Clinical manual of mental diseases : for practitioners and students / by A. Campbell Clark.

  • Clark, Archibald Campbell, 1851-1901.
Date:
1898
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Clinical manual of mental diseases : for practitioners and students / by A. Campbell Clark. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    watch the first signs of returning insanity. One female patient anxiously, and with a look of perplexity, accosted me thus : ' What's my name ? I don't know this place ; you're not John Thomson. Is my name Sarah Graham ?' Sarah Graham, by the way, is her maiden name. Her married name, as with many insane women, is a secondary con- sideration. This patient, when she was extremely excited, noisy, and violent, turning night into day with her yells and violent behaviour, though she called me John Thomson, was not unconscious in the sense that an apoplectic or syncopal patient is. Her senses guided her aright; but in the higher domain of consciousness there was confusion. Of mania more than any other form of insanity it may be said that in it consciousness is not logically adjusted to fact, and the sense of personal identity is at fault. A patient by name John Brown kept continually crying, ' I'm daft John Brown;' but in spite of this he did not appear to realize his position nor the fact that a crushed arm followed by amputation had brought on insanity, and his transfer from the hospital to the asylum. Here consciousness was confused; the memory of his previous identity was not impaired, but its relation to his surroundings was not appreciated or understood, though he had a vague idea that he was daft. The confusion of consciousness, though not its abolition, is evident from the following talk of an acute case. His ideas were fairly coherent, for we who observed him could seethe connection. While a stenographer was taking down the words as they were uttered the patient's attention was sometimes fixed on him ; he had a purgative, but it had not operated. He recognised in a dreamy, superficial way that he was in an asylum. He had been in another asylum before. The degree of oblivion was not marked, though the excitement was great. 'I am delirious; I am insane. Insanity. Oh, is the medicine coming ? Jeanie, come in aside us; come in beside us, and I will lie down upon you, and I will lie down upon you. See, that is a miracle. See, that is a miracle. I am insane. I am insane. I am insane. I am insane; but I want treatment ; but I want treatment: but I want