Practical observations and suggestions on the treatment of mental affections / by Joseph Seaton.

  • Seaton, Joseph
Date:
1846
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Practical observations and suggestions on the treatment of mental affections / by Joseph Seaton. 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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    most instances, would be sufficient to frustrate the greatest skill, so long as the patient remained in the midst of his family or friends. In the generality of cases it will be found that the disorder is inti- mately connected with the family or home of the patient; and when we consider that “ ideas recur simultaneously with certain impressions; when those impressions and ideas have been frequently associated,” it will be obvious that (excepting in a very few instances) it will be worse than useless to attempt the treatment of the patient whilst surrounded by the objects with which his ideas have been usually associated;—I say worse than useless, for there is this serious consideration,—failing to succeed,— we have not merely lost so much time ; nor is the disease merely ren- dered more difficult of cure; but the probability of cure at all, is greatly diminished: for there is scarcely any circumstance which so powerfully affects the probable result, as the duration of the malady. I believe that, in most cases, the diseases of the thoracic or ab- dominal viscera, which we find co-existing with mental disorders, stand in the relation of cause. Still, it is beyond dispute that the mental affec- tion frequently in its turn becomes the cause of new or increased func- tional disorder of the different viscera : and the power which the mind exercises, in all diseases, over the functions of the body, as influencing the action of remedies, is well known. This it is which renders the removal from home, &c., so important. “ The body sympathizes with, or follows, the affections of the soul more in disease than in health. It acts as the soul feels; and thence the influence of the mind in modify- ing the operation of medicines.”* Thus it constantly happens that remedies suggested by the greatest skill, and with an accurate know- ledge of the patient’s state, are positively inert; but no sooner is the patient placed in circumstances calculated to break through, or divert the mind from, the train of ideas it has been accustomed to, than the very same remedies prove most effective agents. As I have before observed, a very great deal depends upon the pru- dence with which this separation is effected. Whilst, on the one hand, it is especially necessary to avoid, if possible, practising any positive deception; as by so doing we destroy the patient’s confidence in us, when he discovers it; it is, at the same time, not less important that we should as carefully refrain from all allusion to the state of his mind. This will not generally be difficult: for it will rarely happen that there is not a sufficient amount of bodily ailment of which the medical at- tendant can take advantage to account to the patient for the desire that he should leave home. It will be obvious that the removal I am con- * Dr A. T. Thompson.
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