A text-book on mental diseases for the use of students and practitioners of medicine.

  • Theodore H. Kellogg
Date:
1897
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A text-book on mental diseases for the use of students and practitioners of medicine. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    adapted diet, hydrotherapy judiciously employed, daily exercise short of fatigue, and some occupation rather than idleness, are among the curative measures. The bowels are to be regulated by dietetic means, and sleep is to be procured every other night by a full hypnotic, if baths and other expedients fail to relieve the insomnia, which is always a dangerous symptom. The greatest skill is required in the psychotherapeutic measures employed to divert the patient from injudicious social or financial plans. If the patient is not properly managed, unsuitable marriage, disastrous investmen't of money, and unfortunate business alliances may be made. Travel with a judicious companion is sometimes ad- visable when both friends and patient oppose institutional treatment. Separation from customaiy surroundings and influences is often necessary. The whole life should be. carefully regulated for some months following convalescence. Section II.—Mania. The term mania has been vaguely applied by some writers to all active forms of Insanity; but it now signifies a distinct type of men- tal disorder, the opposite of melancholia, running an acute and definite course, and having well-defined symptoms. It occurs most frequently in the spring and early summer, and is more common among colored than wliite persons, and among females than males. Acute mania has an average ratio of 192.1 per 1,000 of all cases of Insanity in institutions for the insane in the United- States. Among wo'men this ratio is 199.1 for white and 246.2 for colored persons, and for colored males it is 273.0. The average ratio of cases of chronic mania is 236.3 per 1,000 of all cases of Insanity, and in females it is 248.5. Mania is therefore the most common form of Insanity in institutions for the insane, and this is also undoubtedly true in the community at large. The maximum number of cases occurs in the quinquennium thirty to thirty-five years for acute mania, and for chronic mania thirty-five to forty years in males and forty to forty- five years in females. Definition.—Mania is an active t_y]3e of mental disorder, attended by loss of the higher forms of inhibition of thought and action, by increased flow of ideas, quickened rate of mental processes, a tumult- uous influx of sensorial impressions, expansive and pleasurable emo-