The man of genius / by Cesare Lombroso.

  • Lombroso, Cesare, 1835-1909.
Date:
1891
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The man of genius / by Cesare Lombroso. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    THE CAUSES OF GENIUS. CHAPTER 1. Meteorological Influences on Genius. Tlic influence of weather on the insane — Sensitiveness of men of genius to barometrical conditions— Sensitiveness to thermometrical conditions. The Injliwuce of Weather on the Insane.—A series of clinical researches, which I carried on for six consecutive years, has shown me with certainty that the mental con- dition of the insane is modified in a constant manner by barometrical and thermometrical influences.^ When the temperature rose above 25°, 30°, and 32° C, especially if the rise was sudden, the number of maniacal attacks in- creased from 29 to 50. On the days on which the baro- meter showed sudden variations, especially of elevation —and more particularly two or three days before and after the variation—the number of maniacal attacks rapidly increased from 34 to 46. This meteoric sensi- bility, as I term it, increased in an inverse ratio to the integrity of the nervous tissues, being very great in idiots and slightest in monomaniacs. The study of 23,602 lunatics has shown me that the development of insanity generally coincides with the increase of monthly tempera- ture and with the great barometrical perturbations in September and March ; the onset of heat, acts more efficaciously, however, than the intense heat which ' Pensiero e Mcteo7-e in Biblioteca Scientifica Internazionale, Milan, 1878 ; Azione degli Astri e (telle Meteore sulla menie Umana, Milan, 1871.