Volume 1

A new view of insanity : the duality of the mind proved by the structure, functions, and diseases of the brain, and by the phenomena of mental derangement, and shewn to be essential to moral responsibility. With an appendix: 1. On the influence of religion on insanity. 2. Conjectures on the nature of the mental operations. 3. On the management of lunatic asylums / by A.L. Wigan.

  • Wigan, A. L. (Arthur Ladbroke), 1785-1847.
Date:
1844
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A new view of insanity : the duality of the mind proved by the structure, functions, and diseases of the brain, and by the phenomena of mental derangement, and shewn to be essential to moral responsibility. With an appendix: 1. On the influence of religion on insanity. 2. Conjectures on the nature of the mental operations. 3. On the management of lunatic asylums / by A.L. Wigan. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    brain to exercise and strengthen its control over the unsound brain. 13. That the power of the higher organs of the intellect to coerce the mere instincts and propen- sities, as well as the power of one cerebrum to contro] the volitions of the other, may be indefi- nitely increased by exercise and moral cultivation ; may be partially or wholly lost by desuetude or neglect; or, from depraved habits and criminal indulgence in childhood, and a general vicious education in a polluted moral atmosphere, may never have been acquired. 14, That one cerebrum may be entirely destroyed by disease, cancer, softening, atrophy, or absorp- tion; may be annihilated, and in its place a yawning chasm; yet the mind remain complete and capable of exercising its functions in the same manner and to the same extent that one eye is capable of exercising the faculty of vision when its fellow is injured or destroyed; although there are some exercises of the brain, as of the eye, which are better performed with two organs than one. In the case of vision, the power of measuring dis- tances for example, and in the case of the brain, the power of concentrating the thoughts upon one subject, deep consideration, hard study; but in this latter case, it is difficult to decide how far the diminished power depends on diminution of general vigour from formidable and necessarily fatal disease. 15. That a lesion or injury of both cerebra is in- compatible with such an exercise of the intellec- tual functions, as the common sense of mankind would designate sound mind.
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