American Journal of Insanity for January and July 1877
338 REVIEWS.
This valuable Journal, the chief organ for the discussion of Psychological Opinion in America, is now in its thirty-fourth year of circulation, and therefore may claim to be the oldest journal devoted to mental science in that country.
The number for January is replete with interesting matter. Dr Gray, the Editor of the Journal, commences the Jour- nal with a very able article on ? Pathological Researches,” an address delivered before the Association of Medical Superinten- dents of American Institutions for the Insane.
The natuie of the changes occurring in the brain in various diseases of the nerv ous system are considered, from acute Mania to the more chronic form of Insanity. We are reminded that the same Pathological laws are observed to influence the brain as with other organs in the body, but that the products are modified by the cell structure.
We are told that there are four different varieties of infiltration amyloid, calcification, pigmentation, and the fatty infiltration.
Each of these is ably described and the microscopic appear- ance given. _ The minute pathology of the brain cell is entered into in all its particulars and at length. This paper is a valuable addition to our pathological researches in the nervous system.
The case of Mrs. Norton, heard before the State Commis- sioners in Lunacy, for alleged grievances received by her whilst an inmate of the New ork Hospital, occupies over forty pages of the Journal. The case is well worthy of a careful perusal, is very instructive and ably discussed at length. The Journal concludes with bibliographical notices of American and English works on Psychology, and other news of interest.
Hie last number of this journal, for July, is more than usually important. The first article, by J. K. Bauduy, M.D., gives a finishing stroke to the modern unphilosophical doctrine of unconscious cerebration. The following passages are full of force and truthTo reflect, therefore, is to deliver one’s self up to the automatic action of cerebral cells, which, by mutual reactions and inter-associations, eliminate psychical force, which is therefore originated, controlled, and preserved by certain chemico-molecular or vital disturbances of their static equili- brium. This force is thus discharged or disgorged, and, like all purely material displays of functional activity, is only gauged and regulated by the physiological activities of the particular portions of the cerebral organism to which they appertain. Under these same circumstances memory merely represents a certain primordial property of nervous element. All the pro- cesses of intellectuality are performed in a blind, unconscious, irresistible manner. Automatic activity reigns supreme, and thereby becomes the sole force which rules and orders the intellectual operations.”
” Where heretofore we have believed in the existence of a soul, voluntary movement, free judgment, action impressed with the divine seal of intelligence, or the energetic manifesta- tion of personal liberty, the inspiration of genius, acts of heroism, we have all along been mistaken?alas ! such were only automatic, blind reactions, unconscious even of their own fatality. No matter how marvellous such psychic functions have appeared, they were only reflex phenomena perfected in the brain, where the materials, which were received under the guise of mere impressions of physical sensibility, become elaborated and accumulated by phosphorescent reactions and vibrations, which at the proper time were awakened to be auto- matically ejected, or thrust externally, resuming and blending the harmonic modalities, infinitely varied, and which were heretofore falsely interpreted as expressive of the voice, so to speak, of the human soul.”
” Are the heroic inspirations of Homer and Virgil, the admirable calculations of Newton, the splendid speculations of Descartes and of Leibnitz, the funeral orations of Bossuet, the immortal tragedies of Shakspeare and Racine, the chef d oeitvres of Michael Angelo, of Raphael, and of Rubens, the musical creations of Beethoven and of Meyerbeer, the science of an Alexander Yon Humboldt, the genius of Caesar and Napoleon, the researches and sparkling scintillations of Harvey, Virchow, Trousseau, Ray, Esquirol, and all the illustrious disciples of the great healing art; in a word, are all the literary, artistic, scientific, philosophical, medical, poetic, legal, rhetorical, and theological treasures of the world, are we to believe that they are all only the mere reflex products of nerv ous action ? Are such delicate and incalculably superior psychic develop- ments and attainments purely and essentially^ reflex actions, strictly analogous to automatic actions of the spinal marrow ? An article on “Mechanical Protection for the Violent Insane,” by Eugene Grissom, M.D., LL.D., is written in an im- partial spirit, and must convince an unprejudiced reader that mechanical restraint, in many cases, is not only admissible but advisable.
The paper on ” Katatonia a Clinical form of Insanity,” by Dr James Gr. Kiernan, contains an account of some singular examples of this peculiar disease.
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