Phronesis

“ In those cases in which the phrenitis did not begin immediately, but about the third or fourth day, the disease was moderate at the commencement, but assumed a violent character about the seventh day. There was a great number of diseases, and of those affected, they who died were principally infants, young persons, adults having smooth bodies, white skins, straight and black hair, dark eyes, those living recklessly and luxuriously; persons with shrill, or rough voices, who stammered and were passionate, and women more especially died from this form. ”

“ A snow-white bull with a little princess on his back! Ho! ho! I ask your pardon, good folks; but there never was such a sight seen hereabouts."
At last, when his upper lip began to have the down on it, Phœnix grew weary of rambling hither and thither to no purpose. So, one day, when they happened to be passing through a pleasant and solitary tract of country, he sat himself down on a heap of moss.
"I can go no farther," said Phœnix. "It is a mere foolish waste of life, to spend it, as we do, in always wandering up and down, and never coming to any home at nightfall. ”

“ Not merely, however, are the difficulties of phrenology limited to the lower animals. Suppose we make a cross-section of a human skull through either the right or left side of the forehead, about half an inch above the upper border of the orbit or eye cavity. We may then discover that man as well as the elephant possesses "frontal sinuses" or air-spaces in his forehead-bone of considerable extent intervening between the exterior of the skull and the contained brain. Now, in such a section of the human skull, what phrenological "organs" shall we cut through? ”

“ Frantz advanced to view a newly painted portrait, which hung last in the line of his predecessors; and then the young man started back, changed colour, and the deadly faintness of terror seized his relaxing frame; for in it he recognised, exact in costume and features, the perfect likeness of his adult spectral visiter!
"Good God!" cried Frantz, "how very extraordinary!"
"A nice looking man, sir," said the sexton, not noticing his emotion; "pity 'tis that he was so wicked."
"Wicked!" exclaimed Frantz, almost unconscious of what he said; "how wicked?" ”

“ Of course, I might have gone over to H. 3rd and, after a short struggle, taken the carving knife away from him by main force, but that would have made him mad. He would at length have suppressed his anger and right away a complex would begin in his little square head.
Picture him now at thirty—he has neuralgia. Somebody mentions the theory of blind abscesses and he has all his teeth pulled out. No good comes of it. He goes to a psychoanalyst and the doctor begins to ask questions. He asks a great many over a long period of time. Eventually he gets a clue. ”

“ Will none of you stand by me—isn't there a man—not one man——'
"And they threw him out with my name on his lips. And I followed, and floored a brute who was handling him roughly. And nothing happened to me—because of what happened to Pharazyn."
The dear old boy sat silent, his grey head on his hand. Presently he went on, more to himself than to me: "What could I do? What proof had I? He had burnt them every one. And as long as the public would stand him, Morrison kept his good name at least. And that play was his great success!"
I ventured gently to inquire what had happened to Pharazyn. ”

“ He belongs to a class of beings who, from the circumstances of birth and education, are destitute of the requisite amount of sense necessary to form a correct judgment on moral questions as well as many others.
“It is a popular error to suppose that phrenology depends upon ‘bumps,’ so called, or protuberances or hollows in the conformation of the skull. The conclusions of the phrenologist are based upon estimates of brain fiber, their quality and length from a point in the base of the brain directly between the ears, to the surface. ”

“ In later life, when the love-force for one reason or another becomes too strong to be handled either directly or indirectly in the real world, there comes the almost irresistible impulse to regress to the infantile way and to find expression by means of phantasy. After long experience Freud concluded that phantasy lies at the root of every neurosis. Jung says that a sex-phantasy is always at least one determiner of a nervous illness, and Jelliffe writes that the essence of the neurosis is a special activity of the imagination. ”

“ Hence one may perhaps understand what line of erroneous reasoning has led to the establishment of the wryneck. The fear of draughts, instilled in his youthful mind by his mother, had the effect of driving him to half-strangle himself with a tightly drawn neckerchief, to hinder the inlet of air and minimise the risk of catching cold, and when he commenced to turn his head to the left at his work, the pressure of the band round his neck was felt most of all on the contracted right sternomastoid. ”

“ From this thorough and unprejudiced appreciation of the biology of the phronema it follows that the knowledge of truth, the aim of all science, is a natural physiological process, and that it must have its organs like all other psychic functions. These organs have been revealed to us so fully in the advance of biology during the last half-century that we may be said to have a generally satisfactory idea of the natural character of their organization and action, though we are still far from enjoying a complete anatomical and physiological insight into their details. ”

“ I saw that same old man, at a quadroon ball a few years ago, walk up to the handsomest, best dressed man in the house, a man with a skin whiter than his own,--a perfect gentleman as to looks and manners,--and without a word slap him in the face."
"You laugh?" asked Frowenfeld.
"Laugh? Why shouldn't I? The fellow had no business there. Those balls are not given to quadroon males, my friend. He was lucky to get out alive, and that was about all he did.
"They are right!" the doctor persisted, in response to Frowenfeld's puzzled look. "The people here have got to be particular. ”

“ There is interest, however, in pointing out in this connection that, like tickling, itching has a real parallelism to the specialized sexual sensations. Bronson, who has very ably interpreted the sensations of itching (New York Neurological Society, October 7, 1890; Medical News, February 14, 1903, and summarized in the British Medical Journal, March 7, 1903; and elsewhere) , regards it as a perversion of the sense of touch, a dysæsthesia due to obstructed nerve-excitation with imperfect conduction of the generated force into correlated nervous energy. ”

“ All men are by nature phrenologists; the commonplace excuses that are offered for lapses of memory, venial offences, and inherited weaknesses, all appeal to the comfortable notion that the offender is not wholly perverted, and that some very small and strictly localised group of cells is at fault. And it is probable that the physiology of the central nervous system, with its present strong tendency toward psychology, will some day be back, at a far higher level, above the point where phrenology went wrong. ”

“ Madam, said Adelaide, whilst Fonrose embraced his father’s knees, you would not so long have been a prey to grief, had I discovered sooner your dear son. After the first effusions of nature were over, Fonrose relapsed into his former melancholy. Come, said the Countess, let us go and repose ourselves in the cabin, and forget the woes this young madman has plunged us in. It is very true, said Fonrose, to his father, who led him by the hand; what else but the deprivation of my reason could suspend the emotions of nature, and make me forget the most sacred duties? What but madness? ”

“ It is as much an original disease of the blood-vessels, as any other state of fever. It is to phrenitis, what pulmonary consumption is to pneumony. The derangement in the operations of the mind is the effect only of a chronic inflammation of the brain, existing without an abstraction of muscular excitement. ”

“ The smoke rose slowly, enveloping him in it, while the Tufters, overcome with grief, forgot their manners, and stood on both legs peering into the smoke. At that moment Rosedrop, with the spirit of Isal, darted into the circle. The Phœnix saw her. [Pg 215]
"Lay the spirit in the nest," said he, and Rosedrop heedless of the fire which burned her beautiful body, laid Isal's spirit in the nest by the Phœnix.
"It is enough!" said the Phœnix. "I am perishing, but another Phœnix shall arise and the spirit of Isal shall live in it. Isal is the Phœnix that is to be. I die but she shall live." ”

“ In a similar sense Celsus speaks even of Phrenitis, under which name we are here to understand all inflammatory fevers accompanied by violent delirium, with the exception of actual inflammation of the brain. Thus we see that the cardiac disease arose and increased on a very different soil from other diseases, and was, to furnish an ancient example, as far from being independent under these circumstances as lethargy was in similar cases. ”

“ This absolute denial and severe reprimand, filled Fronovius with confusion and almost made him hopeless; but, after some reflection, he strongly fancied that the opposition be met with, proceeded not from the lady's virtue, but from the great inclination she had to some rival, who enjoyed those favours which he had been pursuing; and he supposed the Gardener to be the man, because he had received some particular marks of her favour, since the departure of the Count Alanson. ”

“ Golis hyperacute and acute, do not differ from the sub-acute phrenitis of nosologists, in which pus and coagulable lymph are the proper products, with sometimes a serous effusion into the ventricles as an accidental effect; all of which forms of inflammation, the serous membranes of the brain, and of other cavities are liable to take on ”

“ In the Alloeocoela and Tricladida the pharynx is an elongate protrusible cylinder, and in the Polyclads it may be an immensely distensible frilled organ, the folds of which have independent movement, or an elongate tube. At the base of the pharynx lie the openings of salivary glands. In the Polycladida the section of the alimentary sac into which the pharynx opens is a median stomach from which the intestinal branches radiate. The stomach in few forms is provided with digestive glands. The branches possess an independent musculature and exhibit active peristalsis. ”

“ The tongue is rough, there is a trickling of blood from the nose, they pick at flocks of wool and gather bits of straw, and have acute fever during the whole continuance of the disorder. When a fever of a bad character is seated deeply, they have the pulse small and indistinct, with a certain degree of hardness. The respiration is large and rare when the brain is primarily affected. And, if the phrenitis be occasioned by sympathy with the diaphragm, the respiration is irregular, the hypochondria are retracted and have considerable heat ”

“ The pain may be relieved by spraying with certain anodyne solutions. In the case of adenoid growths (see Adenoids) there is often an associated granular appearance of the pharynx, due to enlargement of the minute glands of the mucous membrane. The inflamed pharynx of the orator (“clergyman's sore-throat”) may be put right by lessons in elocution or by complete rest for a time. The gouty throat may call for a change of diet, or for a stay at one of the water-places where early rising, moderate food, regular exercise and the drinking of laxative waters join in restoring health. ”

“ REMEDIES. What are the Remedies proper for a Phlegmon?
They are of two sorts, viz. General and Particular; the former having regard to the antecedent cause, and the other to the conjunct. The Phlegmon is cur'd in its antecedent Cause, by Phlebotomy or letting Blood, by good Diet, and sometimes by Purgations, by which means the Plethory, Heat, and Alteration of the Blood is diminished; But Fomentations, Cataplasms and Plaisters facilitate the Cure in the conjunct cause, either by dissolving the Tumour, or bringing it to Suppuration. ”

“ Prunty read the whole page, including a description of the way that dread disease ruins the complexion, by making it pasty and corpselike, and then laid the book down with conviction in his eyes.
"From this," said he, motioning at the book with his glasses, "it would seem to be all off."
"If it's Bright's disease," said Billy, "that causes this lesion of the major lower digit, the prognosis is, no doubt, extremely grave. But while there's life, you know—"
"Yes," answered Mr. Prunty, "that is a comfort, of course. Does he know what ails him?" ”

“ It bears the same relation to phrenitis, when it arises from indirect causes, which pneumonicula does to pneumony; and it is produced nearly in the same manner as the pulmonary consumption, by debilitating causes which act primarily on the whole system. The peculiar size and texture of the brain seem to invite the inflammation and effusions which follow debility, to that organ in childhood, just as the peculiar structure and situation of the lungs invite the same morbid phænomena to them, after the body has acquired its growth, in youth and middle life. ”