The pathology of mind / by Henry Maudsley.

  • Henry Maudsley
Date:
1899
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The pathology of mind / by Henry Maudsley. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    condition of the nervous system separately from thei quality and activity of the blood ; in truth, they constitute together a com- pound state rather than distinct co-operating conditions. The vital interchanges between the bloo.d and the nerve cell which are constantly going on are an essential part of the function of the latter as a hving cell; without them it could not exercise any function at all, being in itself a sort of mechanical frame- work which is kept in action by the plasma supplied from the blood that it uses and exhausts in its function ; it feels therefore the least changes in the quality of the supply. But the structure itself wears out in time; it wears oiit naturally with the decay of old age, and it will wear out prematurely if an undue stress be put upon it habitually. The blood has not only to supply in the rich plasma the high potential force which is to be made actual energy in the discharge of nerve-function, but it has to keep in repair the nerve-structure ; and this it must fail to do when the latter is subjected continuously to an excessive strain. Because then of the deterioration which may be produced in nerve- elements by stress of function as well as by natural decay, and because also of temporary modifications of nerve-tone which seem to be produced by tinknown atmospheric conditions, I have thought it fitting to group the facts relating to the direct state of the nervous system under a separate heading. A state of moderate nervous exhaustion, whether from the fatigue of mental or bodily exercise or from some other cause, is notably most favourable to the induction of sleep. But when the exhaustion is carried to excess the propitious conditions are gone, and the person cannot sleep at all, or cannot sleep soundly : he may get fitful snatches of unrefreshing slumber in which he is pursued by dreams that are so like the rambling incongruities of half-waking fancy as to leave him in doubt whether ho actually slept or not. It is a well-known experience that a moral shock or a great trial which has produced much emotional agitation or strain in the day will trouble the slumbers of the night with distressing dreams ; and it is equally certain, though it is perhaps not so well known, that an exhausted and depressed state of the nervous system owing to indulgence in excesses of any kind, and especially sexual excesses, will have the same
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