286 PSYCHIATRY 



with inherited distrust of a functional pathology; psychology 

 was turned upon itself, and also, much of its own choice, sought 

 and found open ways back into the attractive regions of the inves- 

 tigation of psychical function and philosophy. The later phase of 

 psychiatrical interest in experimentation has been mentioned, and is 

 full of promise, but such movements require years of time. The 

 method of exhaustive study of the clinical expression of psychical 

 reactions through speech and behavior, and the use of experimental 

 tests which bring out individual characteristics and their variations, 

 are gaining a share, which must increase, of the attention and 

 interest heretofore centred in the pathological laboratory. This is 

 a new and definite revelation of a tendency toward the study of a 

 functional conception of pathology in psychiatry. 



Psychology is still kept apart, however, from the practical study 

 of mental pathology; this is probably, in part, its own fault; al- 

 though some students of psychology have shown the requisite 

 interest, there is a lamentable want of opportunity. What would 

 really be the most promising interest in psychiatry should be found 

 in the establishment, in hospitals for the insane, of true experi- 

 mental psychology, with physiological methods applied clinically, 

 according to the principle of using instruments of precision in other 

 clinical work. 1 The observer of these clinical manifestations trained 

 both as a psychologist and physiologist would find many new varia- 

 tions of phenomena not seen in the normal subject. A hospital 

 for the treatment of mental disorders is a laboratory of itself where 

 nature makes experiments in the excitation, suppression, and 

 combination of naturally correlated psychical and physical reac- 

 tions, giving many clearer displays of their nature, both by their 

 intensification and absence. 



Mental diseases are peculiarly and essentially constituted of 

 mental symptoms; the study of their phenomena must refer them 

 to mental physiology, for the laws governing vital phenomena 

 under abnormal conditions are not different from those of normal 

 life. The study of mental physiology under pathological condi- 

 tions should be helpful for both psychology and psychiatry. 



This inquiry being assumed to be free from all preconceptions 

 as to the true nature and place of mental pathology, and as to 

 forms and names of mental diseases, it may be turned to an ex- 



1 For an account of the beginning of the present laboratory methods, both 

 psychological and chemical, at the McLean Hospital in 1889, see Les Laboratoires 

 de Psychologic en Amerique, by E. B. Delabarre, L'Annee Psychologiqite, 1895; 

 also Laboratory of the McLean Hospital, by G. Stanley Hall, Am. Jour. Insanity, 

 1895. The subsequent development of the pathological laboratory and the clinical 

 methods, of the laboratory for pathological chemistry in 1900. and of that 

 for pathological physiology and psychological experiment in 1904, constitute a 

 true psychiatrical clinic of a special character, designed from the outset for the 

 investigation of the functional conditions of mental disorder. 



