A statistical contribution to the pathology of insanity / by T. Duncan Greenlees.

  • Greenlees, T. Duncan.
Date:
1902
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: A statistical contribution to the pathology of insanity / by T. Duncan Greenlees. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    paralysis paresis of even non-striated muscular fibre takes place, so that the bladder fails to act and catheterisation is required ; after death the bladder is often found in these cases distended, its walls having apparently lost their contractile powers. Cystitis occurred in a few females, and the walls of the bladder were found much thickened in several cases, but in none were the conditions such as to be the direct cause of death, and in no case were other lesions or diseases noted. Remarks.—The figures upon which these observations are based are hardly such as to justify dogmatic statements as to the prevalence of physical diseases in insanity ; they do, how¬ ever, indicate, even in a small way, the direction in which such investigations should be carried out, and the character of the results were similar inquiries made, but on a larger scale. With the figures at the disposal of the Collective Investiga¬ tions Committee of the Association, referring to all the asylums with which they will have to deal, some definite statements should accumulate to throw more light on this, as yet, the most obscure of all diseases. Whether the insanities are the outcome of altered meta¬ bolism in one or other of the organs of the body, or whether they originate in delicate changes in the constitution of the protoplasm of the cerebral cells, due perhaps to toxic in¬ fluences, science has not yet enlightened us. The tendency of modern thought is that there is a physical basis to all types of mental alienation. It may be taken as an axiom that although an insane mind may exist in a sound body, much more frequently do we find the unsound mind in the unsound body, and, recognising this fact, we are guided in our treatment of our insane patients, searching for, in every case, a physical cause for the mental symptoms, and devoting our knowledge towards the alleviation of the bodily ailment in the reasonable expectation of con¬ sequent improvement in the mental symptoms. PRINTED BY ADLARD AND SON, BARTHOLOMEW CLOSE, E.C. ; 20, HANOVER SQUARE, W, AND DORKING.
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