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On the present State of our Knowledge regarding General Paralysis of the Insane
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 February 2018
Extract
Medical Psychologists have long been familiar with a peculiar form of disease which is characterised by a combination of disorders of the intellectual and motor faculties. The French physicians, to whom is due the honour of having first minutely described it, have given to it various names, according to the views then generally held and the special opinions of the individual observers: General incomplete paralysis (Delaye); general paralysis of the insane (Calmeil); general progressive paralysis (Requin, Sandras); paralytic insanity (Parchappe), &c. In Germany the terms general paralysis, paralysis of the insane, and most recently paralytic dementia have been generally employed. Familiar though this disease has become to medical psychologists, and though much discussion has taken place regarding it, within a narrow sphere, still slight has been the interest hitherto taken in extending that sphere. These poor patients, whose treatment either cannot or can only with great difficulty be pursued in the ordinary relations of life, who from henceforth appear hopeless, are gladly handed over to physicians to the insane, and with the entrance of the patient into the asylum all interest in the disease ceases. The time is, I believe, at hand when in regard to this, as well as to many other matters, the veil of the asylum will be removed, when once for all the barriers will be thrown down which divide mental pathology, as we must still call it, from that of the remainder of the nervous system. Each has a series of facts to oppose to the other, and it is certainly surprising how many points of connection there are between them. The question is merely one of comprehension: mental pathology often manifests itself in a manner which outwardly is not easily understood, though it must be admitted sufficient pains have not always been taken to understand these manifestations.
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- Part I.—Original Articles
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- Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1868
References
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