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MEDICAL AND

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Originally appearing in Volume V14, Page 599 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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MEDICAL AND See also:

GENERAL] symptoms. Physiological instability is usually manifested by neurotic persons under the See also:strain of any unusual See also:change in their environment. If, for instance, any material change in the See also:food See also:supply consisting either in a decrease of its quality or quantity, or in a failure to assimilate it properly, the See also:nerve-cells become exhausted and irritable, See also:sleep is diminished and a See also:condition known as the See also:delirium of collapse or exhaustion may supervene. An extreme instance of this condition is presented by the delirium occurring in shipwrecked persons, who having to take to the boats are suddenly deprived of food, See also:water or both. Poisoning of the See also:nervous See also:system may also result from the defective See also:action of See also:special glands such as the See also:thyroid, the See also:liver or the kidneys. These conditions are specially exemplified in the See also:mental disturbances which accompany exophthalmic See also:goitre, uraemic poisoning, and the conditions of depression which are observed in See also:jaundice and other forms of hepatic insufficiency. The results of See also:modern See also:research point to a growing belief in the frequency of infection of the nervous system from the hosts of micro-organisms which infest the alimentary See also:tract. No definite or substantiated discoveries have as yet been formulated which would justify us in treating this source of infection as more than a highly probable causative See also:influence. (b) When we turn, however, to the potentiality of infection by micro-organisms introduced from without into the system we are upon surer if not upon entirely definite ground. A special See also:form of See also:insanity called by See also:Weber, who first described it, the delirium of collapse, was observed by him to follow certain infectious diseases such as typhus See also:fever and See also:pneumonia. In later years it has been frequently observed to follow attacks of See also:influenza. Recently our views have broadened and we find that the delirium of collapse is an acute, confusional insanity which may arise without any previous febrile symptoms, and is in fact one of the See also:common forms of acute insanity.

The nature of the See also:

physical symptoms, the mental See also:con-See also:fusion and hallucinations which accompany it, as well as the fact that it frequently follows some other infective disease, leave no doubt as to its toxic origin. A similar and analogous condition is presented by incidence of general See also:paralysis after a previous syphilitic infection. The symptoms of general paralysis coupled with the extensive and rapid degeneration of not only the nervous but of the whole of the See also:body tissues point to a microbic disease of intense virulence which, though probably not syphilitic, is yet induced, and enhanced in its action by the previous devitalizing action of the syphilitic toxin. There is abundant See also:evidence to show that emotions which powerfully affect the mind, if See also:long continued, conduce towards a condition of metabolic change, which in its turn deleteriously affects the nervous system, and which may terminate in inducing a true toxic insanity. One of the best examples of insanity arising from micro-organisms is that form which occurs after childbirth, and which is known as puerperal See also:mania. Other insanities may, it is true, arise at this See also:period, but those which occur within the first fourteen days after parturition are generally of infective origin. The confusional nature of the mental symptoms, the delirium and the physical symptoms are sufficient indications of the See also:analogy of this form of mental See also:aberration with such other toxic forms of insanity as we find arising from septic wounds and which sometimes accompany the See also:early toxic stages of virulent infectious diseases such as typhus, See also:diphtheria or See also:malignant See also:scarlet fever. The infective origin of puerperal mania is undoubted, though, as yet, no special pathogenic organism has been isolated. Dr See also:Douglas (Ed. Med. Journ., 1897, i. 413) found the staphylococcus pyogenes aureus See also:present in the See also:blood in one See also:case; Jackman (quoted loc. cit.) found the micrococcus pneumonial crouposae in one case; while Haultain (Ed.

Med. Journ., 1897, ii. 131) found only the bacillus coli communis in the blood and secretions of several cases. From our experience of similar mental and physical symptoms produced as a result of septic wounds or which succeed surgical operations there seems to be no doubt that several forms of micro-cocci or streptococci of a virulent See also:

character are capable by means of the toxins they exude of causing acute delirium or mania of a confusional clinical type when introduced into the body. (c) Accidental and voluntary poisonings of the system which result in insanity are illustrated by the forms of insanity which follow See also:phosphorus or See also:lead poisoning and by See also:Pellagra. The voluntary See also:intoxication of the system by such drugs as morphia and See also:alcohol will be treated of below. 2 and 3. See also:Mechanical injuries to the See also:brain arise from See also:direct violence to the See also:skull, from apoplectic hemorrhage or embolism, or from rapidly growing tumours, or from arterial degeneration. The forms of insanity may be divided into (I.) Congenital Mental Defect and (II.) Acquired Insanity. I. Congenital Mental Defect.—The morbid mental conditions which fall to be considered under this See also:head are See also:Idiocy (with its modification, Imbecility) and See also:Cretinism (q.v.).

End of Article: MEDICAL AND

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