defilement gives origin to the impulse of escaping from that which defiles; but a morbid impulse may arise without any discoverable imper- ative conception. Thus, I long had under my care a man in whose family insanity was distinctly hereditary, but in whom the only symptom that I could find was an impulse to assault by- standers,—an impulse apparently born of no reason, although felt with such urgency as to fill the patient with a terror of himself. Once, upon returning home, I found this man sitting in my office terribly excited, and greeting me with, Doctor, doctor, I nearly did it! I nearly did it! It appeared that he had spent forty- eight hours without intermission in a vortex of political excite- ment, and suddenly the impulse to kill had come on him with such power that only by fleeing to my office was he able to save himself. The impulse to throw one's self from a precipice, caused by standing on its brink, is a familiar instance of a mild morbid impulse without an apparent foundation of an imperative con- 28