Insanity and its treatment : lectures on the treatment, medical and legal, of insane patients / by G. Fielding Blandford.
- George Fielding Blandford
- Date:
- 1877
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Insanity and its treatment : lectures on the treatment, medical and legal, of insane patients / by G. Fielding Blandford. Source: Wellcome Collection.
44/492 page 32
![irksome and painful if continued so as to produce great fatigue. We are said to get tired in time of almost any- thing—of music, of conversation, of our amuse- Feehngs vary ' ' according to ments—and hence we see that the particular the condition fee]mg aroused by such things depends on the of the centres. ° J ° 1 condition ot the centres at a given moment; and as the act follows the feeling, this also will be regulated by the condition, whatever it may be. A dog let loose from its kennel, a horse turned out of its stable into a field, a young child fresh from its rest, feels the highest delight in exercising its limbs in jumping and run- ning ; its centres are full of energy almost spontaneously discharged in motion. If, on the contrary, either of them does not move at all, or crawls along languidly and de- jectedly, we say that it is not well with it. Similarly, if accustomed pleasures fail to delight a man, and he is gloomy and melancholy without any cause, we know that something is amiss. He may have been subject to stimulation of a very painful character, to some grief, or loss, or pressing anxiety, which has exhausted him, has robbed him of sleep, and brought him to this condition. He may have encountered some event which has caused so sudden a shock that he may have fallen as in a fit, or which may have excited him to rage or terror, with corresponding action and consequent exhaustion. Even pleasurable emotion may become exhausting, if prolonged. Laughter may turn to sobbing, and men may faint from excess of joy. On the well- being of the nerve centres will depend our recovery from the effects of these excitations. They must needs violently dis- turb the balance of the brain circulation, which is roused to supply the force expended. If the circulation fall, and sleep return, all is reduced to its former level, and we are said to get over it. But if not, a permanent disturbance may be established. Here, then, we may lay down the component parts o](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b2041058x_0046.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
