Diet as a Factor in the Causation of Mental Disease

1916 ◽  
Vol 62 (258) ◽  
pp. 505-529
Author(s):  
Chas. Mercier
Keyword(s):  
Present State ◽  
Mental Disease ◽  
Good Deal ◽  
New Disease ◽  
Nervous Disease ◽  
General Paralysis ◽  
Dark Ages ◽  
Mental Diseases ◽  
The World ◽  
The Universe

It is just forty years since I first ventured to call in question the accepted doctrines of the causation of nervous diseases. In an article in the British and Foreign Medical and Chirurgical Review, an excellent quarterly now long defunct, I likened the imagination of physicians in this respect to the imagination of that fortunate sailor to whom was granted (nowadays we should say who was given) the fairy privilege of having three wishes fulfilled. After he had secured all the rum in the world and all the tobacco in the world by his first two wishes, he could think of nothing further to desire than “a little more rum.” So physicians, after they had attributed every known nervous disease to sexual excess and syphilis, had no explanation of a new disease to offer beyond a little more sexual excess. The only nervous diseases that were not then attributed partly or wholly to syphilis were tabes and general paralysis. Some five-and-twenty years ago, when an eminent physician was about to lecture upon the causes of insanity, I hazarded the conjecture that we should hear a good deal about masturbation, and I had no reason to repent of my prophecy. We may be pardoned a little natural exultation when we contrast the present state of ætiological doctrine with that which prevailed in those dark ages. We had then no more reason for our belief than Aristotle had for the belief that all heavy bodies tend to the centre of the universe, but now we know that the mental diseases that we used fondly to ascribe to sexual excess and syphilis are, in fact, due to repressed complexes and infantile incestuous longings. How foolish were our predecessors! How enlightened are we!

Empedocles (c.495–c.435 BC)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Malcolm Schofield
Keyword(s):  
Good Deal ◽  
Comparative Morphology ◽  
Basic Structure ◽  
Sense Perception ◽  
Animal Sacrifice ◽  
Biological Phenomena ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Clear Relation

Empedocles, born in the Sicilian city of Acragas (modern Agrigento), was a major Greek philosopher of the Presocratic period. Numerous fragments survive from his two major works, poems in epic verse known later in antiquity as On Nature and Purifications. On Nature sets out a vision of reality as a theatre of ceaseless change, whose invariable pattern consists in the repetition of the two processes of harmonization into unity followed by dissolution into plurality. The force unifying the four elements from which all else is created – earth, air, fire and water – is called Love, and Strife is the force dissolving them once again into plurality. The cycle is most apparent in the rhythms of plant and animal life, but Empedocles’ main objective is to tell the history of the universe itself as an exemplification of the pattern. The basic structure of the world is the outcome of disruption of a total blending of the elements into main masses which eventually develop into the earth, the sea, the air and the fiery heaven. Life, however, emerged not from separation but by mixture of elements, and Empedocles elaborates an account of the evolution of living forms of increasing complexity and capacity for survival, culminating in the creation of species as they are at present. There followed a detailed treatment of a whole range of biological phenomena, from reproduction to the comparative morphology of the parts of animals and the physiology of sense perception and thinking. The idea of a cycle involving the fracture and restoration of harmony bears a clear relation to the Pythagorean belief in the cycle of reincarnations which the guilty soul must undergo before it can recover heavenly bliss. Empedocles avows his allegiance to this belief, and identifies the primal sin requiring the punishment of reincarnation as an act of bloodshed committed through ‘trust in raving strife’. Purifications accordingly attacked the practice of animal sacrifice, and proclaimed prohibition against killing animals to be a law of nature. Empedocles’ four elements survived as the basis of physics for 2,000 years. Aristotle was fascinated by On Nature; his biology probably owes a good deal to its comparative morphology. Empedocles’ cosmic cycle attracted the interest of the early Stoics. Lucretius found in him the model of a philosophical poet. Philosophical attacks on animal sacrifice made later in antiquity appealed to him as an authority.

scholarly journals Skae's Classification of Mental Diseases

1876 ◽  
Vol 21 (96) ◽  
pp. 532-550 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. S. Clouston
Keyword(s):  
Mental Disease ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Medical Psychology ◽  
Good Place ◽  
Mental Diseases ◽  
The World ◽  
Psychological Medicine ◽  
Good For ◽  
As If

When I saw in the last number of this journal that Dr Crichton Browne had essayed the task of criticising the system of classification of insanity devised by the late Dr. Skae, I knew the fact could not but be gratifying to Skae's friends. To have any system or theory subjected to independent criticism is very good for it. Then I could not forget that some of those who had advocated most earnestly Skae's classification had been pupils, assistants, and friends of his during life; and I was conscious, from my own experience, how much anyone in that position was inclined to look partially on his work. I felt sure that Dr. Browne, while seeing this, would not, in those circumstances, consider it a mortal sin, and would pass it gently and generously by. Indeed, I was a little afraid that he himself, as an old pupil of Skae, might be tempted to soften the stern tone befitting a critic, by something of the same pardonable feeling. He has striven to resist this impulse, and with much success. Another reason why I rejoiced that the merits of this system should be canvassed was, that I thought with, perhaps, natural partiality, that everyone must necessarily see something good in it; and that the fact of its being looked closely into by a competent and unbiased mind would produce a better understanding of Skae's point of view, and a more thorough sifting of the tares from the wheat. Not that such criticism had been wanting either at home or abroad. The system had been before the world for twelve years. The authors of all the standard books on psychological medicine and papers on classification published since that time had discussed its merits; and it did seem as if it were growing in favour. Maudsley, in each successive edition, had seemed to make more and more account of it; Blandford had assigned it a good place amongst other systems; Hack Tuke had given high praise to all the “somato-etiological” systems of looking at and classifying mental disease, and to Skae's in particular; Mitchell had declared it had taken hold of the medical mind; Thompson Dickson had said there was some good in it; and finally, that Nestor of alienists, whom Dr. Browne fitly describes as “the most illustrious representative of English medical psychology now living,” Bucknill, had given it the truest flattery of all by incorporating its nomenclature in the orders, genera, and species of that classification which is the final result of his vast experience, the generalised sum of all his thinking. All these, and more, had found it had faults; but they all speak of it and its author with much respect. Then it is a mere matter of fact that its terminology had become a part—and an essential part—of recent writings on nervous and mental disease.

The Bacteriological Examination of the Urine in some Cases of General Paralysis

1913 ◽  
Vol 59 (247) ◽  
pp. 596-605 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Barton White
Keyword(s):  
Mental Disease ◽  
Intestinal Flora ◽  
Bacteriological Examination ◽  
General Paralysis ◽  
Pathological Conditions ◽  
Mental Diseases ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Micro Organisms

The occurrence of micro-organisms in the urine is well known to be associated with a variety of pathological conditions, among which mental diseases have been included. A definite connection between urinary bacteria and insanity, however, does not seem to have been made out, the subject being even more obscure than the relation of the intestinal flora to mental disease, which has been much more frequently investigated.

The Alienist Department of India

1932 ◽  
Vol 78 (321) ◽  
pp. 331-341 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. S. Jagoe Shaw
Keyword(s):  
Mental Disorders ◽  
Small Group ◽  
Mental Disease ◽  
Good Deal ◽  
Present Situation ◽  
Central Hospital ◽  
General Review ◽  
Medical Superintendent ◽  
Senior Officer ◽  
Mental Diseases

In view of the present situation in India, it seems advisable to place on record a short general review of the position of psychiatry there, and of the difficulties that have delayed improvement during the twenty years of my own experience. Having joined the Department in 1906, and having served in it since then, as Medical Superintendent, in succession, of the Punjab Asylum, Lahore, the Burma Asylum, Rangoon, and the Central Hospital for Mental Diseases, Yeravda, Poona (the last since 1912), I feel qualified to criticize it now. From 1912 until my retirement in 1926 I was the Senior Officer of the Department. By the term “Alienist Department of India” I refer to the system of asylums and mental hospitals “established” or “licensed” by the Provincial Governments for the treatment of mental disorders under the Indian Lunacy Act of 1912, and to the small group of specialists who have managed them, both before and since the coming of that Act into force. Only those institutions “established” by Government need be considered, because, as far as I am aware, no private “licensed” hospitals exist. This fact alone indicates the degree of interest that the more educated Indians take in the treatment of mental disease. The Parsis, however, have, in my experience, done a good deal to ameliorate the condition of the insane in Bombay, but this race is a small one, numbering only some 101,000.

Empedocles (c.495–c.435 BC)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Malcolm Schofield
Keyword(s):  
Good Deal ◽  
Comparative Morphology ◽  
Basic Structure ◽  
Sense Perception ◽  
Animal Sacrifice ◽  
Biological Phenomena ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Clear Relation

Empedocles, born in the Sicilian city of Acragas (modern Agrigento), was a major Greek philosopher of the Presocratic period. Numerous fragments survive from his two major works, poems in epic verse known later in antiquity as On Nature and Purifications. On Nature sets out a vision of reality as a theatre of ceaseless change, whose invariable pattern consists in the repetition of the two processes of harmonization into unity followed by dissolution into plurality. The force unifying the four elements from which all else is created – earth, air, fire and water – is called Love, and Strife is the force dissolving them once again into plurality. The cycle is most apparent in the rhythms of plant and animal life, but Empedocles’ main objective is to tell the history of the universe itself as an exemplification of the pattern. The basic structure of the world is the outcome of disruption of a total blending of the elements into main masses which eventually develop into the earth, the sea, the air and the fiery heaven. Life, however, emerged not from separation but by mixture of elements, and Empedocles elaborates an account of the evolution of living forms of increasing complexity and capacity for survival, culminating in the creation of species as they are at present. There followed a detailed treatment of a whole range of biological phenomena, from reproduction to the comparative morphology of the parts of animals and the physiology of sense perception and thinking. The idea of a cycle involving the fracture and restoration of harmony bears a clear relation to the Pythagorean belief in the cycle of reincarnations which the guilty soul must undergo before it can recover heavenly bliss. Empedocles avows his allegiance to this belief, and identifies the primal sin requiring the punishment of reincarnation as an act of bloodshed committed through ‘trust in raving strife’. Purifications accordingly attacked the practice of animal sacrifice, and proclaimed prohibition against killing animals to be a law of nature. Empedocles’ four elements survived as the basis of physics for 2,000 years. Aristotle was fascinated by On Nature; his biology probably owes a good deal to its comparative morphology. Empedocles’ cosmic cycle attracted the interest of the early Stoics. Lucretius found in him the model of a philosophical poet. Philosophical attacks on animal sacrifice made later in antiquity appealed to him as an authority.

Insane Movements and Obsession

1909 ◽  
Vol 55 (230) ◽  
pp. 500-509
Author(s):  
J. Lougheed Baskin
Keyword(s):  
Mental Disease ◽  
Early Period ◽  
Advanced Age ◽  
Nervous Disease ◽  
General Paralysis ◽  
Open Window ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Mind

One cannot visit the wards of an asylum without realising that there are many types of mental disease, each with its own symptoms and physical signs, and that intercurrent and overlapping affections of the mind are especially common; thus, in maniacal excitement you may find delusions, in paranoia you find delusions with marked impairment of judgment, in general paralysis you get, in addition to physical signs, delusions, which vary from the facility of the early period to the more difficult mentation found in the advanced age, so that here we have three distinct types of disease, each of which may have delusions, and the delusions may all be of the exalted variety— the patients may consider themselves gods, kings, or mighty personages. The progress of research has had more difficulties to contend with in the subject of mind than in almost any other. It is a subject which is intangible, yet its reactions can be timed. It is unseen, yet its force can manifest itself in various ways through various channels, and it is even possible to transfer it from one person to another if the medium is so constituted, as in hypnotism, thought transference, and similar phenomena. It may occur to you to ask why has the subject of insane movement and obsession been chosen for this paper; well, gentlemen, for some years it has been my lot to witness, on my daily round of the wards, grotesque movements, antics and pantomimic display by patients, which, were they not interesting as symptoms and physical signs of nervous disease, might otherwise be depressing because of their meaninglessness. About three years ago, however, I had my attention drawn to a woman who seemed engaged in making movements, the precise character of which I had not read of or seen before in any asylum. I shall show you this patient making these movements by means of the cinematograph. We would have brought her here only she obstinately refuses to operate when watched, and it was necessary to have the cinematograph pictures focussed through a partly open window when she least suspected observation. Gentlemen, we are well acquainted with such terms as insane acts, insane expression, insane language, insane conduct, and insane movements.

Nomenclature of Mental Diseases

1903 ◽  
Vol 49 (205) ◽  
pp. 236-245 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. R. Urquhart
Keyword(s):  
Chronic Disease ◽  
Mental Disorders ◽  
Present State ◽  
Royal College ◽  
Mental Disease ◽  
The Other ◽  
Medical Society ◽  
The Third ◽  
Mental Diseases

I have ventured to suggest that we should now consider what we are going to do about the classification of mental disorders. Lately, the Royal College of Physicians of London decided to revise the Nomenclature of Diseases, and publish another edition. The President of this College is on the Committee; as is also Dr. Savage, our colleague in London, who has taken much interest in this question. I was somewhat surprised the other day when I asked for a copy of the Nomenclature of Diseases in the Royal Medical Society of London, to find that they did not have a copy in their library—a book which is supposed to guide the profession in the statistical registration of diseases. In 1896, for the third edition, an attempt was made to reform the nomenclature of mental diseases, under the direction of Dr. Hack Tuke and Dr. Savage. In its present state it is still unsatisfactory. The classification with which we have to deal is as follows:—First, there is “idiocy (cretinism), and then mania (acute or chronic), delirious, hysterical, puerperal, epileptic, traumatic, syphilitic, gouty, from either acute or chronic disease, alcoholic, plumbic, or other poisons.” Acute is an absurd word, because we specially want to mark the duration. Acute should be rendered Recent. Then there is “melancholia (acute or chronic), delirious, hypochondriac, climacteric, puerperal, epileptic, syphilitic, acute, other diseases.” Then there is “dementia (primary or secondary), senile, climacteric, puerperal, epileptic, traumatic, syphilitic, acute, other diseases.” Then there is “mental stupor, anergic, delusional.” Then there is “general paralysis.” That is not a mental disease. Lastly, there is “delusional insanity.”

Therapy and prevention for mental health: What if mental diseases are mostly not brain disorders?

2019 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
Author(s):  
John P. A. Ioannidis
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Mental Disease ◽  
Brain Disorders ◽  
Social Stressors ◽  
Labor Education ◽  
Mental Diseases ◽  
Long Term Follow Up ◽  
Political Decisions

AbstractNeurobiology-based interventions for mental diseases and searches for useful biomarkers of treatment response have largely failed. Clinical trials should assess interventions related to environmental and social stressors, with long-term follow-up; social rather than biological endpoints; personalized outcomes; and suitable cluster, adaptive, and n-of-1 designs. Labor, education, financial, and other social/political decisions should be evaluated for their impacts on mental disease.

‘A pinch of unseen, unguarded dust’: The World and Self in Thomas Hardy's Poems

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-66
Author(s):  
Monika Szuba
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
The Self ◽  
Phenomenological Philosophy ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The World ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Recurrent Theme ◽  
Body Subject

The essay discusses selected poems from Thomas Hardy's vast body of poetry, focusing on representations of the self and the world. Employing Maurice Merleau-Ponty's concepts such as the body-subject, wild being, flesh, and reversibility, the essay offers an analysis of Hardy's poems in the light of phenomenological philosophy. It argues that far from demonstrating ‘cosmic indifference’, Hardy's poetry offers a sympathetic vision of interrelations governing the universe. The attunement with voices of the Earth foregrounded in the poems enables the self's entanglement in the flesh of the world, a chiasmatic intertwining of beings inserted between the leaves of the world. The relation of the self with the world is established through the act of perception, mainly visual and aural, when the body becomes intertwined with the world, thus resulting in a powerful welding. Such moments of vision are brief and elusive, which enhances a sense of transitoriness, and, yet, they are also timeless as the self becomes immersed in the experience. As time is a recurrent theme in Hardy's poetry, this essay discusses it in the context of dwelling, the provisionality of which is demonstrated in the prevalent sense of temporality, marked by seasons and birdsong, which underline the rhythms of the world.

Imaginings

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 17-30
Author(s):  
Kelly James Clark
Keyword(s):  
Religious Tradition ◽  
Second Order ◽  
Fine Tuning ◽  
Intellectual Humility ◽  
First Order ◽  
Natural Processes ◽  
Empirically Supported ◽  
Group Violence ◽  
The World ◽  
The Universe

In Branden Thornhill-Miller and Peter Millican’s challenging and provocative essay, we hear a considerably longer, more scholarly and less melodic rendition of John Lennon’s catchy tune—without religion, or at least without first-order supernaturalisms (the kinds of religion we find in the world), there’d be significantly less intra-group violence. First-order supernaturalist beliefs, as defined by Thornhill-Miller and Peter Millican (hereafter M&M), are “beliefs that claim unique authority for some particular religious tradition in preference to all others” (3). According to M&M, first-order supernaturalist beliefs are exclusivist, dogmatic, empirically unsupported, and irrational. Moreover, again according to M&M, we have perfectly natural explanations of the causes that underlie such beliefs (they seem to conceive of such natural explanations as debunking explanations). They then make a case for second-order supernaturalism, “which maintains that the universe in general, and the religious sensitivities of humanity in particular, have been formed by supernatural powers working through natural processes” (3). Second-order supernaturalism is a kind of theism, more closely akin to deism than, say, Christianity or Buddhism. It is, as such, universal (according to contemporary psychology of religion), empirically supported (according to philosophy in the form of the Fine-Tuning Argument), and beneficial (and so justified pragmatically). With respect to its pragmatic value, second-order supernaturalism, according to M&M, gets the good(s) of religion (cooperation, trust, etc) without its bad(s) (conflict and violence). Second-order supernaturalism is thus rational (and possibly true) and inconducive to violence. In this paper, I will examine just one small but important part of M&M’s argument: the claim that (first-order) religion is a primary motivator of violence and that its elimination would eliminate or curtail a great deal of violence in the world. Imagine, they say, no religion, too.Janusz Salamon offers a friendly extension or clarification of M&M’s second-order theism, one that I think, with emendations, has promise. He argues that the core of first-order religions, the belief that Ultimate Reality is the Ultimate Good (agatheism), is rational (agreeing that their particular claims are not) and, if widely conceded and endorsed by adherents of first-order religions, would reduce conflict in the world.While I favor the virtue of intellectual humility endorsed in both papers, I will argue contra M&M that (a) belief in first-order religion is not a primary motivator of conflict and violence (and so eliminating first-order religion won’t reduce violence). Second, partly contra Salamon, who I think is half right (but not half wrong), I will argue that (b) the religious resources for compassion can and should come from within both the particular (often exclusivist) and the universal (agatheistic) aspects of religious beliefs. Finally, I will argue that (c) both are guilty, as I am, of the philosopher’s obsession with belief. 

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