A plea for the scientific study of insanity : being the substance of addresses delivered before the Royal Academy of Medicine of Ireland, and the Medical Institution of Liverpool / by J. Batty Tuke.

  • Tuke, J. Batty, Sir (John Batty), 1835-1913.
Date:
1891
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A plea for the scientific study of insanity : being the substance of addresses delivered before the Royal Academy of Medicine of Ireland, and the Medical Institution of Liverpool / by J. Batty Tuke. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    we may have all varieties and degrees of symptoms. The effect on the brain of the administration of certain poisons, markedly alcohol, is a sequence of psychical phenomena of much the same character; the drunkard runs the full gamut of symptoms in a couple of hours. These observations point, not to a differ- ence in kind of primary causation, but to variation of symptoms in accordance with the progress and nature of pathological pro- cesses, which vary principally in accordance with the constitu- tion of the tissues of the individual. It must be borne in mind that the deposits of inflammatory products and congestion are not identical or constant in the individuals of a series of sub- jects, because the individuals and their tissues are not constant quantities. We have thus a constant condition of irritation acting on inconstant subjects. We know that tlie pathological results of over-taxation of brain function are accompanied by morbid excitement of action of the organ; but we are apt to forget that, although mania is accompanied by exaltation and melancholia by depression of feeling, they are both manifesta- tions of excitement of feeling. Given this common psychological condition of excitement of feeling, we must seek for an explana- tion of the varieties of its phenomena either in some quality or quantity of its exciting cause, in some peculiarity of its patho- logical products, or in some idiosyncrasy of the affected indi- vidual. We derive no material assistance from psychological considerations, for there is no necessary connection between depressing emotions and melancholia on the one hand, or be- tween stimulating emotions and mania on the otlier. Intense grief produces mania as often as melancholia, and the insanity of the man of Saturnine disposition is as often as not character ised by mania. The peculiarity of the exciting cause appears to be not its psychological characteristics, but its intensity and rapidity of incidence, the latter depending not only on the former but also on the stability or instability of tissue. Accord- ing as excitement of feeling is rapidly produced, so the more likely is mania to be the symptom, especially when it acts on an
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