1. Pathological Retrospect

1893 ◽  
Vol 39 (167) ◽  
pp. 576-581
Author(s):  
Edwin Goodall

Derkum (“Journ. Nervous and Mental Disease,” 1892, xvii.) gives an anatomical description of a (Chinese brain, the seventh which has been carefully examined. In this the features characteristic of the other brains were again noted, namely, unusual degree of convolution, disposition to anastomosis in the perpendicular and horizontal directions, and marked obliquity of the orbital surfaces of the frontal lobes (with the last-mentioned may probably be associated the peculiar position of the eyes in the Chinese). Blending of the central and Sylvian fissures is said to be a frequent feature of such brains. For other details see the original paper.

1902 ◽  
Vol 48 (202) ◽  
pp. 434-450 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. S. Clouston

Dr. Clouston said that when he suggested toxæmia to the secretary as a suitable subject for a discussion at this meeting he had not intended to be the first speaker, because his object was to bring out more fully the views of the younger members who had recently committed themselves so strongly to the toxæmic and bacterial etiology of insanity, and so to get light thrown on some of the difficulties which he and others had felt in applying this theory to many of their cases in practice. It was not that he did not believe in the toxic theory as explaining the onset of many cases, or that he under-rated its importance, but that he could not see how it applied so universally or generally as some of the modern pathological school were now inclined to insist on. He knew that it was difficult for those of the older psychological and clinical school to approach the subject with that full knowledge of recent bacteriological and pathological doctrine which the younger men possessed, or to breathe that all-pervading pathological atmosphere which they seemed to inhale. He desired to conduct this discussion in an absolutely non-controversial and purely scientific spirit. To do so he thought it best to put his facts, objections, and difficulties in a series of propositions which could be answered and explained by the other side. He thought it important to define toxæmia, but should be willing to accept Dr. Ford Robertson's definition of toxines, viz., “Substances which are taken up by the (cortical nerve) cell and then disorder its metabolism.” He took the following extracts from his address at the Cheltenham meeting of the British Association (1) as representing Dr. Ford Robertson's views and the general trend of much investigation and hypothesis on the Continent.


1899 ◽  
Vol 45 (189) ◽  
pp. 257-290 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. Lloyd Andriezen

Since the middle of the nineteenth century psychology has gradually come to be recognised as a branch of biological science. This is due to the influence of the works of Darwin and Herbert Spencer, of the Clinical and Neurological School of Meynert, Golgi, Cajal, Flechsig, and others, and recent developments in the Psychometric School of Fechner and Wundt on the other. The Alienistic School can render powerful aid to this movement; and though there are indications of the current in the proper direction, as shown more particularly in the work of Mercier (1) and Bevan Lewis (2), the end, however, cannot as yet be said to have been achieved, nor the movement to have become general. Psychology still lingers on the borderland of metaphysics; it has not yet been established on the firm rock of natural science. And while it thus lingers progress in knowledge is slow and restricted.


2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 147-154
Author(s):  
Aneta Perzyńska-Starkiewicz

Abstract In creating his Psychophysiological Theory, Jan Mazurkiewicz transplanted John Hughlings Jackson’s method into the field of psychiatry. Like his precursor, he distinguished four evolutionary levels, but this time with regard to mental activity. According to Mazurkiewicz’s approach, disease is the reverse of evolution. Doing damage to the highest evolutionary level, it allows evolutionarily lower levels to take control of the patient’s psyche. Distorted by the etiological factor, the lower mental levels manifest as mental disease. In his Psychophysiological Theory, Mazurkiewicz distinguishes three types of dissolution: intra-level dissolution (psychoneuroses), slow dissolution or dissociation proper (schizophrenia), and rapid, delirium-like dissolution (impaired consciousness). Kaczyński noted that, based on an in-depth analysis of the phylogenetic and ontogenetic development of the successive evolutionary levels of the nervous system, Mazurkiewicz transposed the principles of the Jacksonian concept of hierarchical evolution – dissolution. Within a dozen or so years from birth to maturity, the process of evolution of mankind is recapitulated, with the speed of lightning, in an individual – from instincts, which are phylogenetically the oldest, to the highest functions of the frontal lobes. The present paper makes mention of research conducted at Lublin’s Department of Psychiatry which expands on Mazurkiewicz’s theory.


1949 ◽  
Vol 95 (398) ◽  
pp. 180-181 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Meyer ◽  
M. Meyer

Hydén and Hartelius in a recent monograph (1) described nerve cell abnormalities which they consider to be characteristic of mental disease. Their investigations were based on biopsies obtained during prefrontal leucotomy carried out in 11 psychotic patients, 10 of whom belonged to the schizophrenic group. The biopsies were investigated by means of the ultraviolet microscope and the results compared with brain material from normal patients fixed a few hours after death. Two types of abnormal nerve cells were found in the psychotic patients: one type is narrow and shrunken with corkscrew-shaped apical process and appears dark in the photographs in contrast to the other type which is swollen and appears light in the photographs. Both these cells lacked polynucleotides in their cell bodies and contained only a small amount of other protein substances, as shown by the ultraviolet absorption spectra.


1873 ◽  
Vol 19 (87) ◽  
pp. 485-487

The proper treatment of mental disease must always be considered as involving two distinct divisions. In the one, “moral” management, it is necessary to gain regard and willing obedience, to check wayward impulse, to beat away disturbing fears, to cheer the despairing, to restrain, not by force, bat by patience and firmness, the angry and the violent, and to catch the moment in which the swiftly wavering mind may be brought to rest, and its balance permanently retained. The other division embraces the correct employment of hygienic and purely medical remedial agents.


1916 ◽  
Vol 62 (258) ◽  
pp. 624-626
Author(s):  
Philip Coombs Knapp

The author maintains the thesis that acute and borderland cases of mental disease can be received and temporarily cared for in general hospitals. He admits that mental patients are not looked upon with favour by the nursing staff or by the other patients, on account of—in many cases—their restless, noisy conduct. Yet almost all general hospitals must include at times among their inmates some patients who, in the course of treatment for such conditions as acute infections, accidents, etc., become turbulent and violent.


1910 ◽  
Vol 56 (233) ◽  
pp. 227-253 ◽  
Author(s):  
George A. Watson

The following observations are founded upon the records of 301 autopsies performed by myself at Rainhill Asylum. They are concerned principally with certain abnormal and morbid manifestations which occur within the crania of the insane. Of these the chief are, on the one hand, indications of subevolution, as shown by macroscopic structural defects of the cerebral hemispheres, such as deficiency of weight or of convolutional complexity, and on the other, evidence of dissolution as exhibited by wasting of the cerebral hemispheres. The relationship existing between these abnormal and morbid manifestations and certain other intracranial appearances is also discussed. No attempt, however, has been made—for reasons which will afterwards be given—at any close correlation between these abnormal and morbid manifestations and the mental states recorded during life. The observations, therefore, are of a pathological rather than a clinical nature.


1914 ◽  
Vol 60 (248) ◽  
pp. 30-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. E. Knowles Stansfield

When, towards the end of August, your Secretary wrote and asked me to give you a paper to-day on villa asylums, I was just arranging to start on my holidays, and I hesitated at first to accept his invitation, as I saw little or no prospect of being able to give the time necessary for the preparation of a paper worthy of the occasion. But, on the other hand, feeling more or less the responsibilities of a parent, seeing that this institution was in a great measure the outcome of my advocacy of the villa system, I felt compelled to make a special effort and try and give you something which would at any rate form a basis for what I hope may form a useful and interesting discussion.


1972 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 381-402
Author(s):  
M. J. WELLS ◽  
J. Z. YOUNG

1. After removal of the median inferior frontal lobe, blinded octopuses already trained to discriminate by touch between rough and smooth spheres continued to do so, but at a lower level of accuracy. 2. Animals without pre-training showed a strong tendency to take rough objects after this operation and learned to discriminate well only when trained to take rough and reject smooth. 3. When animals with intact inferior frontal lobes were given food in the presence of a smooth sphere they learned to take the smooth; in subsequent extinction tests they continued to take the smooth but soon ceased to take rough objects. 4. Animals without median inferior frontal lobes also increased their tendency to take a smooth object associated with food. But they did not behave in the same way as controls in extinction tests; they continued to take the rough objects even if they had not been rewarded for doing so. 5. Operated animals thoroughly pre-trained to take smooth objects showed some capacity to discriminate these from rough objects in subsequent successive training with food and shock, though continuing to take the rough far more than control animals. 6. Animals without brain damage could be taught to take smooth rather than rough objects on one side, and continued to do so when trained in the reverse direction on the other. There was, however, some lateral interference; performance on the unreversed side was worse after the introduction of reversed training. 7. Animals with lesions to the median inferior frontal lobe failed to learn on the reversal (rough+/smooth-) side, responses to both objects declining progressively as training continued. At the same time as this discrimination by the non-reversal (smooth+/rough-) side continued to develop. There was thus no evidence of lateral transfer in these animals. 8. It was confirmed that tactile learning is still possible after removal of the vertical and basal lobes, but with some decrease in the normal preference for smooth objects. 9. The median inferior frontal is thus not essential for tactile learning, but greatly facilitates it, making some contribution to the acquisition of both positive and negative responses, perhaps by spreading information through both sides of the touch-learning system. The effect of its removal in touch learning can be compared with the effect of vertical lobe removal on visual learning. It is concluded that one function of these parts is to compensate for the intensity of stimulation so that animals do not pay undue attention to brightly reflective or texturally rough objects.


Zootaxa ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 1461 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
KATSUYUKI EGUCHI ◽  
TUAN VIET BUI

The myrmicine ant genus Parvimyrma is newly established for a single new species found from N. Vietnam. The genus is undoubtedly placed in the Solenopsis genus group, and it is distinguished from the other genera belonging to the genus group by a combination of the following features: posteromedian portion of clypeus narrowly inserted between frontal lobes; masticatory margin of mandible with 5 distinct teeth; antenna 11-segmented, with a 2-segmented club; eye completely absent; promesonotum in profile almost flat or very weakly convex dorsally; metanotal groove relatively shallowly impressed dorsally; propodeum unarmed; propodeal spiracle small, situated a little behind the midlength of the sides of propodeum; metapleural gland large; petiolar peduncle with a small anteroventral process; postpetiole narrowly attached to the anteriormost end of gaster; sting poorly developed.


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