Practical observations on insanity ; in which some suggestions are offered towards and improved mode of treating diseases of the mind, and some rules proposed which it is hoped may lead to a more humane and successful method of cure: to which are subjoined, remarks on medical jurisprudence as connected with diseased intellect / By Joseph Mason Cox, M.D.

  • Cox, Joseph Mason, 1762-1822.
Date:
1806
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Practical observations on insanity ; in which some suggestions are offered towards and improved mode of treating diseases of the mind, and some rules proposed which it is hoped may lead to a more humane and successful method of cure: to which are subjoined, remarks on medical jurisprudence as connected with diseased intellect / By Joseph Mason Cox, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    with so little advantage.* We are not only dis- appointed, but have been furnished from this source with extraordinary and unaccountable facts, which might induce us to believe the brain in some instances had little to do with the intel- lect ; thus the contents of the cranium of some madmen, and even idiots, have appeared on dis- section free from disease, while the same parts in other individuals, who retained their intellectual faculties unimpaired to the last hour of existence, have been found universally diseased : and, indeed where certain peculiarities have been detected in and about the encephalon, it is impossible to de- termine whether they were the cause or effect of the disease. Infants have been born without * Reasoning a priori it might have been expected that much useful information would have accrued from such researches. Both ancients and moderns have diligently investigated the brains of maniacs, and the celebrated Haller (See Halleri Elem, Physiolog. Lib. xvii. Sect. 1. Tom. 5. p. 571.) collected a great variety of histories of such dissections, hoping to pro- cure some valuable information respecting the functions of the encephejon, from the appearance of its different parts after tfeath, in subjects who had laboured under mental diseases during life, but he candidly acknowledges his disappointment.