Journal of Psychological Medicine and Mental Pathology (Volume 15) (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: an important epoch in our knowledge of vital periodicity, but it fully justifies us in asserting (what Dr. Laycock nearly twenty years ago almost ventured to assert), that " the scientific observation and treatment of disease are impossible without a knowledge of the mysterious revolutions continually taking place in the system." Art. IV. ?ON HALLUCINATIONS IN THEIR RELATION TO MEDICAL JURISPRUDENCE. By A. Brierre De Boismont. (Continued from No. IV., p. 668.) Not only are figures, objects of sight, metamorphosed to the subjects of hallucination, but words, and auditions, in the absence of sound, submit to the same transformations, and enter into the system of morbid interpretation peculiar to the insane. These strange modifications constitute for the patient a fantastical world in which he lives exclusively, to which all his impressions are related, whilst the actual world is to him a mere secondary matter.) One of the most curious facts of this nature is the case of one of our boarders, who pretended that every one treated her as an idiot or a fool; if any one laughed or spat, it was to scorn or insult her. The cries of the street, the barking of dogs, the neighing of horses, the cracking of whips, the breaking of anything, were so many proofs of malevolence against her; her words, her thoughts, were instantly incriminated. If she appeared at a window, people withdrew. As to everything else, her reason was perfect. We were acquainted with another lady who imagined that coachmen, horses, carriages stopped or made burlesque attitudes at her. The belief of the hallucinated with regard to this class of subjects is uncontrolled either by reason or passion, because there is no counterpoise which can weigh down the balance. Thus mastered by his delirious convictions he may...