The study of mental disease : being the introductory lecture delivered in the University of Edinburgh on the institution of the Lectureship on Mental Diseases, May 1879 / by T.S. Clouston.

Date:
1879
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The study of mental disease : being the introductory lecture delivered in the University of Edinburgh on the institution of the Lectureship on Mental Diseases, May 1879 / by T.S. Clouston. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    the body except the umbilicus, but probably the reason there are no umbilical doctors is that the usual surgical operation on the umbilical cord combines simplicity and profit to so great an extent that almost no section of the profession will consent to give it up. The study and treatment of the diseases of the mental functions of the brain has such close relations to the study of all other brain functions, and to the treatment of all other brain disorders, and the brain is so incontestably the dominant organ of the body, affecting all its tissues, controlling all functions, regulating all its energies, that there ought to be less risk of its producing narrowness, or one- sidedness of view, than almost any other speciality. If mind is great, surely a special study of its derangements cannot be a belittling task. It might even be argued that this study is the highest branch of medicine, inasmuch as it is confessedly the most difficult, and relates to the most important part of man. The existence of mental disease affects the position and prospects of those who suffer from it more than any other disease whatever, and society and the state take more direct control of them than any other class except the criminals. When any other organ is affected by disease, it is after all merely a part of the man that suffers ; when the convolutions of the brain go wrong in their mental functions, it is the man himself that is affected. The rest of the human organism looked at teleologically surely subserves the brain, and all the other functions of that organ subserve the mental. Everything that lives, looked at from the evolutional point of view3 tends towards mentalization, and all the tissues of all the nervous organs of all the types of animal life find their acme in the human brain convolutions. From the purely psychological point of view, too, a study of mental disorders is essential before the laws of mind will ever be properly understood. Pathological change always throws light on physiological function. It has always been one of the great hopes of those who are interested in the prevention of mental disease, that a more thorough knowledge of its nature and treatment, and an extension of the knowledge we at present possess among the medical profession, would lead to a diminution of its total amount. If the brains that by inheritance had a tendency to this disease could be subjected during their de- velopment and education to the right sort of hygienic and preven- tive influences, beyond all doubt we should have less of the disease in the world. If during matured life those same brains could be made to avoid the exciting causes of the disease, this would cer- tainly still further lessen the evil. If educated medical knowledge were brought to bear on the customs of our civilization to secure that they were consistent with brain health, much might be hoped for; and lastly, if the first signs that betoken danger to the mind health were observed, and the first symptoms of disease noticed, and their true significance apprehended, every physician in practice knows that their further on-et and progress could often be arrested.