The feebly inhibited : nomadism, or the wandering impulse, with special reference to heredity inheritance of temperament / by Charles B. Davenport.

  • Davenport, Charles Benedict, 1866-1944.
Date:
1915
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The feebly inhibited : nomadism, or the wandering impulse, with special reference to heredity inheritance of temperament / by Charles B. Davenport. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    s TlIK I'KHHI.V IXHIHITKI). II. CLASSIFICATION OF NOMADISM. Various attempts have been made to classify cases of nomadism. Of these one of the most elaborate is that of Meimier (1908) which is reproduced here in simplified form: A. Nomads of economic or social origin. I. Legitimate nomads. (1) Laborers without work; (2) exiles; (3) representatives of traveling professions (traveling men, peddlers, explorers, missionaries). II. Delinquent nomads. Fugitives from justice, recidivists of prisons and asylums, and certain dangerous degenerates. B. Nomads of morbid origin. I. Physical insufficiency. (i) Temporary (e. g., children, adults, sick); (2) definitive (old men and the infirm). II. Psychic insufficiency. (1) Neurotic; neurasthenic, hysteric, epileptic, “original and eccen- tric,” degenerate. (2) Psychopathic: the excited-depressed, the recurrent, the paranoiic and mystic, the intoxicated (alcoholic, pellagric), the demented (precocious, senile, and paralytic). C. Nomads of ethnic origin. Goths, Saxons, Huns, Normans; Crusaders; Gypsies, .\rabs, Sioux, etc. Jeffrey and Dui)ouy (1909) use a simpler classification, as follows: 1. Fugues of childhood. 2. Vagabondage and fugues in the feeble-minded. 3. The fugues of the unbalanced (including capricious, sexual, dromonianic, paranoiic). 4. The fugues of the manic-depressive. 5. The confusional fugues. 6. Ambulatory automatism of alcoholic or epileptic origin. Parent (1909) has suggested a classification of fugues as: (i) melan- cholic; (2) somnambulistic; (3) epileptic; (4) impulsive and demented (of dementia precox); (5) dromonianic; (6) of the second state (e. g., hypnotic or of “double personality”); (7) systematized; (8) banal. A consideration of these three cla.ssifications of forms of nomadism leads to the inquiry: What do they mean? Are they groujis of mental idiosyncrasies each of which is due to a distinct and independent set of causes; or have they all the same primary cause at bottom, so that the different manisfestations are due to a difference in secondary causes—depression, ejiileptic attack, dementia precox, and the resti* The answer to tliis (luestion can, I think, be secured only from a study of the family histories; for these will tell us something of the associated traits and the nature of the stock from which nomadics arise. Such family histories are given in the present paper. We shall study them in detail to get such light as they can give tis on (he true relationship of the different “forms” of nomadism.