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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. 1884 Excerpt: ...following at some distance of time an attack of syphilis in persons strongly predisposed to insanity. It seems as if, in fact, the syphilitic poison had produced a subtile dynamical change in the brain convolutions and their trophic energy, as well as the arteritis, manifesting itself in unreason, hallucinations, and an organic feeling of illbeing. Dr. Hugh Grainger Stewart published several graphic cases of this kind. One of them imagined that he underwent a kind of a nightly torture called by him the cylinder finish; another said that most ingenious machines were introduced into her brain to torture her; another that people shot vitriol, ammonia, and black poison at him all night, to avoid which he wedged his bedroom doors, covered the key-holes with blankets, stuffed his ears and nostrils with cotton-wool, and his mouth with a pocket handkerchief, all these defensive measures against his imaginary bombardment taking him an hour to carry out before he went to bed. I have several cases of the same kind under my care just now. One is a woman, H. P., a prostitute, who thinks there is a network of wires in her brain, put there by me. Another, a gentleman, H. Q., strongly predisposed to insanity, his only sister being insane, who, a year or two after a bad attack of syphilis, and while some of its constitutional effects still remained, developed delusions of a conspiracy against him, and that people affect him sexually at night. Uuder the influence of these delusions he became dangerous. Such cases are, in my experience, always incurable. They are liable to be complicated by alcoholic and phthisical causes of brain disturbance. I admit that it may fairly be asked about such cases--Can we not have those symptoms without the occurrence of...

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