A practical manual of mental medicine / by E. Régis ; with a preface by M. Benjamin Ball ; authorised translation by H.M. Bannister.
- Date:
- 1895
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: A practical manual of mental medicine / by E. Régis ; with a preface by M. Benjamin Ball ; authorised translation by H.M. Bannister. 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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![of mental alienation has always been overestimated. Tlie truth is that these great events have for a sjjeeial effect that tliey call out and bring before the ])ublic a certain number of lunaties wlio in ])eaeeful times would liave ]tassed unnoticed, and also that the}^ communicate a special coloring to the delusive ideas of the time. Great scientific or social move- nu'uts that occur in society act in the same way. Great discovei'ies, or inventions, and powerful asso- ciations hardly indeed affect tlie iiisane except to color their delusions and impress upon them a s])t'cial physiognomy. IlKKEDrry.—Heredity, which is, Avithout contra- diction, the most ])o\verful and important of all the causes of insanity, merits a few words. Definition.—By heredity is understood in mental pathology an origiiiiilpredlspo.ntion to mental alicn- (itlori transmitted to clnldrcji fro)ii their parents. Nattire. F'requency.—The source of this predis- position maj' be not merely mental alienation in the ancestors, but other related diseases, eccentricity, neuroses, alcoholism, certain diatheses, consan- guinity, &c. Uecause of not accei)ting heredity in its widest and truest signification and restricting il more or less to cases of direct transmission of in- sanity itself, there was some disagreement as to the exact fre<piency of this cause of alienation. In re- ality, we may admit with Marce, that we Hnd some antecedent in niiu^-tenths of all the cases.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21963009_0058.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
