A primer of psychology and mental disease : for use in training-schools for attendants and nurses and in medical classes.

  • Burr, C. B. (Colonel Bell), 1856-1931.
Date:
1898
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A primer of psychology and mental disease : for use in training-schools for attendants and nurses and in medical classes. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    simple sensation. Sight, or Seeing, is a different thing, however, and involves, just as hearing, smell- ing, touch, teste, and the muscular senses do, some- thing else, which is called Perception. This is the conscious recognition of the external causes of a given sensation. To illustrate: For the first few days or weeks of a child's life its existence is vegetative purely. It pays no attention to objects about it. Later on, it is said to notice,—that is to say, it takes cognizance of what comes before it. It will follow with its eyes a candle or a ball of bright yarn. It will watch for them. It will associate a pleasant sensation with the candle or the ball of yarn. It perceives that the can- dle or the ball of yarn is the cause of this sensation, —it has the conscious recognition of the cause, or Perception. When first a nursing-bottle is placed to its lips, the lips close down about it and the operation of sucking begins,—this through reflex action. There is an impression conveyed by the touch- and taste- organs of the mouth, through cor- responding nerves, to the sensory, or special sense, centres in the brain; from these centres reflected upon motor nerve-centres in the brain, and through motor nerves going from the brain to the muscles. Result: the operation of sucking. This is a purely reflex act at first. Later, the child watches for the bottle of milk, sucks upon it by a voluntary effort when it is offered, or perhaps helps itself, if the bottle is placed in the cradle. There is here Perception: