TIMELY TOPICS

Northern Advocate, 8 November 1934, Page 4

TIMELY TOPICS

TREATMENT OF INSANITY. Referring to a report dealing with the treatment of the insane, “The Times” says: The conception of “classic insanities,” that, during centuries, dominated every alienist, has given way to a conception of diseases having their seat in the brain of ner-vous-system and proclaiming their presence by symptoms differing in no respect of ..quality from the symptoms of ’ respiratory disease or of disease ; of the digestive system. The distinction is of first-rate importance. So long as mind and body were looked upon as Separate entities it was possible to maintain that each had its own disorders, and so to insist upon the necessity of employing different methods of treatment in each case. From that separation sprang the theories about the influence of mind upon body and of b<jdy upon mind, which, in practice, have proved so unfruitful .of benefit. The single and simple idea, on the contrary, of a physical basis of- mental activity has already afforded a rich harvest. The alienist -today is approaching his work in the spirit of the physician or surgeon, who accepts a symptom as an indication of damage, looks for the damaged part, and tries to heal it. Mental disease, . occasioned by :b----sence of the thyroid gland, for examample, is now treated by administration of that gland, and the treatment of general paralysis of the insane by the artificial induction of malaria is becoming established as a hopeful therapy. As the present report shows, a careful study of the incidence of tuberculosis among patients in mental hospitals is being carried out; and work is also in progress on diseases of the nose and throat and on typhoid fever and dysentery. In the case of tuberculosis evidence is available‘that patients who appear '• to be healthy may be suffering from a subacute infection. Thus, the possibility emerges that, in some instances, mental derangement may be an expression of an invasion of the brain. The presence again of a substance having a “depressor” influence on the nervous system has been detected in cases of melancholia —an interesting discovery, in view of the ideas entertained by the Greeks about this disease and embodied in the name which they gave to it. <s> <g> <&> & WORDS OF WISDOM.

No nation can he destroyed, while it possesses a good home life . — J. G. Holland. <S> <s> <S> <§> TALE OF THE DAY.

Bride, in butcher shop: “Is your mutton dearV'

Butcher, hurriedly: “No, madam, mutton is sheep, venison is deer.’\