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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    or in the intermediate state of sleeping and waking. If the observation of Treviranus, made on a patient whose brain surface was exposed, that the brain surface is paler in sleep than in the waking condition, but richer in blood during sleep interrupted by dreams than in dreamless sleep, is confirmed, we shall have to look to irregularities in the blood-supply as the source of the hallucination in the in- sane. The fact that musicians are more apt to have hallu- cinations of hearing, painters and sculptors those of sight, microscopists those of the objects which they study, would seem to indicate the potency of excessive physiological irritation to predispose to the production of the same phe- nomena as those resulting from pathological irritation. Here again the analogy between the extra-physiological phe- nomena occurring within the limits of sanity and those char- acteristic of insanity is manifested. The hallucinations of the insane, generally relate to familiar objects, to those which the patient has been in daily contact with, or which are connected in some way with his dominant conceptions. The hallucinatory religious monomaniac sees the gates of heaven ajar, St. Peter beckoning, processions of angels and saints, the crucifixion; or, on the other hand, the devil with myriads of imps dancing round and mocking him, the visions of St. Anthony repeated, or the strange beasts de- scribed with so little reference to zoological harmony in the Revelations. The insane claimant of a throne hears encouraging or threatening comments on his claim, sees detectives dogging his footsteps, or has visions of great state receptions. The lunatic with sexual ideas sees images of the most voluptuous kind. The hypochondriacal lunatic sees his skull open, fungous growths on his brain, his vis- cera exposed, the liver riddled with abscesses, and other morbid conditions, varying with the extent of his reading and experience of diseases. It is in consonance with the same fact that insane hallu- t:inations vary in different races and communities, and with different periods of history, like the dreams and delusions of the day and the people. The visionary lunatic of ancient Greece saw the gods and goddesses, or satyrs, dryads, and nymphs peopling the forests; he of the middle ages com- muned with saints, or saw the devil, in the fashion of that day, with horns, a goat's beard, a barbed, arrow-headed tail and a pitchfork; to-day the visions of heaven and hell are more af'.^r 'Sijnyan's style or Miltonic in character; and