Obscure diseases of the brain and mind / by Forbes Winslow.

  • Winslow, Forbes, 1810-1874.
Date:
1868
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Obscure diseases of the brain and mind / by Forbes Winslow. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    79/648 (page 51)
    (in women) connected with some obscure irritation and disease of the uterine system. Without attempting to elaborate a special theory of in- sanity, I would direct attention, en passant, to the close re- semblance that obtains between many forms of mental alienation, and the state of the brain and mind during the conditions of sleep and dreaming. How accurately does Six W. Hamilton describe the transi- tion state of the mind intermediate between sleeping and waking, and how closely does it correspond with the opera- tions of the intellect during the incubation of insanity, when the mind, losing its sane consciousness of objects, approaches the confines of mental alienation. When roused from this mental condition, we find, says Sir W. Hamilton, ourselves conscious of being in the commencement of a dream; the mind is occupied with a train of thought, and this train we are still able to follow out to a point when it connects itself with certain actual perceptions. We can still trace imagination to sense, and show how, departing from the last sensible impressions of real objects, the fancy proceeds in its work of distorting, falsifying, and perplexing these in order to construct out of their ruins its own grotesque edifices. In dreaming, as in certain forms of disordered mind, phases of intellectual vigour and states of mental acuteness are developed which were not normal manifestations during the waking hours, and did not exist in conditions of healthy thought. The most exquisite creations of the poetic fancy have been engendered under these circumstances, and conceptions suggested to the dreamy consciousness which have paved the road to fame and fortune. During the hours of sleep the intellect has, with rapid facility, solved subtle questions which puzzled and perplexed the mind when in full and unfettered exercise of its waking faculties