An introductory lecture read at the opening of the clinique for nervous and mental diseases in the Royal Charité in Berlin, 1st May, 1866 / by Professor W. Griesinger ; translated by John Sibbald.

  • Griesinger, Wilhelm, 1817-1868.
Date:
1867
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An introductory lecture read at the opening of the clinique for nervous and mental diseases in the Royal Charité in Berlin, 1st May, 1866 / by Professor W. Griesinger ; translated by John Sibbald. 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.

    6/16 (page 6)
    hUrodnctory Lecture for tGmper. I was myself lately acquainted with several members of this family, aud the circumstances of others of them were communicated to me in Meriting. The greater number are well formed, strong, and some are really handsome persons; several are intellectual, useful in their condition of life, and some are held in high esteem. They bear no appearance of degeneration, the decided hereditary tendency has not as yet assumed the character of deterioration of race, and, what appears to me to be well worthy of remark, although there are in this family several suffering not only from mental but also from nervous symptoms, there is not among them a single epileptic. _ 2. More frequently, however, than those just mentioned, we find persons of hereditary neuropathic predisposition who have some- thing in their organization which distinguishes them from the majority of mankind, who by some form and in some part of their frame are marked as peculiarly afflicted by nature. These signs of degeneration may consist in very slight and minute changes. There may be counted among them, for exam])le, many peculiar forms of the external ear.* -And although we find these alterations in persons who in every other regard are normal, and where they may have little signification, we are scarcely on that account justified in con- sidering their appearance among those affected with nervous or mental disease as accidental, for it appears to be proved that these anomalies in the structure of the external ear are most frequent among that class of patients.f I am inclined to believe that there is also a certain condition of the eyes which may be considered as a sign of the neuropathic pre- disposition, though not, perhaps, of degeneration; for these eyes may be very beautiful. I will not, therefore, describe further this not very frequent appearance of the eye; but when it presents itself among our patients I shall not fail to direct your attention to it. The most unmistakable and striking manner, however, in which the degenerative character is shown is in the frequent condition of dwarfing of the body, retarded sexual development, malformations of the sexual organs,^ deficient formation of teeth, excessive action of the facial nerve of one side, especially disagreeable expression of the countenance, and last, and not least, in the different forms of mal- formations of the skull. In such families the strangest and most interesting combinations of nervous diseases occur. An epileptic * Morel,' De la Formation du Type,' &c., 1864, p. 36) considers the malforma- tion of the external ear as not necessarily a sign of degeneration, hut as for the moat part associated with a neuropathic condition of the parent. f Among the 104 insane persons who are at present in our lunatic department there are only 22 with perfectly complete and well-formed ears. X We have an extraordinary case of this kind in the department—a woman without a uterus. She had occasional attacks of erotic delirium, which, however, were of aomo duration.