A treatise on medical jurisprudence / by Francis Wharton and Moreton Stillé ; the medical part revised and corrected, with numerous additions by Alfred Stillé.

  • Francis Wharton
Date:
1860
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on medical jurisprudence / by Francis Wharton and Moreton Stillé ; the medical part revised and corrected, with numerous additions by Alfred Stillé. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    BOOK I.] SOMATIC THEOEY. [§ 82 the one best sustained by modern induction, and is that which is most con- sistent, as will presently be seen, with the Christian standard. § 82. Independently of the pathological difficulties in the way of the somatic theory, psychological research testifies most strongly against it. (y) The men- tal and moral functions are the immediate products of an independent sphere of organism, and not to be explained by anything lying outside of that sphere. The brain and the nerves have only the physical part of perception and motion, and to some extent the regulation of the functions, to perform; but the soul cannot but be considered as distinct from this activity of the nerves. The somatic theory, which confounds the two, will never be able to make a satisfac- tory distinction between palsy and imbecility, between convulsions and ravings, between sensuous hallucinations and insanity.(A) This theory, therefore, fails in affording support to any practical system of therapeutics. The general experience of modern times confirms the fact that medicines are of very little avail against mental derangements, and that the most essential results are attained by a strictly moral treatment, and corresponding regulation of diet and habits, (i) The psychological theory, at its first inception, split upon the opposite rock, in denying the influence of the physical processes upon mental diseases, in the face of experience. In opposition to the somatists, it was thought necessary to exclude all natural causes from the explanation of the origin of mental affections, and to ascribe them to an act of voluntary self-euthralment, which, in all cases, was to be attributed to some prior moral excess or delin- quency incurred with a knowledge of the consequences. But a derangement of mind is not identical with sin. For though every vice, every sin, is an abnormity of the soul, yet every abnormity of the soul is not sin. A lunatic may be, in a human sense, innocent of positive guilt; and, on the other hand, the worst of criminals may retain his sanity. It is impossible to adhere to this doctrine in practice, without reducing the entire treatment of the disease to a system of rewards and punishments; and the vagueness of the idea of freedom and constraint, the impossibility of distinguishing between the moral thraldom of the criminal and that of the sick man, will throw into confusion the entire system of forensic psychology. (J) It is equally wrong to derive all diseases of the mind from the passions, although the latter may be important causes, and, in the more advanced stages, symptoms of insanity.(k) At the (g) Siebcld, Lehrbuch der Gericht. Med., Berlin, 1847, § 194; L. Krahmer, Handbuch der Gericht. Med., Halle, C. A. Schwetschke, 1851, § 126; Heinroth, Syst. der psychisch- gericht. Med. Leipsic, 1825; Kant, Anthropologic, Konigsb. 1798; Metzger's Ger. Med. Abhandl., Konigsb. 1803. (/() Lecons Cliniques sur l'Alienation Mentale, par Falret, lecon 1, p. 8, Paris, 1854. (i) The most thorough of the German advocates of the somatic theory is Friedreich, particularly in his Historisch-kritische Darstellung der Theorien iiber das Wesen und den Sitz der psychischen Krankheiten, Leipsic, 1836. (/) Etudes Medico-Psychologiques, M. Renaudin, p. 166, art. 30, Sur la responsa- bilite morale, Paris, 1854; Lecons Cliniques de M. Falret, p. 11, discours d'ouverture, Paris, 1854; Manuel Complet de Medecine Legale, par J. Briand, sect, troisieme, art. iii. p. 560, Paris, 1852. (Jc) Heinroth is the leading representative of the psychological theory. See his Lehrbuch der Seelenkrankheiten, Leipsic, 1818, and his System der psychisch- gerichtlichen Medicin, Leipsic, 1825. Dr. Mayo, in his Medical Testimony on Lu- nacy, goes some distance in the same direction; and, as has been seen, very justly
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