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The First Belgian Congress of Neurology and Psychiatry

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

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Abstract

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Copyright © 2005 The Royal College of Psychiatrists 

ON Sept. 28th and 29th there was held at Liége, in connexion with the International Exhibition which is now in progress in the city, the first Belgian Congress of Neurology and Psychiatry. The opening meeting took place in the buildings of the university, where M. de Latour, Director-General of the Ministry of Justice, received delegates from France, Germany, Holland, Switzerland, Turkey, and Roumania. Dr. Glorieux began the formal business of the Congress by delivering an address dealing with the occurrence of neurasthenia among the working classes. This disease was, he remarked, popularly supposed to be confined almost entirely to persons for whom the struggle for existence was a mental rather than a physical one, though probably the unrestrained pursuit of pleasure was also in some degree responsible for its development. Statistics, however, showed that in both Germany and Belgium the incidence of neurasthenia upon artisans was very marked, while in Scandinavia insurance companies have been so severely taxed by the extension of the malady that they have found it advisable to construct special sanatoriums. Dr. Glorieux referred to the view that neurasthenia may be due to the toxic effects of influenza but he himself attributed the disease to the insanitary environment in which work is often carried on and he looked to the more general introduction of machinery and the consequent regulation of the conditions of labour for improvement in this regard. In the afternoon Mdlle. Joteyko, chief of the Psycho-Physiological Laboratory of the University of Brussels, contributed a paper on the Sense of Pain and Dr. Lannois of Lyons one upon Epileptiform Spasm of the Foot, while Dr. Heilporn of Antwerp described a case of Acromegaly. The morning of the second day was devoted to a visit to the asylum of St. Agatha and to the discussion of Dr. Cuylit's paper entitled ‘Work in the Therapeutics of Mental Maladies.’ A visit was also paid to the maison de santé at Glain and after lunch the scientific section of the exhibition was inspected.

References

Lancet, 7 October 1905, 1049.Google Scholar
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