Evening bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1895-1912, 1904-08-31
Books, Bookish People and Things
We get no good by being ungenerous TO book.
E. B. Browning

cases. BY T. 5. Clouston, NJ. d.,
physician superintendent Royal
Edinburgh Asylum for the Insane.
Lecturer on Mental Diseases In
the University of Edinburgh. 9Th
edition; cloth. 5ia Tin, 727 PIP.
index. 10 colored plates.
While DR.. Clouston may not have
the classical" style of DR.. Mandsley
Cwhose splendid words on the Mind
have long deserved their reputation +.
he is forcible and clear, and his expe.
rience with and intimate knowledge Of
the different phases Of insanity en-.
able him to present TO the stuaent an
impressive picture of each case re.
viewed.
Beginning with "Heredity" he says:
"The facts of nature compel the ply.
stefan to see that purely mental and
moral qualities and mental defects are
transmissible from parent to child,
and prepare him for the great part
that heredity plays in psychological
development and in mental disease
/ regard DR.. Clouston's classification
as being particularly logical while it
is concise enough 10 be practicable.
"All states OF morbid mental dcpres-
sion and painful feeling are classed
under nielancholia.
Mania includes "all the states Of
morbid mental eXaltation or excite
ment without depression"
Regularly alternating mental states,
the Folle Circulaire of the French, is
termed alternating insanity"
Fixed delusional states, or monoma.
mia, generally classed in Germany and
America as Paranoia, general mental
enfeeblement or dementia.
Stupor is the outward negation Of
naturalization resulting from disease"
States of want of inhibitory mental
power without marked mental de.
preston, exaltation, delusion, or en-.
feeblenent," are placed under DE.
fective Mental Inhibition"
Lastly, all forms Of mental instabil.
ity, such as the hysterical. neurosthe-
mic present, he calls "Psychoneuro-
Sis"
Although the work Is intended for
students and practitioners of medicine
1t will be deeply interesting to those
who have a liking for psychological
subjects, sociology or criminology,
and certainly no lawyer should be
without the book. Its general discus.
sion of sane and insane states, the
borderland between the two, is more
fascinating than a story.
In regard 10 mental pain, DR.. Clous.
ton says: The most casual study OF
the affective capacity in human beings
shows us that 1t differs enormously in
different persons. One man will lose
his children or his fortune. or see the
most terrible sights, and he will not
feel keenly at all, because his brain
convolutlons that subserve feeling are
not in their essential nature very re.
ceptive and serexitive.
Another person will be thrown into
very great grief and feel acute agony
at the loss of favorite dog. had
a lady patient once who would
be for days depressed and suffer men
tally II friend did not receive her as
cordially as usual any day. She SUI
fered mental torture II relative
spoke sharply to her, and she was
once absolutely paralyzed in feeling
and volition by the death of a sister.
There can be no doubt whatever
that the finer moulds of brain are
mostly very sensitive, and the poetic,
emotional and sympathetic natures
have always been subject to states of
painful depression of mind at the
critical periods of life. and when the
physical yigor was below par.
Half the poets and men of literary
genius give ample proof in their biog.
raphies and writings and In the char.
acters they have created or founded
on their own experience, that they suf-
fered at times intense mental pain.
Goethe clearly looked on a period Of
melancholy as one phase In the deyel-
opment of genius. The lives and writ.
ings of Goethe, Schiller, Carlyle, Cow.
per. Byron, J. S. Mill, Hume and Geo.
h$iASt Nhot Ah'y P'ilShp
when they suffered intense mental
pain and at least one OF them did act.
ually pass the underlined borderland
that separates physiological mental
depression from pathological melan.
cholia."
The persons most liable 10 "go era.
zy" are "those liable to lose their
sense Of well-being from slight causes
from within or without them. Their
surplus stock OF animal spirits and
Wis neryosa Is soon exhausted. They
want emotional balance and reslstiye
power, They are very often persons
with strong unreasonlng likes ana
dislikos, who are swayed by their IN
stlncts which they cannot correct and
guide by their reasoning power
The half-nippant romarlv that every
man Il more on less crazy Is more true
than not Every man Ia his relation
% other men II not crazy because no
remains effectively sane and In all Ca