An address on the ethics of insanity / delivered before the Norwood Division of the British Medical Association by T. Duncan Greenlees.

  • Greenlees, T. Duncan.
Date:
[1910]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: An address on the ethics of insanity / delivered before the Norwood Division of the British Medical Association by T. Duncan Greenlees. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Reprinted from the British Medical Journal, August '6th, 191<&. JUtirms ON THE ETHICS OF INSANITY. Delivered before the Norwood Division of the British Medical Association. BY T. DUNCAN GREENLEES, M.D.Ebin., F.R.S.Edin., LONDON. Perhaps there is no subject in the whole range of medicine of more interest, and, to the general practi¬ tioner, of greater difficulty, than insanity. The very nature of its symptoms and the difficulties experienced in their management renders a case of mental disease, as occurring in our general practice, one of great worry and anxiety. Such cases are outside, as it were, the general practitioner’s sphere; and, accordingly, they are usually relegated to a separate department of medical science, and this was done long before specialism in medicine became so fashionable as it is in these days. Cases of mental disease are gratefully left by the general practitioner to men who, from their special training, are supposed to be more able to cope with the symptoms. As the education of the medical man advances the gap between the alienist and the general practitioner is steadily diminishing. If there can be advanced one argument in favour of specialism in medicine surely the care and treatment of mental diseases is that argument, for they demand special education and training, such as can only be obtained by a long residence in institutions where the insane, on account of their symptoms, are congregated. It is not to be expected that the general practitioner can even pretend to more than a rudimentary knowledge of psychological medicine, or the modern methods of the treatment of insanity. On the other hand, no one would credit the alienist with an intimate knowledge of the routine work of general practice, or with the various methods adopted to humour the sane sick, so necessary to the success of the general practitioner. I purpose in this address to deal with several matters concerning insanity, regarding which the general practi¬ tioner, especially if he is of the “ family physician ” type, [404/10]