On Man's Power Over Himself to Prevent or Control Insanity (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1849 Excerpt: ... ON MAN'S POWER OVER HIMSELF TO PREVENT OR CONTROL INSANITY. 1. r I 'WO years ago, I had the honour of '-submitting to you some views with regard to intellectual science, which appeared necessarily to result from recent discoveries in anatomy.--Now it is the property of all scientific views, if true, that they announce a few simple principles which admit of an extensive practical application; and I endeavoured to apply this test to the theory I then brought forward as to the dual nature of man. I asked myself how it bore on that most terrible of all diseases connected with the brain--madness; and I found that wise and good men, even without thinking of the theory, had practically applied it in the treatment of maniacs; whose intelligent will they had roused to a certain degree of self-control by a system of kind and rational treatment, instead of the chains and whips of former times. Still, if I might credit the assertion of a gentleman whose experience gives him a claim to attention, Dr. Thomas Mayo, though facts were accumulated, an hypothesis, which should give these facts the character of results from great principles, was wanting: --and I asked myself further, if a theory, which coincided with the views of so many men illustrious in science, might not have enough of the characters of truth to supply the desideratum which Dr. Mayo points out. 2. In order to make myself clearly understood, it will be necessary to take a brief view of the structure and functions of the brain and nerves, as explained in my former communication. This apparatus consists of exceedingly minute hollow filaments, filled with a semi-fluid substance. These filaments are either compressed into a mass, as is the case in the brain and those brainlike structures called ganglia--or...