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 Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    be it a hemorrhage, a tumor, or a nutritive interference, that determines the name of the patient's disease. Theoretically it should be the same with insanity. The disease manifesting mental derangement maybe an inflam- mation of the brain and its membranes, or a brain injury— a brain wasting, or an original brain-defect—a mal-nutrition, or a reflex disturbance of that organ; and in such conditions must we seek for the groundwork of a scientific nomencla- ture and classification of the morbid states underlying mental derangement. Unfortunately, sufficient positive ob- servations on which to base a thorough pathology of these diseased states are, as yet, desiderata. The scalpel, the test- tube, the microscope, the sphygmograph, the ophthalmo- scope, and delicate electrical apparatus have been diligently employed by able and earnest investigators; but these ap- pliances and the most elaborate methods of the laboratory have more frequently failed than succeeded in revealing the organic conditions responsible for mental disturbance. It is for this reason that while the ideal aim of the pro- gressive alienist will continue to be the solution of the great problem of the physical foundation of insanity, he is commonly limited when he makes a diagnosis to a recog- nition of disease manifestations, and not of disease; when he classifies, to a classification of symptom groups; and when he treats insanity, to the treatment of symptomatic states. The conceptions and processes of mental science are hence traditional and empirical to a great extent. In some degree this is also due to the fact that the conventional discrimination between insanity and other symptoms of disease of the brain, however practically necessary, is from a scientific point of view both arbitrary and artificial. This becomes most evident when we attempt to define insanity. It may be safely asserted that, in the present state of our knowledge, it is impossible to frame a definition of insanity which, while it meets the practical every-day requirements, is constructed on sden^t'Jic principles. The failure of the best authorities to furnish such a one proves that until the ma- terial elements of mental derangement become more acces- sible to observation than they now are, scientific definitions must in large part rest on hypotheses. T\\e practical need, however, is for a definition which shall include neither am- biguous nor theoretical terms. That the brain is the organ of the mind is an axiom of physiology, that insanity is a man- ifestation of a brain disorder is a resulting dogma of medical