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The mental functions of the brain : an investigation into their localisation and their manifestation in health and disease

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  • ""A survey of the views of recognised authorities of the present day, as given in this book, tends to show that, whereas other branches of medical science have made great advances during the nineteenth century, our knowledge of the mental functions of the brain is still obscure, and deviations from the normal mind remain little understood and far off from cure. Much value has been attached to the experiments on the brains of animals, but all they can demonstrate amounts to a differentiation of sensory and motor areas; they must ever fail to shed light on the diversity of human talents and dispositions and the variety of mental derangements. The present work aims at clearing up the mystery of the fundamental psychical functions and their localisation in the brain. It is the first work on the subject since the dawn of modern scientific research. While most previous investigators have confined their attention to the intellect alone, the author considers also the emotions and passions of man, normal and abnormal, and demonstrates their connection with the brain. Even the most recent textbooks deem insanity to be a disease of the brain implicating the whole of that organ. Whether a person be melancholic, violently maniacal, homicidal, or suffer from delusions of persecution, whether he be a kleptomaniac, a religious maniac, or fancy himself a millionaire--in every case it is assumed that the whole cortex is affected, whereas the evidence adduced by the author shows that the fundamental varieties of mental derangement are localised in definite circumscribed regions, and frequently are, in the early stages at least, amenable to treatment. Brain surgery should, if future investigators confirm the author's observations, receive an immense stimulus to activity; and the data amassed by the author, and published in this work, are so considerable as to open up quite a new field for research. The author has based his localisations chiefly on clinical and pathological investigations. Over eight hundred cases are adduced, not merely of the recognised varieties of mental derangement, but of all kinds of deviation from the normal mind, even as regards the manifestation of hunger and thirst. The book contains numerous cases of interest to lawyers, as well as physicians, and should prove of value to all students of human character. The author found that his localisations confirm those made a century ago by Gall, whose marvelous discoveries of the anatomy and physiology of the brain--on which Spurzheim built his system of Phrenology--were ignored even by his most scientific followers, so that the world is ignorant of them, and they are presented for the first time in this book. The history of Gall and his doctrine is given in these pages, and will be quite a revelation to the reader. No subject has ever been so thoroughly misrepresented, even by learned men of acknowledged authority, and no author has ever been so labeled and with such malice as Gall, and this notwithstanding the fact that there is not one man of scientific repute who has mitten anything which would indicate that he has examined, Gall's chief work: "Anatomie et physiologie du systeme nerveux en general, et du cerveau en particulier." The fact that they have not read Gall's great work should make those who have any bias on this subject pause and reflect--at least until they have read this book carefully and examined the evidence therein set forth. Considering the important bearing which the facts contained in this work may possibly have upon the entire development of mental science, on the study and treatment of lunacy, on the education of the young, the precocious alike and the feeble-minded, on moral reform, the diminution of crime, and many other problems affecting the well-being of the community, the author trusts that the evidence and statements, which he produces after fifteen years of investigation, may be received willingly and in fair spirit, however critical"--Preface. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)."

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  • "Electronic books"
  • "Ressources Internet"
  • "Case studies"@en

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  • "The mental functions of the brain an investigation into their localisation and their manifestation in health and disease"
  • "Mental functions of the brain an investigation into their localisation and their manifestation in health and disease"
  • "The Mental Functions of the Brain : an investigation into their localisation and their manifestation in health and disease"
  • "The mental functions of the brain : an investigation into their localisation and their manifestation in health and disease"@en
  • "The mental functions of the brain : an investigation into their localisation and their manifestation in health and disease"
  • "The mental functions of the brain: an investigation into their localisation and their manifestation in health and disease"@en
  • "The mental functions of the brain an investigation into their localisation and their manifestation in health and disease; the revival of phrenology"@en

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