Scientific American Supplement, No. 299, September 24, 1881Various
Science
Scientific American Supplement, No. 299, September 24, 1881
Various
Science -- Periodicals
by which he lays his plans and fulfills his morbidly conceived
intention, are performed with perfect sanity, as by a sane will. It is
important to recognize this. There is no difference in _nature_ between
the mental operation by which a "sane" man contrives and executes a
crime, and that by which a known "lunatic" will commit the like offense.
There may be as much _method_ in the one instance as in the other, and
the faculties which exhibit this method may be as sound and effective,
but in the one case the idea behind the act is sane, while in the other
it is insane. The brain is not one large homogeneous organ to be
healthy or diseased, orderly or deranged, throughout at any one period.
Inflammations, and diseases generally, which affect the brain as a whole
do not commonly cause insanity properly so called. The organ of the
mind is a composite, or aggregate of cells, or molecules, any number
or series of which may be affected with disease while the rest remain
healthy. At present we are only on the threshold of investigation
concerning the physical causes of insanity, and have scarcely done more
than recognize the possibility of _molecular_ disease of the brain.
Hereafter science will, probably, succeed in unveiling the obscure facts
of molecular brain pathology, and enable the medical psychologist to
predicate disease of recognized classes of brain elements from the
special phenomena of mind disturbance. This is the line of inquiry, and
the result, to which the progress already made distinctly tends. For the
present, the inferences we can surely draw from known facts are
very few; but prominent among the number are certain which it is
all-important to recognize in view of the judgment which must hereafter
be formed on the two cases now engaging public attention on both sides
of the Atlantic. The existence of method in madness is no marvel, and
that characteristic cannot therefore be supposed, or alleged, to weigh
as evidence against the "insanity" of the criminal. The perpetrators of
these heinous offenses against common right and public safety may be
more or less responsible for their acts, and, so far as these are
concerned, more or less sane or insane. The measure of the morbid
element in their individual cases will be the health or disease of the
particular part or element of the brain from which the offense sprang.
The ultimate judgment formed must be determined upon the basis of
scientific tests to be applied to the action of the brain alleged to be
the subject of partial or incipient disease. There is nothing in the
facts as they stand to supply the materials for a judgment. Precise
scientific inquiry can alone solve the enigma each case presents.
* * * * *
SIMPLE METHODS TO STAUNCH ACCIDENTAL HEMORRHAGE.
By EDWARD BORCK, M.D., St. Louis, Mo.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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