Insanity : its classification, diagnosis, and treatment; a manual for students and practitioners of medicine / by E. C. Spitzka.

  • Spitzka, E. C. (Edward Charles), 1852-1914.
Date:
1887
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Insanity : its classification, diagnosis, and treatment; a manual for students and practitioners of medicine / by E. C. Spitzka. 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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    had the high medico-legal position assigned to them—it is scarcely necessary to add, erroneously—of constituting the criteria of insanity, and from the days of Willis, Haslam, and Esquirol down, practical alienists have based many impor- tant indications for prognosis and treatment of mental dis- orders, on the special character of the delusions accompany- ing them. There is no evidence of insanity which constitutes so proper a starting-point for study as the insane delusion. Though even on first sight the most complex and mysteri- ous of the symptoms of mental disorder, it is yet that man- ifestation which strikes the mind of the novice with the greatest force. It is the symptom to which the readiest ex- pression is given by the patient himself; the one which can be most readily laid bare before a class in the course of clinical demonstration; and the one which offers to the be- ginner in psychiatry that obvious contrast with sanity which is the most satisfactory because the most tangible to his mind. For the very reason that the insane delusion is con- sidered to be the criterion of insanity by the laity and the legal profession, the common presence and patency of this symptom in the insane, it should constitute the introduc- tion to the study of the subject. The lay conception of a lung disorder associates it with cough and expectoration. Now, while cough and expecto- ration do not constitute the most essential signs of lung affections, yet the clinical teacher who will analyze these phenomena before the new-comer, and point out their true meaning before proceeding to the physical signs—whose recognition and interpretation require experience and acu- men—does that new-comer a far greater service than he who endeavors to override the untutored mind by ignoring all which the latter has hitherto been cognizant of, and by presenting abstractions which the beginner is altogether unfitted to comprehend. Insane delusions, that is, faulty ideas growing out of a per- version or weakening of the logical apparatus, are primarily divided by authorities according to their expansive or de- pressive character; and further subdivisions are based on the contents of the delusion, as to whether it relates for ex- ample to sexual, political, religious, or bodily matters. Thus expansive delusions include: ambitious, erotic, and re- ligious ones; the depressive group: hypochondriacal delu- sions and those of persecution.