This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1872 Excerpt: ...an operation of mind '1 And the hysterical convulsions into which a patient falls when bystanders are discussing her afflictions; could there be a better example of certain trains of thought on the body 'i Nor is the cerebro-spinal the only part of the nervous system that is involved. The sympathetic, in all its influence over the circulation in different parts and over the operations of the visceral ami glandular organs, shows that it too becomes included in the general diseased action. The nervous system in its physiology, and more in its pathology, is a labyrinth. Yet I fail to see how the pathology of hysteria can be understood, save by a study of its phenomena of disease, from the standpoint of the physiology of the mind and higher nervous functions. The phenomena of the disease are to a great extent phenomena of the mind, and such as may arise from the effect of the mental nature on the body, and we ought to study them as we would any other psychical phenomena--as we would insanity. Until insanity began to be studied from this standpoint the insane were locked up and treated like wild beasts, like murderers and those possessed of devils. Hysteria has been regarded as a condition of moral obliquity, as a synonym of deception and often of ugliness; physicians avoid telling their patients they have the disease, lest the statement might be regarded as an insult, as an accusation of lying would be. When the physiology of all mental acts comes to be more understood this humiliating condition of tilings may, let us hope, be bettered. The operations of mind in all its phases--with all its faculties, supposed to be different things--more truly different modes of action of one great organ--its connection with organs of the body, its influence on them and their ...