Mesmerism
"Mesmerism" is a term coined after a man named Franz Anton Mesmer ("writers also refer to him as Franciscus Antonius Mesmer, Franz Antoine Mesmer and Friedrich Anton Mesmer" [http://www.hcrc.org/diction/m.html] ). "Mesmer was born in Iznag, Swabia (Germany} on May 23, 1734" (http://www.eb.com/cgi-bin/g?keywords=mesmerism). He went on in life to complete medical training at the University of Vienna, by this time he was thirty-two years of age (http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exhibitions/Mind/Trance.html). According to one source, his first claim to fame revolved around an incident where it is said that he cured a blind girl. However, this turned out only to be a reversal of her hysteria that he actually performed (http://www.geocities.com/Vienna/8536/). According to another source, Mesmer's real first case was in 1773 when he met a young woman who was "suffering from a variety of recurring physical ailments". He then tried to relate the fluctuation of her symptoms with the tides and decided to try to induce a tide in his patient. He asked her to "swallow a solution containing iron and affixed magnets to her stomach and legs". The girl said she felt a "mysterious fluid coursing throughout her body". Miraculously her symptoms started to disappear and with several treatments they vanished. From this, Mesmer gained fame. A few years later, under some sort of pressure, perhaps political, he left Vienna for Paris. Here Mesmer's therapy and healing practices became quite popular (http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exhibitions/Mind/Trance.html).
It is in Paris where Mesmer wrote his book called, Reflections on the Discourse of Animal Magnetism . This book contained 27 basic principles that Mesmer held to be true (Fuller 4). Basically, it said that there was a "physical magnetic fluid interconnecting every element of the universe, including human bodies" (http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exhibitions/Mind/Trance.html).This was essentially "Animal Magnetism" (http://www.hcrc.org/diction/m.html). "Mesmer argued that disease resulted from a disequilibrium of this fluid with in the body". To cure this, physicians manipulated these fluids using magnets or their hands in order to channel this energy from the universe at large into the patients body (http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exhibitions/Mind/Trance.html). This was the agent with which he induced hypnosis in patients (http://www.hcrc.org/diction/m.html). Mesmer went so far as to suggest that "animal magnetism constituted the etheric medium through which sensations of every kind-light, heat, magnetism, electricity- were able to pass from one physical object to another believed that his discovery had removed the basic impediment to scientific progress and that every area of human knowledge would soon undergo rapid transformation and advancement".
In the first part of the play Egeus has asked the Duke of Athens, Theseus, to rule in favor of his parental rights to have his daughter Hermia marry the suitor he has chosen, Demetrius, or for her to be punished. Lysander, who is desperately in love with Hermia, pleads with Egeus and Theseus for the maiden’s hand, but Theseus’, who obviously believes that women do not have a choice in the matter of their own marriage, sides with Egeus, and tells Hermia she must either consent to marrying Demetrius, be killed, or enter a nunnery. In order to escape from the tragic dilemma facing Hermia, Lysander devises a plan for him and his love to meet the next evening and run-off to Lysander’s aunt’s home and be wed, and Hermia agrees to the plan. It is at this point in the story that the plot becomes intriguing, as the reader becomes somewhat emotionally “attached’’ to the young lovers and sympathetic of their plight. However, when the couple enters the forest, en route to Lysander’s aunt’s, it is other mischievous characters that take the story into a whole new realm of humorous entertainment...
The original use of electricity as a cure for “insanity” dates back to the beginning of the 16th century when electric fish were used to treat headaches. Electroconvulsive therapy on humans originates from research in the 1930’s into the effects of camphor-induced seizures in people with schizophrenia (Guttmacher, 1994). In 1938, two Italian researchers, Ugo Cerletti and Lucio Bini, were the first to use an electric current to induce a seizure in a delusional, hallucinating, schizophrenic man. The man fully recovered after eleven treatments. This led to a rapid spread of the use of ECT as a way to induce therapeutic convulsions in the mentally ill. Lothar Kalinowsky, Renato Almansi, and Victor Gonda are further responsible in spreading ECT from Italy to North America (Endler, 1988). Although there is some confusion as to who exactly is credited for administering the first ECT in America, it is known that it occurred in the early 1940.
In year 1969 Dr. Malcolm Sayer, a neurologist, was accepted at the Bronx Hospital, wherein he was ask to deal with patients with mental problems. He had a problem dealing with communicating with patients, which was reprimanded by a nurse named Eleanor. He then noticed the catatonic patients, who survived the epidemic, Encephalitis Lethergica. He noticed that there were responses through their stimuli in the patients that they can still catch a ball even with no direct knowledge about it. Dr. Sayer then work intensively to accomplish the goal of waking the patients in their catatonic state. He then encountered a patient named Leonard Lowe, who was a patient who suffers the Encephalitis Lethergica at young age, who was able to communicate with
Deceiving and irrational, love can be a challenging emotion to endure. It can be difficult to find happiness in love, and on the journey to find that happiness, love can influence one’s thought process. Shakespeare uses specific wording in his play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, to poke fun while exploring the individual’s quest for love. The desire to find love and a happy ending with a lover is so strong in the foundation of mankind, that people will not accept a life without it. In fact, they would rather give up their attribute of rationality than their opportunity to find a significant other. The heart’s control of the mind can make a foolish man.
In A Midsummer Night's Dream, one of the masterpieces of William Shakespeare, Shakespeare explores various aspects of love and friendship. With the help of the main characters such as Lysander, Demetrious Helena and Hermia, he endeavors that the path of love is full of obstacles, however, if one is committed and faithful, he/she can defy those obstacles leading him/her to success. As Lysander says “The course of true love never did run smooth”, the love stories presented in the play undergo difficult situations but eventually the genuine love is recognized by the triumph of the true loves.
Diane Gray made her views on early treatment in insane asylums clear: “Another early treatment was the branding of a patient's head with a red-hot iron to ‘bring the animal to his senses’. An English treatment of the earlier nineteenth century involved using a rotating device i...
The overriding theme of the play "A Midsummer Night's Dream" by William Shakespeare deals with the nature of love. Though true love seems to be held up as an ideal, false love is mostly what we are shown. Underneath his frantic comedy, Shakespeare seems to be asking the questions all lovers ask in the midst of their confusion: How do we know when love is real? How can we trust ourselves that love is real when we are so easily swayed by passion and romantic conventions? Some readers may sense bitterness behind the comedy, but will probably also recognize the truth behind Shakespeare's satire. Often, love leads us down blind alleys and makes us do things we regret later. The lovers within the scene, especially the men, are made to seem rather shallow. They change the objects of their affections, all the time swearing eternal love to one or the other. In this scene Shakespeare presents the idea that both false love and true love can prevail..
Love can be quite chaotic at times. As much as poets and songwriters promote the idea of idyllic romantic love, the experience in reality is often fraught with emotional turmoil. When people are in love, they tend to make poor decisions, from disobeying authority figures to making rash, poorly thought-out choices. In the play A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare uses various motifs to illustrate how love, irrationality, and disobedience are thematically linked to disorder.
Love plays a very significant role in this Shakespearian comedy, as it is the driving force of the play: Hermia and Lysander’s forbidden love and their choice to flee Athens is what sets the plot into motion. Love is also what drives many of the characters, and through readers’ perspectives, their actions may seem strange, even comical to us: from Helena pursuing Demetrius and risking her reputation, to fairy queen Titania falling in love with Bottom. However, all these things are done out of love. In conclusion, A Midsummer Night’s Dream displays the blindness of love and how it greatly contradicts with reason.
The hilarious play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, by William Shakespeare, tells the twisted love story of four Athenians who are caught between love and lust. The main characters: Hermia, Helena, Lysander, and Demetrius are in a ‘love square’. Hermia and Lysander are true love enthusiasts, and love each other greatly. Demetrius is in love with Hermia, and Helena, Hermia’s best friend, is deeply and madly in love with Demetrius. Hermia and Lysander try to elope in the woods because Egeus, Hermia’s father, disapproves of Lysander. Helena, hearing about their plans, tells Demetrius, and all four of them end up in the woods where Lysander’s quotation, “The course of true love never did run smooth”(28), becomes extremely evident due to several supernatural mix-ups, authority, and jealousy.
To begin with, this play is filled with comedy but also conflicts between characters. Helena is the kind of woman who has no self-esteem. This is because she does everything to be loved back by a man that doesn’t love her and that is Demetrius. Helena represents a character of a woman that is desperate of having love. In other words, Helena is different from Hermia because she’s an insecure woman full of jealousy. Helena tries to do everything to get Lysander away from her old best friend Hermia. She thinks that love can be found by letting the one you love do anything to you. Consequently, Hermia believes that lo...
Throughout history, explanations for mental illness have been described as supernatural, psychological, and biological. Prior to the early Greek physicians, the supernatural model of mental illness prevailed. Early humans did not have science to explain natural events so magic, mysticism, and superstition were used as a substitution. They believed in animism, the idea that all of nature is alive, and anthropomorphism, the tendency to project human features onto nature. Reification was also a popular belief that assumed if you can think of something, it exists. Sympathetic magic was the idea that one can heal and individual by influencing an object that is similar or closely associated to them (Frazer, 1890/1963). Primitive healers would often imitate the patient's ailments and then model the recovery. Reification also lead to the bel...
Psychoanalysis had its beginning with the discovery that a person in complete physical health could experience an illness with physical symptoms that stemmed from things trapped in the subconscious known as hysteria. Charcot, a French neurologist tried to liberate the mind through hypnosis. A Viennese physician, Josef Breuer, carried this purging further with a process based on his patient, Anna O., revealing her thoughts and feelings to him. Sigmund Freud took Breuer’s method and made generalizations that grew into conceptualizations and eventually into the theories of psychoanalysis. Freud would listen to his patients, and then use these thoughts to interpret what was happening in the unconscious part of their mind. This was explained as bringing the unconscious to consciousness so it could be dealt with through therapy. Breuer and Freud’s successes with this method led to the foundational publication of Studies in Hysteria in 1895. Freud continued his practice of theory until it became the system of psychology known as psychoanalysis, a system that is the single most influential theory of psychotherapy in our time. A brief look into psychoanalysis is seen through the foundations of Freud’s theory.
The problem arising applying M’Naughten is that, besides the diseases that would commonly been recognised as ‘of the mind’, like psychosis, there are others that the common belief wouldn’t include in the group if not for the ‘Rules’ ratio, for example, diabetes, sleepwalking and epilepsy. Moreover the disease is not required to have a mental rather than organic origin.