PSYCHIATRY IN THE FUNCTIONAL PSYCHOSES 265 



While these teachings have been taking form in the last twenty 

 years, the influence of modern psychology has been felt and is be- 

 coming apparent, especially in the last half decade. Although psych- 

 ological studies of mental functions are viewed with much of 

 the same distrust as before, the experimental method, in its clin- 

 ical use in psychiatry, excites interest by the objective character 

 of its results; they have the value of observed and measurable 

 facts of function which may contain the promise of being ultimately 

 traceable to facts of structure. 



The present results of this movement are exceedingly interest- 

 ing and promising, although it is true that there is much diversity 

 in the products of these methods of study. With the increasing 

 number of observers the more variations there appear to be in the 

 interpretation of phenomena. This is shown in the differentiation 

 of named "disease-forms," and by a comparative study of some 

 new classifications. 1 This, however, is a hopeful stage of progress. 

 In the extreme view it has been held to be unreasonable that any 

 conclusions can be drawn from the psychical activity of a diseased 

 brain; psychological explanation is of no value, it is said, without 

 an objective measure in definite "disease-processes" in the cortex. 

 According to other views, in which the conceptions of a "disease- 

 process" is still fundamental, conditions that do not lead to de- 

 terioration are conceived to be of a "special type," and a "bio- 

 logical entity" is conjectured as representing "a special kind of 

 disease-process or disease-principle." Again under broader con- 

 ceptions it is held that more than one point of view is needed to 

 do justice to psychiatry, and a special psycho-pathology is founded 

 upon normal psychology. But this meets with criticism as giving 

 undue prominence to psychological distinctions inconsistent with 

 a true medical conception of disease. , 



The influence of the new German schools has been strongly felt 

 in other countries. But the inquirer, extending his survey in these 

 directions, finds that the contemporary interest in the physiological 

 aspects of psychiatrical problems has not waned, though they are 

 somewhat overshadowed. In Italy, for example, Ferrari has studied 

 the pathology of the emotions, as has Fe>6 in France, where Ribot 

 has done the most to elucidate the relation of mental experience to 

 the personality, and Janet has made his remarkable contributions 

 to future psychiatry by the analysis of mental instability in the 

 borderland of insanity. The British alienists have conservatively 

 given attention to functional as well as to anatomical conceptions, 

 notably Mercier. Hughlings Jackson has magnified his distinc- 

 tion as a neurologist by his recognition of the importance of the 



1 Meyer, A., A Few Trends in Modern Psychiatry, The Psychological Bulletin, 

 vol. i, 1904. 



