General paralysis : a critical review of the literature of the subject, to which is appended an analysis of the case of John S. Blackburn, in which insanity was alleged as a means of defense / by D.A. Morse.

Morse, D. A. (David Appleton), 1840-1891

Date:: [1874]

Credit: General paralysis : a critical review of the literature of the subject, to which is appended an analysis of the case of John S. Blackburn, in which insanity was alleged as a means of defense / by D.A. Morse. 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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$TK^ voice of authority is that the disease is hereditary ; and not the disease as disease, but the tendencies and conditions of nerv-e organization which induce it, or so predispose that an exciting cause may bring into play these hereditary tendencies. Calmeil, maladies infiammatoires du cerveau, T. I, 272, says: ^'Mdre than one-fourth of the patients attacked with general paralysis count among their relatives, may be maniacs, may be melancholies, epileptics, perhaps persons affected with perin- cephalitis; hereditary and the primitive conformation of the intra cranial nerve centers, exercise then upon the frequency of incomplete geineral paralysis an incontestible influence. Some- times it is the father or mother, an uncle or an aunt, or cousin of those who become affected, who have shown anterior cerebral accidents. Sometimes both lines, paternal and maternal have been affected with cerebral disease. * We cmi boldly declare that one-third of the individuah with lohom gener- al paralysis shows itself have had relaiives either insane or para- lytic. Further on he says the erotic temperament furnishes more cases than any other. This propensity is however one of the prodromes of general paralysis. Several years before gener- al paralysis is developed there may be seen with individuals ex- cessive sexual desires, with almost uncontrollable impulses, (icneral paralysis follows—we arc unable to say whether the Ctondition of the nerve centers determined the excesses, and the excesses the paralysis, or whether one is the prodrome and the other the fully developed disease. ikfovce says: All forms of insanity, mania, melancholy, and partial delirium engender each other reciprocally and in a dis- tinct manner. General paralysis itself, which by its symptoms, its special anatomic lesions, differs so notably from the pure neuroses of intelligence, finds itself among the ascendants or (Icscendents of the insjuio wit]\ a frequency that proves in a$