Mental Hygiene: Retrospect and Prospect. 



E. H. LiNDLEY. 



Ilipriocrairs — Fifth Century B. C. 



"Men ought to know that from nothing else but the brain 

 come joy, despondency and lamentation * * * and by 

 the same organ we become mad and delirious, and fears and 

 terrors assail us, some by night and some by day: and dreams 

 and untimely wanderings, and cares that are not suitable and 

 ignorance of present circumstances, desuetiide. and unskilful- 

 ness. All these things we endure from the brain when it is not 

 healthy * * * ." 



Mental Hygiene as tlie science and art of seetiring healthy mindedness, 

 and of combating mental unsoundness, came slow and late. It is a develop- 

 ment of the latter half of the 19th century. It emerged as one fruition of 

 the development of physiology, pathology and psychology. Feuchtensleben's 

 classic study; Braid's studies of hypnotism; Bernheim's suggestive thera- 

 ])eutics; Charcot and Janet's studies of hysteria; Beard's masterly study of 

 neurasthenia; Weir Mitchell's rest cure; DuBois's psychic treatment of 

 nervous disorders; Freud and Jung's conception of insanity and of psycho- 

 neuroses, and their method of psycho-analysis; the I'ecent elaboration of the 

 work cure for the insane and nervous; the elaboration of conceptions of the 

 unconscious and sub-conscious psychic states and split of personalities in 

 relation to disease, made by Binet, Prince and Sibis; the fuller differentiation 

 of organic from functional disorders ; all these culminating in a veritable arsenal 

 of methods of psychognosis. and psychotherapy; such are a few of the land- 

 marks which suggest the meteoric rise of mental hygiene. The whole 

 structure rests on a more adequate view of the inter-action of mind and 

 body, and on a new emphasis on mental states in the causation of disease. 

 More properly they reflect the distinctively modern view of the terrific unity 

 of body and mind, and the knowledge that mind and body, like Siamese 

 twins, share each other's fortunes. Not only does somatic disorder tend to 

 produce mental disorder, but mental conflicts and stresses interfere with 

 the normal functioning of the body. This doctrine of the reciprocal 

 relations replacing the older view of one-sided causation, has revolutionized 

 our whole conception of disease of every human sort. The mental state of 

 the patient always required treatment along with the physical. 



Such, in brief, is the significance of mental hygiene. The quickening 

 influence of this movement on research and teaching in medicine, and peda- 

 gogy, and social service, and the administration of charities, no less than 

 in the administration of criminal law, give new hope for a conquest of human 

 misery. 



But my theme is historical. The history of mental hygiene in Indiana 

 is as brief as the short and simple annals of the poor. Yet it is a most credit- 



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