Insanity : its dependence on physical disease ... / by John P. Gray.

  • Gray, John P. (John Purdue), 1825-1886.
Date:
1871
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Insanity : its dependence on physical disease ... / by John P. Gray. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    tinguisli objects of relisli and disrelist, according to the seasons; and tlie same things do not always please us. And by the same organ we become mad and delirious, and fears and terrors assail us, some by night and some by day; and dreams and untimely wanderings, and cares that are not suitable, and ignorance of present circumstances, desuetude and unskillfulness. All these things -we endure from the brain when it is not healthy. To the philosopher or metaphysician, insanity is what they may choose to make it. To one of the sublime faith of Plato, who referred all the phenomena of na- ture which he could not interj)ret to a divine power, it is not strange that insanity should seem to be from the gods. Others, from another stand-point, have consid- ered it also supernatural, but have assigned the phe- nomena to the influence of devils. To Hippocrates, who was a patient, earnest physician, who, with wonderous success, studied morbid j^henomena, insanity was from an unhealthv brain. To others, ag-ain, to whom faith is not given to believe more than they can see and understand, or who do not choose to believe more, mind and all mental phenomena are mere ]3hysical re- sults : mental manifestations of whatever order, hopes, fears, joys, sorrows, immortal longings, deep affec- tions, are, like hunger and thirst and pain, but expres- sions of a physical organization; the restless mind of man, instead of beino; all we believe of it, an immor- tal spirit manifesting itself in this life and in this body, preparing for a life to come, and using the brain as an organ or instrument for its purj^oses, is a mere secretion of the brain, depending: on its existence, and sickenins: and dying with it. Are we to account for anger, rage,