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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    brought to full bloom by incidental circumstances, either actual or in the shape of hallucinations. It is not uncom- mon to find such patients designated as cases of religious melancholia, because, supposing themselves assailed by in- imical or diabolical forces, or commanded to fast for a long period, or forever, they become sad and anxious or refuse food. But to call a patient who, aside from these actions, which are consistently regulated by the false ideas, be- lieves himself or herself to be God, the Christ, a saint, the Messiah, a religious reformer, or the Virgin Mary, and who, perhaps, the very next day passes into visionary or ecstatic states, all the time systematizing his or her acts and notions —a melancholiac, is to involve one's self in a profound con- tradiction with the established use of that term. Among the systematized delusions of a depressive char- acter, the antitheses of all the preceding forms are found. This is well exemplified in cases where the subjects devel- op delusions of persecution overwhelming the ambitious notions previously dominating the mental sphere. How very unessential the line of demarkation between the de- pressive and expansive delusion really is, is made apparent by the fact that an expansive religious, erotic, or socially ambitious delusion may within a few days become depres- sive through the development of persecutory ideas; just as the reverse is occasionally observed. In fact, such expan- sive and depressive delusions often are entertained by the patient at one and the same time. When an individual, without any manifest disturbance of his emotional or affective state, in full possession of the memories accumulated in the receptive sphere, and able to carry out most or all of the duties of his particular position in life, as some of the sufferers are, is found to cherish such a gross error as an insane delusion, firmly believing in the reality of that which from his education and surroundings he would be expected to recognize as absurd, the observer is naturally puzzled to account for the phenomenon. The component elements of the systematized delusion are in- dividually the same as those which are combined to form healthy conceptions; they differ in that they are faultily united. In this respect the insane delusion does not differ from the faulty conclusions which constitute the error of the sane. But while the error of the sane person is based on faulty and not on perverted perceptions, on imperfect or vicious training, and on lack of experience, and disappears