“aii an teria 
1828.] Insanity. 453 
and sweat—grief affects the stomach and lachrymal ducts—compassion, , 
the bowels—anger, the liver—terror, the nerves, sometimes even to 
paralysis—extreme hope, the respiration. 
And generally, whenever strong emotion and passion stimulate the 
brain to extraordinary exertion, the action of the heart is responsive, and 
varies with the force of the impression. Joy, anger, desire, &c., acce- 
lerate the circulation, and bring on, in its excesses, mania, palsy, &c. 
Fear, horror, &c., on the other hand, by retarding, or rather by reflecting 
back the current of the blood upon the larger vessels, produce fainting, 
and even absolute suspension of the action of the heart, and on the 
recovery of its force, so violent a reaction, that life is often extinguished 
in the conflict, or the intellect deranged. 
Intense thought, or abstraction, has a powerful influence on the circu- 
lation. Mathematicians have been known, says Dr. Burrowes, to pass 
days and nights without sleep, from being teo deeply engaged in some 
intricate calculations. This absence of sleep is obviously the result of 
excessive action of the brain, which, if not relieved, must soon run on to 
delirium. Extraordinary wakefulness is the signal of nature, therefore, for 
suspending such pursuits. 
Other effects in abundance may be collected, not usually assigned 
among the results of the action of the mind upon the body, and yet as 
indisputably such as any that have already been noticed. Dr. Burrowes 
marks the charming of warts as an instance. The rapid change of the 
hair to white, is plainly another. The very temperature of the body is 
changed—lust heats—fear and aversion cool. The mal de pays arises 
from a moral source—producing, on the evidence of physicians, positive 
organic effects—the lungs are found adhering to the pleura, &c. 
The moral causes hitherto enumerated originate in the individual ; 
but there are others, which seem to spring from the existing condition 
and circumstances of society. The more artificial is the state of society, 
the more active are such causes—the more extensively they multiply and 
operate. Indulgence, indolence, the vices of refinement, make men 
more susceptible and irritable—more sensitive to impressions, and of 
course more liable to insanity. Intense pursuits of any kind—high cul- 
tivation—morals, religion, politics, produce intellectual disorders. The 
lower classes, too, though exempt from these concomitants of habitual luxury 
and intense cultivation, provoke disease by excesses—drunkenness and 
intemperance—producing thus the very effect which extreme refinement 
and fastidiousness do, among the higher—that is, greater susceptibility. 
A very striking relation, moreover, is observable in insanity to public 
events. Great political revolutions are great excitors of enthusiasm ; the 
passions ferment—extraordinary vicissitudes occur in the fortunes of 
numbers—and, in proportion as the feelings are actually wp, will insanity 
prevail. The effect upon the human frame has been often observed by 
physicians. Pinel speaks of the immense numbers of insane, during the 
‘more violent fervours of the French revolution; and Dr. Halloran ob- 
served the same in the last rebellion of Ireland. Something very like it 
is visible at this moment, but more particularly among the Orangemen. 
Dr. Rush, again, has recorded many effects of the American revolution, 
both on the mind and the body. Inthe beginning of a battle, the enthu- 
siasm of both officers and men excited great thirst ; and at the first onset, 
a glow of heat, even in the severest cold, was perceptible in both ears. 
Soldiers were found dead in the field at the battle of Monmouth, without 
