Thoughts on the causation of insanity / by John P. Gray.

  • Gray, John P. (John Purdue), 1825-1886.
Date:
[1872?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Thoughts on the causation of insanity / by John P. Gray. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    not a physiological factor? Should there not therefore be, under ordinary influences of life, a stronger tend- ency to return to a healthy than to degenerate into an unhealthy type, as a law of nature ? In this contest, Avhich would he most likely to succeed, the law of na- ture for her preservation, or the law of degeneracy for her destruction % We think Prof. Maudsley admits the former in the very words of his proposition. The important practical consideration is not to show the biological process by which certain agencies act on the brain to induce disease of that organ; to show that emotion, for instance, increases or decreases the circula- tion in the brain. This abstruse influence, which be- longs to the mysterious inter-relation of mind and body may always evade research. The fact we know, but the primary cause, or just how mind influences matter, we may never know. To say that the mind influences physiological states, is to announce a belief in the possible predominance of the spiritual being over the material structure through which it manifests its ex- istence in the world. This being, in its phenomena, as we observe them, is characterized by spontaneity and by volitional power; the power to originate, to will and to do. The body constantly obeys its dictates, whether in accordance with its preservation and seeming comfort, or in violation of laws of preservation. The body is con- stantly under its guidance. This is the case whether in a state of sanity or of insanity. Every day we see that grief brings tears ; that anger and revenge have expres- sion in the face; that joy has its corresponding physical expression; that habitual mental cultivation will change the physiognomic expression. Now the study of all these phenomena belongs to physiology and psychology, or the relation of mind and body in health. When we have enumerated all the passions, grief, joy, anger, pleasure,