Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-xxrs7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-28T17:15:33.821Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Melancholia, from the Physiological and Evolutionary Points of View

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 February 2018

George M. Robertson*
Affiliation:
Royal Asylum, Morningside, Edinburgh

Extract

Probably no form of insanity includes so many varieties, or is characterized by so peculiar and even contradictory symptoms as melancholia. Under this form of mental derangement most authors include a variety they term excited or active melancholia which is characterized by a motor excitement, sometimes equalling that of acute mania, and they also include another variety termed melancholia with stupor, in which the patient remains absolutely motionless and quiet. Two more strikingly different varieties of insanity it would be impossible to describe, and we are at once confronted by the question — What explanation is there of the existence of these symptoms in melancholia?

Type
Part I.—Original Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1890

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

* “Textbook of Pathology,” p. 161.Google Scholar

* Gairdner, , “The Physician as Naturalist,” p. 259.Google Scholar

Darwin, , “Expression of the Emotions.”Google Scholar

Darwin, , “Descent of Man,” p. 137; and Maudsley, “Body and Mind,” p. 47.Google Scholar

§ Ladd's, “Elements of Physiological Psychology,” p. 516.Google Scholar

* Take, Hack, “Influence of Mind on the Body,” 2nd Edit, Vol. i., p. 228.Google Scholar

Archer, , “The Psychology of Acting.”Google Scholar

James, Prof., “Mind,” 1884, ix., p. 188.Google Scholar

§ Romanes', “Mental Evolution in Animals,” p. 342.Google Scholar

* Savage, , “Insanity,” Chap. vii., p. 151.Google Scholar

Darwin, , “Expression of the Emotions,” p. 178.Google Scholar

* See Clouston, , “Mental Diseases,” Lecture II. and III.Google Scholar

* “Mental Diseases,” 2nd Ed., p. 90.Google Scholar

* Savage, , “Insanity,” p. 179.Google Scholar

Clouston, , “Mental Diseases,” p. 289.Google Scholar

Playfair, Lyon Sir in “The Queen,” Feb. 16, 1889 (quoted from the N.Y. “Forum”).Google Scholar

* “Expression of the Emotions,” p. 280.Google Scholar

Lewes, G. H., “Problems of Life and Mind,” p. 385.Google Scholar

* Spencer, Herbert, “Principles of Sociology,” p. 53.Google Scholar

“Lancet,” p. 338, Sept. 4, 1875, on “Softening of the Brain.”Google Scholar

* Darwin, , “Expression of the Emotions,” p. 308.Google Scholar

Ibid. p. 28. “Certain complex actions are of direct or indirect service under certain states of the mind, in order to relieve or gratify certain sensations, desires, Ac.; and whenever the same state of mind is induced, however feebly there is a tendency through the force of habit and association for the same movements to be performed, though they may not then be of the least use.”Google Scholar

Bucknill, and Take, , “Psych. Med.,” 4th Ed., p. 449.Google Scholar

§ “Expression of the Emotions,” p. 178.Google Scholar

* Darwin, , “Expression,” p. 307.Google Scholar

“Emotions and Will,” Brain, p. 13. “Influence of the Mind upon the Body,” Hack Tuke, Vol. i., p. 163, 2nd. ed.Google Scholar

Darwin, , Essay on Instinct in Romanes' “Mental Evolution in Animals,” p. 365.Google Scholar

§ “Mental Evolution in Animals,” p. 306.Google Scholar

Romanes, Prof. Preyer, Prof. P. W. Duncan, and Couch.Google Scholar

Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.