Vol XV, No 3 (1908)

Modern physiological methods are often completely unsuitable for the study of the functions of such tissue formations, which, from the side of morphological sciences, have already been studied in sufficient detail and accurately. Modern physiology is the physiology of entire organs and their systems, while regarding the cellular physiology of these organs, there are currently only fragmentary, separate and extremely fragmented facts. Even entire systems of such important organs as the terminal nervous apparatus, which have already been studied very carefully and morphologically. completely do not have departments corresponding to themselves in physiology, because up to the present time physiologists do not yet know the method that would allow them to start developing this department.

At the suggestion of Professor Academician V. M. Bekhterev in St. Petersburg in the psychological laboratory at the clinic of nervous and mental illnesses of the Military Medical Academy, I began work on the topic: “The influence of mood on the speed of visual perceptions.” I then had to continue and carry out research in this direction. in the Psycho-Physiological Laboratory of Prof. V. P. Osipov at the Department of Psychiatry at Kazan University.The data obtained allow me to publish some of the results in a preliminary report, while detailed information about my experiments will be reported in a special work.

Comparing these data, we see that indeed, with the introduction of bed rest, the number of isolations has decreased, especially in the women's department, where it went down from 972 to 304 on average per year; however, by themselves 196 and 304, the number of isolations in the men's and women's departments during bed rest must be considered very large.

As is known, in Kolmov the physical work of the mentally ill was introduced almost from the first days of the administration of the Kolmov hospital by the Novgorod Zemstvo; they were introduced by the Administration not for a therapeutic purpose, but in the calculation of the material benefit from the work of the mentally ill.

Having removed a layer of gray matter from the dog's bloodless brain, passing it through a sieve and centrifuging it, the author, using more or less complex methods of processing, tried to more accurately determine the chemical essence of the gray matter of the brain. The richness of substantiae grisiae in protein derivatives deserves special attention: the latter make up approximately ½ of the dense parts of substantiae. The content of lecithin is high. On the contrary, protagon and neurokeratin, apparently, are inherent only in the white matter of the brain, since these parts of the brain tissue were not discovered by the author's research.

The object of the author's observations was a patient with pronounced scleroderma covering almost the entire surface of the body. At the same time it was possible to state - goiter, seborrhoeam on the forehead and steatorrhoeam on the body, anhidrosim and a decrease in reflexes. Movement in the joints of the extremities by means of a gradual restriction became completely impossible towards the end of the patient's life. The muscles of the limbs atrophied, and the atrophy was degenerative in nature. The patient died in a state of deep cachexia - with symptoms of a decline in cardiac activity. The disease lasted only ten months.

The authors adhere to Babinski's view that the area of hysteria should be narrowed down, singling out all vasomotor and secretory disorders from the group of hysterical phenomena. The authors had to observe a 68-year-old patient suffering from increased sweating, which manifested itself especially sharply during sleep. The patient never had hysterics. seizures, suggestion had no effect on perspiration. The authors make the assumption that sleep is able to cause a change in the composition of the blood and thereby excite the secretory centers in the medulla oblongata.

The patient, who was under the supervision of the author, initially developed a symptom complex characteristic of Basedow’s disease, then symptoms appeared that indicated damage to the adrenal glands, Adisson’s disease. The latter was recognizable especially by the bronze coloration of the skin, which also extended to the visible mucous membranes. The author believes that the disease of the thyroid gland was also responsible for the damage to the adrenal glands: namely, under the influence of increased and pathological activity of the thyroid gland, an increase in the vitality of ecto-endodermal tissues and inhibition of the functions of mesodermal tissues occurred; the adrenal glands, as a derivative of the mesoderm, also began to decline in their function; the probable tuberculosis of these glands met in its development, thus, the ground had already been prepared.

We do not know, says the author, neither the etiology nor the pathogenesis of Parkinson's disease, even the symptomatology has not been precisely established; although there is unanimity. the two main symptoms of trembling and rigidity, however, cases without trembling are described; at other points the difference of opinion is even greater; proceeding from the idea that the solution of controversial issues depends more on precisely developed casuistry than on theoretical reasoning, the author describes 2 cases of this infrequent illness observed by him in the Greifswald Psychiatric Clinic.

The authors studied the qualitative difference between ergographic curves in different patients with these forms, from the obtained curves given in the article, the authors conclude: melancholic curves give a short and relatively low rise, descending steeply downwards and stretching for quite a long time in this position; the curves differ from the curves of normal people by their peculiarity of type: while in a healthy person fatigue shortens the curve, in a melancholic the increase in fatigue generally shortens it relatively little. The article is supplied with 12 curves and substantiated in great detail.

The author does not see, contrary to generally accepted views, the relationship between political events and cases of insanity supposedly on this basis. In his opinion, “the higher the civilization, the fuller, therefore, freedom, the more the frail and wretched survive, including the nervously and mentally ill.” And vice versa, the restriction of this freedom, the cruel suppression of attempts to win it, does not lead to an increase in the number of mentally ill people: perhaps predisposed persons fall ill, and then by chance, outside the direct influence of events, giving those reasons for doubtful conclusions about a causal relationship between illness and historical moment; the leaders of the movement, on the other hand, usually have the most gifted and steadfast spiritual organization, without prejudice to the moral upheavals of the revolutionary period.

Dispatched to the city and zemstvo administrations of the St. Petersburg city government, the bulk (about 500 pages), the book of Dr. Reformatsky presents a report of the author's trip abroad from the St. Petersburg City Administration. In the 4 indicated capitals, the author examined 18 psychiatric institutions, a similar description of which occupies almost the entire book.