NOW READY. Fourth Edition. Thoroughly Revised. With additional Illustrations, including 11 plates (8 coloured). Demy 8vo. 22s 6d net; postage is. MIND AND ITS DISORDERS: A Text-book for Students and Practitioners. By W. H. B. STODDART, M.D. (Lond.), F.R.C.P., Lecturer on Mental Diseases, St Thomas's Hospital. Examiner in Psychology and Mental Disease to the University of London. [Lewis's Practical Series "...still remains as a standard work on psychiatry by an asylum physician of wide experience.”—Lancet NOW READY. Fifth Edition. With Plates and Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 10s 6d net; postage 8d. MENTALLY-DEFICIENT CHILDREN. Their Treatment and Training. By G. E. SHUTTLEWORTH, B.A., M.D., Fellow of King's College, London; Hon. Consulting Physician (formerly Medical Superintendent), Royal Albert Institution, Lancaster, etc.; and W. A. POTTS, M.A., M.D., Medical Officer, Birmingham Committee for the care of the Mentally Defective, etc. *** Complete catalogue post free on application London: H. K. LEWIS & Co. Ltd., 136 Gower Street and 24 Gower Place, W.C. 1. ESTABLISHED 1844 H. K. LEWIS & CO. LTD. COMPLETE STOCK OF TEXT-BOOKS AND Telephone: MUSEUM 1072 Large Stock of SECOND-HAND Books always available at 140, Gower Street. Telephone: MUSEUM 4031. Catalogue on application. MEDICAL AND SCIENTIFIC CIRCULATING LIBRARY. ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION, TOWN AND COUNTRY, FROM ONE GUINEA. All the Latest Works obtainable without delay. 136 Gower Street and 24 Gower Place, London, W.C. 1. E. & S. LIVINGSTONE, Medical and Scientific Publishers JUST OUT. IMPORTANT WORK published THIS MONTH Royal 8vo. xx+348 pp. 66 Illustrations. 21s.net. Postage 1s. THE MECHANISM OF THE BRAIN AND THE FUNCTION OF THE FRONTAL LOBES By Professor LEONARDO BIANCHI, of the Royal University of Naples. Authorised translation from the Italian by JAS. H. MACDONALD, M.B., F.R.F.P.S., Glasgow, Mackintosh Lecturer in Psychological Medicine, Glasgow University; Medical Superintendent, Govan District Asylum, Hawkhead, Glasgow. With a foreword by C. LLOYD MORGAN, LL.D., D.Sc., F.R.S., Emeritus Professor in the University of Bristol. This book will make instant appeal to students and specialists of Anatomy, Psychology, Physiology, Zoology, and Mental Diseases Prospectus sent post free on application FUNCTIONAL NERVOUS DISORDERS KENLAW HOUSE, Colinsburgh, FIFE Accommodation for twenty-five patients of either sex. Climate dry and equable. Within easy reach of St Andrews and Elie. Two hundred acres of grounds, with extensive gardens, private golf course, bowling green, tennis lawns, etc. Large workshop. Two billiard tables. Electric light and central heating. For particulars apply to The SENIOR Resident Physician, W. H. BRYCE, M.B., C.M., or to the SECRETARY Telephone and Telegrams: UPPER LARGO, No. 8 THE CONSTITUENTS OF THE UNCONSCIOUS1. BY LEONARD WILLIAMS. AMONG the large number of those who now interest themselves in psychology there is, or has been, an impression, amounting almost to an article of faith, that the operations of the mind are independent of physical phenomena. Not only is this impression an erroneous one, but it is almost the exact reverse of the truth; for the operations of the mind are dependent both actually and potentially upon causes which are primarily physical. By this I do not mean merely such obvious considerations as that circulating blood is necessary to the process of thinking. I mean that mind itself is primarily physical, and that what we call conscious thought is, in its inception, action, and make up, fundamentally physical and chemical. In order to consider the matter from this point of view we must divest ourselves of the fallacy that the brain is the exclusive seat of the mind. On looking back through the ages it is not difficult to realise that mind must have existed in the scale of evolution not only before man was moulded, but even before the vertebrates emerged. The ganglionic cells which constituted the nervous system of the invertebrates were the ancestors of our sympathetic or autonomous nervous system. These ganglion cells were the organs of a mind a very rudimentary mind no doubt, but nevertheless quite adequate and effective so far as the needs of its possessor were concerned. Now this primitive nervous system was the anatomical representation of the primitive mind which controlled breathing, circulation, feeding, excretion and reproduction. And the curious and interesting thing is that this association was never disturbed by the intricate processes involved in the elaboration of the genus homo. The ganglion cells of our sympathetic system of nerves are the lineal descendants of the primitive ganglion cells of the invertebrates, and they continue to exercise a sway, now become to some extent, but not entirely, automatic, over the important and complicated viscera which are concealed in the human chest and abdomen. In the scale of evolution the brain and higher centres of the spinal cord are mere mushroom growths compared to our visceral ganglia and their offshoots. Closely connected with these ganglia in i Read before the Medical Section of the British Psychological Society. Feb. 22, 1922. J. of Psych. (Med. Sect.) 11 17 |