Degeneration / by Max Nordau.

  • Nordau, Max Simon, 1849-1923.
Date:
1898
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Degeneration / by Max Nordau. 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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    disgrace to our nation !' work and man would be annihilated. No respectable bookseller would keep the condemned book ; no respectable paper would mention it, or give the author access to its columns ; no respectable family would permit the branded work to be in their house ; and the wholesome dread of this fate would very soon prevent the appearance of such books as Bahr's Gute Schule, and would dishabituate the * realists' from parading a condemnation based on a crime against morality as a mark of distinction. Medical specialists of insanity have likewise failed to under- stand their duty. It is time for them to come to the front. * It is a prejudice,' Bianchi most justly says,* ' to believe that psychiatry must be enclosed within a sanctuary like that at Mecca.' It is no doubt meritorious to indurate sections of the spinal cord in chromic acid, and tint them in a neutro- phyllic solution, but this siiouid not exhaust the activity of a professor of psychiatry. Neither is it sufficient that he should in addition give a few lectures to jurists, and publish observa- tions in technical journals. Let him speak to the mass of cultivated persons who are neither physicians nor learned in law. Let him enlighten them in general publications and in accessible conferences concerning the leading facts in mental therapeutics. Let him show them the mental derangement of degenerate artists and authors, and teach them that the works in fashion are written and painted delirium. In all other branches of medical science it is discerned that hygiene is of more importance than therapeutics, and that the public health has much more to expect from prophylactics than from treat- ment. With us in Germany the psychiatrist alone fails as yet to concern himself with the hygiene of the mind. It is time that he should practise his profession in this direction also. A Maudsley in England, a Charcot, a Magnan in France, a Lombroso, a Tonnini in Italy, have brought to vast circles of the people an understanding of the obscure pheno- mena in the hfe of the mind, and disseminated knowledge which would make it impossible in those countries for pro- nounced lunatics with the mania for persecution to gain an influence over hundreds of thousands of electoral citizens.f even if it could not prevent the coming into fashion of the degenerate art. In Germany alone no psychiatrist has as yet followed this example. It is time to atone for this negligence Popularized expositions from the pens of experts whose i892^p.%^'^''^'' P^^'^'-^^ Genie e gli scienziati Italiani. Milano, t Allusion is here made to the political influenre evPt-r,-=<.ri „ i. , German electoral districts by the antlsemite PasShIn t iT^^' °^ with a mania for persecution.lTRArsLATOR ^ ^'^'^^ lunatic,