Remarks on the influence of mental cultivation and mental excitement upon health / [Amariah Brigham].

  • Amariah Brigham
Date:
1844
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Remarks on the influence of mental cultivation and mental excitement upon health / [Amariah Brigham]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    65/166 (page 59)
    omenon,’ says 1\I. Itard, “is not very rare, even in tiie adult, especially among men given to study, or pro found meditation, or who devote themselves, without relaxation, to the agitations of an unquiet and enter- prising spirit. The head of Bonaparte, for instance, was small in youth, but acquired, in after life, a development nearly enormous.” ' I would have the parent, therefore, understand that his child may be made to excel in almost any thing; I that by increasing the power of certain organs through exercise, he can be made a prodigy of early mental or muscular activity. But I would have him at the same time, understand the conditions ujron which this can be effected, and its consequences. I would have him fully aware, that in each case, unusual activity and power are produced by extraordinary development of an organ; and especially that in early life no one organ of the body can be disproportionately exercised, without the risk of most injurious consequences. Either the over-excited and over-tasked organ itself w'ill be injured for life, or the development of other and essential parts of the system will be arrested for- ever. From what has been said hitherto, we gather the following facts, which should be made the basis of all place, and the brain actually diminish, especially in the intellectual regions. Such, judging from his skull, recently discovered, Vi’as probably the case uath Dean Swift, who for some years before his death, was in an imbecile state. Esquirol mentions the case of an insane female, whose forehead, on her admission into the hospital, was so large that he had a drawing made of it, but afterwards it became small and narrow.—It, M.]