On the nature and proximate cause of insanity / by James George Davey.

  • Davey, James George, 1813-1895.
Date:
1853
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the nature and proximate cause of insanity / by James George Davey. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    whether it be in cases of mania or dementia or melancholia, complicated or not with either epilepsy or general paralysis, it will be seen that the appearances, post mortem, are such, and so united the one with the other, whether of this or that structure, that nothing definite can be made of them, regarded only as causes of mental derangement and its complications ;—e. g. mania may be, and is, found with or without disorganiza- tion of the membranes,—with or without effusion into the sac of the archnoid,—with or without appre- ciable disintegration of the vesicular neurine or grey matter,—with or without abnormal changes in the white or medullary matter; and similarly of de- mentia; and so also of melancholia; and similarly, too, of both the complications of mania and dementia with either epilepsy or general paralysis. The tabular forms which accompany this essay may be said to furnish too much for any exclusive doctrine; for, if certain facts contained in Table No. 4, for instance, were isolated from the others therein registered, the theorist may stand a chance of con- vincing one of the truth of his delusions, not otherwise. If Bayle were to be told that the majority of the cases of mania herein recorded pre- sented signs of disease of the meninges, he would view the fact as demonstrative of his own exclusive system. If Calmeil, Foville, or Solly, were to be