On obscure diseases of the brain and disorders of the mind / by Forbes Winslow.

  • Forbes Benignus Winslow
Date:
[1861]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On obscure diseases of the brain and disorders of the mind / by Forbes Winslow. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    ness and serenity so indispensably necessary on the part of those brought into immediate association with the insane. If the mind be the instrument on which we are to operate in carrying out any systematic plan of moral treatment, if it be the duty of the physician to perse- veringly combat with delusions and hallucinations, and to substitute for them correct and healthy impres- sions; to strengthen these impressions by judicious and repeated repetitions; remove perverted trains, of rea- soning, replace them by correct induction, and give them the power and influence of habit and frequent association: how, I ask, can he make any progress in this mode of treatment, as long as he is ignorant of the material with which he is to work, in fact, with the faculties of the human understanding? If the man who has the advantage of an ordinary medical education is, on account of his ignorance of the philosophy of mind, obviously unfitted for the serious duties of treat- ing its disorders scientifically and successfully, what language can convey our impression of the folly, the barbarity, and heartlessness, of entrusting the manage- ment of the insane to those who are not members of the profession at all, and who have enjoyed no more psycho- logical or general education than that derived from their having acted as attendants in asylums, or that which they have received at a village school? Need we feel surprise at the little advancement made in the science of cerebral pathology, and the amount of public odium which has, alas! for so many years attached to those specially engaged in this anxious and important branch of practice, when we consider into whose hands this class has unhappily fallen ? I trust, however, the day is not very remote, when the psychological physician, engaged in the treatment of insanity, will take his proper and legitimate position in the ranks of honour-
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