Excerpt from The Blot Upon the Brain: Studies in History and Psychology
In the following pages the study of diseased function of the brain has helped the author to give explanations of some important events in history. In a similar way several questions in psychology are approached through knowledge gained by observations in mental derangement.
In perusing the opening essay on Hallucinations, the reader will derive assistance from the plates in the last paper.
It is hoped that the interest of the subjects treated will attract persons of culture beyond those directly interested in medical psychology. The author has trier! to avoid technical terms, as far as clear definition seemed to allow.
It is hoped that a rudimentary knowledge of physiology is now sufficiently diffused to make the more scientific papers understood by educated people without any preliminary study.
In those essays, which have already appeared in the Journal of Mental Science, and in Brain, there have been considerable changes and additions, save in Paper V., which is reprinted almost word for word, and in Paper IX., in which the new matter comes at the end.
The author has much pleasure in acknowledging the kind assistance afforded to him in collecting materials for the work by Professor Balls of Paris, Professor Westthal and Professor Mendel of Berlin, Professor Tamburini of Modena, and Dr. Adriani of Perugia.