Mental medicine and nursing : for use in training-schools for nurses and in medical classes and a ready reference for the general practitioner . 76 MENTAL MEDICINE AND NURSING held equally by both the sane and the make it specifically applicable to the insane,it is necessary to qualify the definition by thestatement that it should be a morbidly falsifiedbelief, or a false belief due to disease. Further-more, the definition states that neither argument nor experi-ence can af-fect it. Some-times it ismost difficultto determinewhether a pa-tient has aninsane delu-sion. One isassisted in
Mental medicine and nursing : for use in training-schools for nurses and in medical classes and a ready reference for the general practitioner . 76 MENTAL MEDICINE AND NURSING held equally by both the sane and the make it specifically applicable to the insane,it is necessary to qualify the definition by thestatement that it should be a morbidly falsifiedbelief, or a false belief due to disease. Further-more, the definition states that neither argument nor experi-ence can af-fect it. Some-times it ismost difficultto determinewhether a pa-tient has aninsane delu-sion. One isassisted incoming to ajudgment, ina case likethis, by tak-ing into ac-count the be-lief of theindividual,whether it is reasonable and in accord with hiseducation and station in life. Errors of normal persons may be rectified, butinability to correct false conclusions constitutesan element of insanity. This applies not aloneto reasoning and its product, judgment, butillusions and hallucinations believed in, andaccepted as facts, become ?IG. 26.—Flight of ideas: the rambling form (Cha-pin: Mental Diseases—W. B. Saunders Co.). INSANE DELUSIONS 77 The kinds of delusions are as numerous andvaried as the ideas of man. For instance,imaginary diseases of various parts of the body;headaches may lead to the belief that the brainis dried up and that it has been removed andreplaced by putty; that the stomach is filled withglass; that food is retained in the body; thatthe oesophagus is closed and the patient cannotswallow or cannot speak. Again, the patient maybelieve that he is bewitched or controlled bymagnetism, or may have other ideas of persecu-tion; that gestures and remarks of other personsapply to himself and mean some harm to may imagine that he has committed somegreat sin, accuses himself of crime, and accord-ingly will be punished in some cruel manner. Hemay have exaggerated notions of wealth andprowess; that he has clothing of gold, etc.; orthat he is a person of gre
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