Epileptics, their mental condition : a lecture / by W.A.F. Browne.

  • William A. F. Browne
Date:
1865
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Epileptics, their mental condition : a lecture / by W.A.F. Browne. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    are now in confinement 10 epileptics^ of whom 3 are insane and 2 are imbecile, and says, “ The large proportion of epileptics are more or less weak-minded, and should have a special hospital. I found my opinions chiefly upon the fact that epileptics are con- tinually returning to prison, and, as they are weak-minded and can- not earn an honest livelihood, they are entitled to merciful con- sideration.^' In the preceding observations I have said that epilepsy may be cured, or may cease spontaneously. You will not, consequently, suppose that I advocate so sweeping a proposition as that every one who has at any time been convulsed is permanently and irremedi- ably of unsound mind. My purpose has been to represent epilepsy as one of a group of symptoms which, for a few seconds or for a lifetime, interfere with the operation of the ordinary laws of mind, and which should be regarded, especially in their psycliical aspect— the loss or impairment of consciousness—as constituting a speciflc disease; and this purpose would be attained even were it admitted, as certain English observers hold, that thirty-eight per cent, of epileptics were mentally, in the absence of the flt, in a state of health. An attempt has been made to show that in infancy epilepsy is the cause or consequence of idiocy, interferes with mental health, and involves that limited consciousness which separates the sufferer from his fellow-men. It has appeared from our inquiries that various forms of mental derangement take the place of the convul- sive attack ] that the momentary giddiness is as much a departure from sanity, and may entail as formidable moral perversions, as the convulsive fury; that a mere delusion may be a substitute for the ordinary attack; that an individual acting and speaking naturally may be in an anormal condition which forms no part of his ordi- nary consciousness, and of which there remains not a trace in memory; that many of the acts, whether reasonable or extravagant, are as much automatic and involuntary as the muscular contrac- tions ; that neither of the wildest fury prompting to frightful atro- cities nor of the passing caprice or irritability, is there a clear and coherent perception; that even the most mitigated form of such symptoms entail loss of sensibihty, of muscular power, of moral sense, and moral control. I have refrained from taking any ad- vantage of the evidence afforded by the symptoms of the mania of epilepsy, properly so called, as, except in their intensity, they do not differ materially from those of ordinary mania; nor by the epidemic forms of the disease, which, without any attempt to pun, have convulsed communities, all of which (even the recent outbreak at Morzine*) go to show that epilepsy, and its attendant mental per- version, is propagable, as well as hysteria, by imitation; nor by the * Kuhn, ‘ Ann. Med.-rsychol.,’ Avril et Juillet, 1865.
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