Mental affections : an introduction to the study of insanity / by John Macpherson.

Date:
1899
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Mental affections : an introduction to the study of insanity / by John Macpherson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    (a) those in which there is a general defect of mental develop- ment, with moral or intellectual deficiencies; (b) those in which there is atrophy or destruction of one or other parts of the hemispheres, with or without epilepsy or paralysis; (c) those in which deprivation of the senses, sight or hearing, or both, commencing in early infancy, leads to idiocy.1 5. Tuberculosis.—The tubercular diathesis includes scrofula, pulmonary tuberculosis, general tuberculosis, lupus, and the various tumours and abscesses which are recognised as being of strnmons origin. Tuberculosis is almost universally regarded as a hereditary disease, and it follows in its transmission the same laws which regulate the hereditary transmission of other con- stitutional maladies. It has a close connection with the neuroses and with insanity. Tuberculosis and nervous diseases occur in members of the same family, either separately or, as frequently happens, combined in the same individual. The parallelism between insanity and tuberculosis is exemplified in that “ they both appear at the period of adolescence; that they attack full maturity and middle life freely ; and that they both tend to decline in old age.” 2 Grasset3 considers hysteria as one of the manifestations of the tubercular diathesis. In phthisical families he has frequently found one of the children dying of tubercular meningitis, another of pulmonary phthisis, a third escaping free, while a fourth was hypochondriacal, hysterical, or insane. The tubercular diathesis is supposed by some to be the result of any depressing or unhygienic influences which lower the vitality of the organism. Among such influences are cold and damp climate, overcrowding, deficient food-supply, inter- marriages, very early marriages, and advanced age of the father. Many of these causes are complicated and act together, especially among the poorer inhabitants of large towns. It is believed by others that syphilis and intem- perance in the parents have considerable influence on the development of the diathesis. Some authorities, among whom may be mentioned Morel, 1 Barlow and Bury, Take’s Diet. Psych. Med. p. 1261. 2 (Houston, Did. of Psych. Mai. Hack Take, p. 940. n Grasset, Brain (1884), p. 433.