The study of mental disease : being the introductory lecture delivered in the University of Edinburgh on the institution of the Lectureship on Mental Diseases, May 1879 / by T.S. Clouston.

Date:
1879
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The study of mental disease : being the introductory lecture delivered in the University of Edinburgh on the institution of the Lectureship on Mental Diseases, May 1879 / by T.S. Clouston. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    puerperal insanity, where 80 per cent, recover. Just before re- covery in almost all the cases which did get better, signs of physiolo- gical manhood appeared, the beard growing, the form expanding, etc. Whenever I see those signs in such cases accompanied by mental improvement, I am inclined to give a most favourable prognosis. The mortality was extraordinarily low, only three of the 180 cases having died. The great advantage of looking at a case of insanity not merely from the point of view of its mental symptoms, but in connexion with such a physiological period of life, is, that we come to know far more about it, and it has more interest. Such a view helps to form our prognosis, and guides us in our treatment and management. Just because those cases are connected with adolescence, I now never give them stimulants or stimulating food, using plentifully such foods as milk and cod-liver oil. I try and make them live as much as possible in the open air, and take mucli muscular exercise. I try to fatten them by easy means without stimulation, knowing that the completion of normal adolescence in both sexes should be characterized by a good amount of adipose tissue over the body. Under this treatment and regimen I think that more of them recover and fewer sink into dementia, than when no atten- tion was paid to the clinical grouping of such cases or their physio- logical aspects, and they were simply called cases of acute mania. I think, indeed, that to the practising physician it is of the utmost importance to find out which clinical group his cases belong to. Some kinds of insanity we can group as pathological varieties of disease; after death we can demonstrate the changes in the brain tissue, and distinctly connect them with the mental symptoms during life as in general paralysis and marked cases of senile de- mentia, etc. The following are the chief varieties of insanity according to the clinical classification : — 1. General Paralysis. 2. Paralytic Insanity {Organic Demen- tia). 3. Epileptic Insanity. 4. Syphilitic Insanity. 5. Alcoholic (and Toxic) Insanity. 6. Rheumatic, Choreic, and Gouty Insan- ity. 7. Phthisical Insanity. 8. Puerperal Insanity. 9. Lac- tational Insanity. 10. Insanity of Pregnancy. 11. Insanity of Masturbation. 12. Uterine and Ovarian Insanity. 13. Hyster- ical Insanity. 14 Congenital Insanity. 15. Pubescent and Adolescent Insanity. 16. Climacteric Insanity. 17. Senile EDINBURGH : PRINTED BY OLIVER AND BOYD.
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