Common mind troubles / by J. Mortimer Granville.

  • Joseph Mortimer Granville
Date:
1878
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Common mind troubles / by J. Mortimer Granville. 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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    When “ loss of memory ” occurs in the manner indicated, whenever it happens soon after leaving school, on the completion of any great effort, or at the moment when the mind is for the first time brought face to face with the real business of life, instead of giving way to crazy alarm the victim of this misfortune should set to work to repair the loss caused by the accident, not by repeating the errors of a faulty educational process, but by de- veloping his faculty of retention by honest and patient work in a new and healthy direction. In short, one half the so-called cases of loss of memory ” are simply the break-down of a system of training which is unnatural. The circumstance that the faculty of remembering seems to be itself impaired by the catastrophe is not in the least sur- prising, because, in addition to the immediate effects of the shock, there is the discovery that the power of retention is in truth wanting. The real “ faculty of memory ” has not been developed by the training adopted, and the untrained mind has to be cultivated anew. Only what has been tho- roughly learned can be perfectly remembered, and no other process than that which brings the natural power of retention into exercise can perform the true functions of memory, or is worthy to be so called. C