Insanity

Abstract

NULLUS cui genus humanum obnoxium est morbus, tam multum nostram movet commiserationem quam qui ex privatione animi virium constat, quibus imperantur propensiones nostrae, quibusque cum societate relationes conservantur. Et vere dicatur, nullum esse morbum, qui tam parvam explicationem a medicis recepit; et minimè mirum est, dum animadvertamus, plerosque eorum nisi nuperrimè, aut administrationi hominum artis medicae indoctorum, aut curationi medicorum, illos aeque empiricè et secrete tractare propensorum subjectos esse. Rarissime accidit, hunc morbum medicis ordinariis per totam progressionem tractandi occasionem praebere, et illi tantum, quicquid Hospitium Insanorum optimum et pretii minoris esset, consilium dare occupati sunt. Ab hujus morbi abductione in universum a medicorum observatione, imperitia aliûs et aversatione alterius partis horum, qui occasionem idoneam naturam ejus perscrutandi habent, oritur, tam pauca opera practica de Insania, tamque multum parcius perfectam esse, pro rata parte, aliis morbis, ab investigationibus nuper in omnium fere morborum Physiologia atque Pathologia factis.

Consuetudo habendi eum, temporis magnum per spatium, animi morbum tantùm itaque scientiis abstrusis metaphysicis commiscendi, praeterea obscuritati ejus contribuit; nam loco observationis accuratae de morbi natura, disquisitiones contemplativas de animi facultatibus invenimus. In hoc tentamine has quam maxime evitare, et ad morbi phaenomena nosmetipsos limitare proponimus.

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[English Text:] No disease to which the human race is subject moves our compassion more than that which consists of the deprivation of the mind’s powers—those powers by which our inclinations are governed and through which we maintain social relationships.

And it may truly be said that no disease has received so little explanation from physicians; nor is this surprising when we observe that most of them, until very recently, have either been unlearned in the practice of medicine or have treated these patients empirically and secretly, much like untrained practitioners.

It is extremely rare for this disease to present ordinary physicians with an opportunity to treat it throughout its entire course, and they have been occupied only with offering advice regarding whatever was deemed the best or least costly care in asylums for the insane.

The neglect of this disease by physicians, combined with the ignorance of some and the reluctance of others—those who have the proper opportunity to investigate its nature—has resulted in so few practical works on insanity and such comparatively imperfect knowledge of it, especially when compared to the recent advances made in the physiology and pathology of nearly all other diseases.

The habit of having it for a long period, combined only with abstruse metaphysical sciences, further contributes to its obscurity; for instead of accurate observation of the nature of the disease, we find contemplative investigations of the faculties of the mind. In this endeavour, we aim to avoid these as much as possible and to limit ourselves to the phenomena of the disease.