On Some of the Mental Affections of Childhood and Youth

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1887 edition. Excerpt: ... LECTURE III. Infantile Mania.--Melancholia and Delusions.--Moral Insanity. --" Idiots Savants."--Variations in the Mental Condition. --Epilepsy and Catalepsy.--Physical Deformities.--Associated Diseases.--Bate of Growth.--Diagnosis of Idiocy.-- "Backward Children."--Deferred or Absent Speech.-- Morbid Anatomy.--Treatment of Feeble-mindedness. Infantile mania is not of frequent occurrence and has not been the subject of much comment. Nevertheless very well-marked examples have come under my notice in quite young children; cases where the various phases of insanity in the adult have been well represented; acute maniacal attacks, in which the patient tears and destroys everything within reach, or creeps under tables and sofas to hide, screaming with undisguised rage and biting and scratching anyone who approaches. This attack subsides and the boy behaves as nicely and intelligently as possible, but in a few days has a recurrence with as great violence as before. Some few years since a little boy of this class was sent to me. He was by no means deficient in mental acuteness, in many respects was precocious; he was an only child, and having lived a good deal with adult people he talked rather sagely, but he was liable to attacks of acute mania of a very marked kind. There were no bounds to his petulance and violence. He would attack his father in the street and behave in all respects in an insane manner, regardless of any injury he might inflict, even on those for whom he ordinarily entertained affection. In the intervals of the paroxysms he manifested traits which made him much liked by those about him. Occasionally I have met with cases having well-marked delusions of suspicion. The ordinary trust and unsuspiciousness of childhood has...