General Library System Madison, WI 53706-1494 SEP - 5 1928 BLO PREFACE. THE first edition of the Physiology and Pathology of Mind was published in the year 1867, and the second edition in the year following. A third edition of the first part was published in the year 1876 as a separate treatise on the Physiology of Mind. In the order of time and development this volume on the Pathology of Mind is therefore a third edition of the second part; but in substance it is a new work, having been recast throughout, largely added to, and almost entirely rewritten. The new material which has been added includes chapters on "Dreaming" and on "Somnambulism and its Allied States," subjects which, although they may not perhaps be thought to appertain strictly to a treatise on mental pathology, will be found, when studied scientifically, to throw light upon its obscure phenomena and to help to bridge the gap between it and mental physiology. A perplexing impression was produced on my mind when I first began to study mental diseases—now upwards of twenty years ago-by the isolation in which they seemned to be. On the one hand, treatises on psychology made no mention of them, and gave not the least help towards an understanding of them; and, on the other hand, treatises on mental disorders, while giving full information concerning them, treated their subject as if it belonged to a science entirely distinct from that which was concerned with the sound mind. Inasmuch as psychological, physiological, and patho logical studies of mind were actually concerned with the sane subject-matter, it was obvious that methods of study which kept the different lines of inquiry entirely apart must be at fault somewhere, and that it would be a right aim, and one full of promise, to endeavour to bring them into relation with one another, and so to make psychology, physiology, and pathology throw light upon and give help to one another. The first edition, as stated in its preface, was the firstfruits of that endeavour, and the present volume, which embodies the results of deeper studies and more ripened experience, is the completion of it. The inclusion in it of chapters on the abnormal mental phenomena which are exhibited in dreams, hypnotism, ecstasy, catalepsy, and like states, is therefore a just part of the fulfilment of the general design. The same reason will, I trust, be held sufficient to justify the large amount of new and in some regards disputable matter which is included in the chapters on the "Causation and Prevention of Insanity." It seemed proper to emphasise the fact that insanity is really a social phenomenon, and to insist that it cannot be investigated satisfactorily and apprehended rightly except it be studied from a social point of view. In that way only, I believe, can its real nature and meaning as an aberrant phenomenon be perceived and understood. In recasting the plan of the work I have thought it right therefore, in the chapter on Causation, first to treat generally of the etiology of mental derangement from a social standpoint, so fulfilling the requirements of its organic relations, so to speak, in the social organism; and, secondly, to treat particularly of its pathological causation, so connecting it with the general pathology of nervous disease, and answering the requirements of scientific pathology. In describing the symptoms of insanity, I have thought it well again, first, to treat it generally as one disease, setting forth the varieties of symptoms which it presents at different times and at different stages of its course; and, secondly, to occupy a separate chapter with the delineation of the different clinical groups of mental disorders which are met with in practice and have to be dealt with by the physician. In this way I hope to have met the obligations of a true scientific exposition and the more practical needs of those who have to form an opinion concerning the cause, the course, the probable termination, and the proper treatment of a particular case of disease. Had the chapter on Symptomatology been left out, the omission must needs have entailed a great deal of vague repetition in the description of the clinical groups, with the certain effect of blurring their outlines and features, and of confusing the reader; had the special chapter describing these groups been omitted, he would have obtained only a vague and general notion of the symptoms of mental derangement, without that more definite and practical acquaintance with its clinical varieties, which, now that we are able, I think, to delineate their features, ought to form part of a treatise on mental disorders. Whatever be the value of the clinical pictures in this volume, they have certainly been drawn from life, and had space permitted I might have illustrated each line of description by the records of cases. The full and analytical Index which has been added will serve not only to make reference easy, but will enable the reader to judge what sort of fare he may expect if he is minded to make trial of it. |