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Page 31
Certain individuals pass in a few years from psychasthenic depression
with doubts and obsessions to psychasthenic deliriums with stubbornness
and negativism, then to asthenic insanity with irremediable and complete
want of power. Is it necessary to say that we made a mistake in our
diagnostic and that from the first demential psychosis should have been
recognized? I am not convinced of this: these diseases, excepting a few
cases with rapid evolution, are not characterized from the outset.
Without doubt we must note that these depressions which disturb the
reflective tendencies of young patients in full period of formation,
are dangerous and can bring on still deeper depressions of the
psychological tension. But that evolution is rarely fatal; it can very
often be checked, and it seems to me fair to preserve the distinction
between neuroses and psychoses considered as different degrees of
psychological decadence.
Neuroses are, therefore, the intermedium between the errors and the
faults which appeared to us almost normal, and alienation which seemed
exceptional and distant from us. The first appearances of that
depression which in a continuous manner descends to alienation are to be
found already in the disorders of character which seemed to be quite
insignificant. The miser, the misanthrope, the hypocrite are described
by the writer before they are claimed by the physician. A great number
of neuropathic disorders which I have described are related to the
popular type of mother-in-law. This type is not necessarily that of a
woman whose daughter has married, but the type of a depressed woman of
about fifty, aboulic, discontented with herself and others, domineering,
and jealous, because she suffers from the mania of being loved though
she is incapable of acquiring any one's affection. All exhaustions, all
moral failings have the closest connection with neuroses and psychoses.
These reflections prove to us that the alienist physician should
interest himself more and more in the treatment of neuroses even slight,
to rectifying the disorders of temper, to the education of the young, to
the direction of the moral hygiene of his country. On many of these
points America leads the way; your works of social hygiene, the good
battle you are righting against alcoholism, are examples for us. You are
the new world, younger, not rendered so inactive by secular habits. You
can act more easily than we. We may have the advantage, in the old
world, of the experience of old people and the habit of observation, but
we are slack in reform and action. "If youth had experience and old age
ability," says one of our proverbs. We must remain united and join your
strength to our experience for the greater progress of the studies which
are dear to us and for the greater good benefit of our two countries.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 14: _Cf._ Janet, P., Les n�vroses, 1909, p. 370.]
[Footnote 15: _Cf._ Les M�dications psychologiques, 1920, I, p. 112.]
[Footnote 16: "Les Nevroses," 1909, p. 384.]
[Footnote 17: _Cf._ Janet, P., "Obsessions et Psychestenic," 1903, vol.
I, p. 997.]
ADDRESS BY
DR. WILLIAM L. RUSSELL
[Illustration: BLOOMINGDALE HOSPITAL, WHITE PLAINS, NEW YORK, 1921]
_The Chairman_: The year 1921 is rich in anniversaries for the New
York Hospital. Next October we plan to celebrate the one hundred and
fiftieth anniversary of the granting of our charter. To-day we are
occupied with the Bloomingdale Centenary. A fortnight ago the
twenty-fifth annual graduating exercises of our Training School for
Nurses were held in this room. This year also marks the decennial of Dr.
Russell's term of office as Medical Superintendent. When his devoted
predecessor, Dr. Samuel B. Lyon, asked in 1911 to be relieved from
active duty and became our first Medical Superintendent Emeritus, we
were most fortunate in securing as his successor Dr. Russell. Coming to
this institution after a broad psychiatric and administrative
experience, he has taken up our special problems with deep insight and
gratifying success. He has selected for his subject this afternoon "THE
MEDICAL DEVELOPMENT OF BLOOMINGDALE HOSPITAL." No one can speak with
greater authority on a theme of which it may be said _quorum magna
pars_--fortunately not only _fuit_--but _est_ and _erit_ as well.
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