File:Insanity and allied neuroses - practical and clinical (1884) (14785774603).jpg

Identifier: insanityalliedne00sava (find matches)
Title: Insanity and allied neuroses : practical and clinical
Year: 1884 (1880s)
Authors: Savage, George H. (George Henry), 1842-1921
Subjects: Mental Disorders
Publisher: Philadelphia : Henry C. Lea's Son & Co.
Contributing Library: Columbia University Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Open Knowledge Commons

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ocy were ascribed to teething con-vulsions. Cases arising from convulsions have littlechance of improvement. It seems as if the con-vulsions had destroyed the power of further develop-ment, at all events of higher intellectual development.Some of these cases can be trained to mechanical work.The eclampsic idiot differs from the next class, that of Epileptic idiocy, from the fact that in theformer the fits were but the starting point of thediseased process, and having wrought their evil, ceased,whereas in the epileptic patient the fits depend notso much upon a reflex irritation, as upon some organicbrain change, which, continuing in force, causes thefits to be constant. Epilepsy, whether in the form ofsevere fits, or only of slight losses of consciousness,may occur in patients who are already idiotic, andmay in no way be connected with the production of Chap. XXII.) Epileptic Idiocy. 447 the weak-mindedness ; both the fits and the idiocydepending upon the same pathological condition of
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An Epileptic Idiot. the brain. But the symptoms in the class I am nowspeaking of depend for their causation upon therecurrence of epileptic fits. In speaking of epilepsy, 448 Insanity and Allied Neuroses. (Chap. xxii. I have already shown that in adults the tendency isto produce weak-mindedness, and it may easily beunderstood how disastrous must be the result of re-curring fits occurring in the undeveloped child. Itmatters little, if at all, what the cause of the epilepsymay be, although it is certain that the tendency toweak-mindedness is increased if there be a strongneurotic inheritance, as the patient in that case hasa strong predisposing cause, and an equally strongexciting one. As I have said, the frequency of thefits and their early development are the two mostimportant facts in this relationship. Epilepsy occurring before seven years of age iscertain to leave the patient weak-minded. The epi-leptic idiot is said to be the drollest inhabitant of theidiot asylum. He is often wil

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