THE CEREBRUM, AND ITS FUNCTIONS. 805 



exaggerate every impression made upon the consciousness, especially those which 

 affect the emotional state. The effect of a full dose, however, is at last to pro- 

 duce the complete withdrawal of the mind from the contemplation of external 

 things, and entirely to suspend the action of the will over the current of 

 thought ; and the condition then comes to be nearly the same as that of ordi- 

 nary Dreaming, the chief difference consisting in the readiness with which the 

 emotions may be excited in those who are under the influence of the Hachisch, 

 and in the degree in which these are amenable to external influences. The fol- 

 lowing concise and faithful description of the ordinary Delirium of disease will 

 show how completely it corresponds in all its essential characters with that 

 which is induced by the introduction of intoxicating agents into the blood. 

 a In its highest degree, it is a complete disturbance of the intellectual actions; 

 the thoughts are not inactive, but rather far more active than in health ; they 

 are uncontrolled, and wander from one subject to another with extraordinary 

 rapidity; or, taking up one single subject, they twist and turn it in every way 

 and shape, with endless and innumerable repetitions. The thinking faculty 

 seems to have escaped from all control and restraint, and thought after thought 

 is engendered without any power of the patient to direct and regulate them. 

 Sometimes they succeed each other with such velocity, that all power of per- 

 ception is destroyed, and the mind, wholly engrossed with this rapid develop- 

 ment of thoughts, is unable to perceive impressions made upon the senses ; the 

 patient goes on unceasingly raving, apparently unconscious of what is taking 

 place around him ; or it may be, that his senses have become more acute, and 

 that every word from a bystander, or every object presented to his vision, will 

 become the nucleus of a new train of thought ; and, moreover, such may be 

 the exaltation of his sensual perception, that subjective phenomena will arise in 

 connection with each sense, and the patient fancies he hears voices or other 

 sounds, whilst ocular spectra in various forms and shapes appear before his eyes 

 and excite further rhapsodies of thought." 1 It must be remarked that there is 

 usually a greater disorder of the perceptive faculty in Delirium than in ordi- 

 nary Dreaming; for, in the former condition, the erroneous images are more 

 vividly conceived of as having an existence external to the mind, than they are 

 in the latter, the illusory visual and auditory perceptions having all the force of 

 reality, and being the original sources of ideas, instead of (as seems to be rather 

 the case in dreaming) their products. 2 



1 See Dr. Todd's " Lumleian Lectures, on the Pathology and Treatment of Delirium and 

 Coma," in the " Medical Gazette," 1850, vol. xlv. p. 703. A circumstance was mentioned 

 to the Author, whilst he was a student at Edinburgh, which remarkably illustrates the 

 influence of suggestions derived from external sources, in determining the current of 

 thought. During an epidemic of Fever, which had occurred some time previously, and in 

 which an active delirium had been a common symptom, it was observed that many of the 

 patients of one particular physician were possessed by a strong tendency to throw them- 

 selves out of the window, whilst no such tendency presented itself in unusual frequency 

 in the practice of others. The Author's informant, himself a distinguished Professor in 

 the University, explained this tendency by what had occurred within his own knowledge, 

 as follows: His friend and colleague, Dr. A., was attending a patient, Mr. B., who seems 

 to have been the first to make the attempt in question ; impressed with the necessity of 

 taking due precautions, Dr. A. then visited Dr. C., in whose hearing he gave directions to 

 have the windows properly secured, as Mr. B. had attempted to throw himself out. Now 

 Dr. C. distinctly remembers that, although he had not previously experienced any such 

 desire, it came upon him with great urgency as soon as ever the idea was thus suggested 

 to him ; his mind being just in that state of incipient delirium, which is marked by the 

 temporary dominance of some one idea, and by the want of voluntary power to with- 

 draw the attention from it. And he deemed it probable that, as Dr. A. went on to Mr. 

 D., Dr. E., &c., and gave similar directions, a like desire would be excited in the minds of 

 all those who happened to be in the same impressible condition. 



2 In true Dreaming, the sensational consciousness is entirely closed to the outward 

 world ; arid all the images which we may believe we see, or the sounds that we fancy our- 



