Category: Atlas of Dead Ideas

JF Ptak Science Books  Extending Post 647 (from 2009)  Blog Bookstore

Thomas Cooper, a merry, upper-educated intellectual called “a learned and talented mapcap” by none other than John Adams, wrote from his secure chair at South Carolina College a translation of a rather individual effort in explaining insanity’s connection with moral outrages.  The work, published in Columbia (South Carolina) is called On Irritation and Insanity … to which are added Two Tracts on Materialism, and an outline of the Association of Ideas, was written by Francis Joseph Victor Broussais (1772-1838) and introduced an unusual, foreign approach to the connection between sanity and malevolence.  Brousssais’ work may not have required such attention. 

He wrote, for example:

“The causes of this morbid state consist always in irritation of the trisplanchnic apparatus, and especially in that of the stomach, acting on the brain. [Italics mine] This last viscus, may be such, by its normal constitution, as to give a propensity to cruelty ; but in the morbid state it is a sense of uneasiness perceived through the whole splanchnic apparatus, comprehending the brain itself, which renders ideas of murder predominant in spite of reason. This horrible perversion may be considered, as well as that of suicide, as a species of chronic anger or hatred, which impels the individual sometimes against himself, sometimes against other men or against inanimate objects. We have already considered it under a subacute form in furious mania ; but in the modification in which we now describe it, it is entirely chronic and apyretic. In fact it may be extremely obstinate, and conceal itself under the appearances of calm, of joy, of benevolence, until the lunatic finds the opportunity of executing his horrible project.”

 I can see these words being written by candle light.

• Full text via Google books, here: http://tinyurl.com/ocyezpb

 James Cowle Prittchard early on dispensed with M. Broussais, writing  in his A Treatise on Insanity and Other Disorders Affecting the Mind (published by Haswell, Barrington, and Haswell in 1837, just six years after the Cooper translation) states:

“Such is M. Broussais’ theory of these phenomena. It must be allowed that various irritations, and especially those in the digestive organs, often give rise to irritability of temper; but that any such state as that .which M. Broussais has described is a cause, and even the principal cause, of moral insanity, and in particular of that intense excitement of malevolent propensity which leads to murder and suicide, is a position which, before it can be admitted, requires proof; and no such proof has been afforded by the ingenious writer who has advanced this hypothesis. It must be confessed that this subject is as yet enveloped in obscurity.”

As it turns out Broussais recommended courses of bleeding, diet, soothing drinks, applications of cold and mild purgatives to treat insanity.  This went somewhat against the established regimen of treatment (but of different philosophical and theoretical approach to the idea of insanity) of Benjamin Rush, who practiced all of the above but of harsher application and with more force.  Broussais at  least advocated a more temperate approach to bleeding, that it not be “severe”, and that the strength of the insane not be completely diluted by massive exposures to dunking and the cold.  The translator Cooper, however, disagreed with the milder treatments, establishing for the record that the hotter and harsher  temperatures of the South required harsher and colder treatment. From page vi of Cooper’s [reface we read: “The Southern climate of the United States , seems to require more bold and decisive practice, than the Northern climate of Paris or London : then, to us, the therapeutics of Broussais, Begin, Coster, &c. appear feeble; but the principles, founded on the physiology and pathology of the tissues, are undeniable and universally applicable.”

Such was the spirit of the day.  Broussais is not even a shadow, today:  he tried to establish a connection between gastrointestinal distresses and insanity, and that was seen as futile even by immediate contemporaries. Cooper survives because of his far reach into many disciplines–his treatment of Broussais, well, is memorable for his appeal to treat the insane differently in courts of law because of what he viewed as their diminished capacities.  

JF Ptak Science Books  Post 2528

De Bow’s Review in 1867, in the dire straights of the antebellum South, in the doom and despair of the just-finished war, lashed out like a wicked Alex Jones conspiratorial wingnut against the Northern states and anyone who comforted them.  Published in Nashville, all I have of the magazine presently is this loose issue for November 1867, and in spite of the energetically positive view depicted on the cover of the magazine had little to do with what you found in the writing inside.  

The leading article is an odd one, yelling about Great Britain manufacturing the cause of anti-slavery in the United States, which pretty much is made abundantly clear in the title,  “Black Republicanism, the Dupe and Agent of British Policy in Respect to American Interests”. The “scheme of so-called Negro Emancipation…is a British Invention” crushing the U.S. which “suffered immeasurably” under the Abolition Program, “the fatal deadfall of the abolition trap“, all of which in the end will “crush the innards out of the “Black Republican Yankee”.  It was the Brits according to the writer of this article who FORCED THE UNITED STATES TO ABOLISH SLAVERY” [caps in the original]. 

JF Ptak Science Books  Post 2502

There’s a bookcase in the house that has a top shelf for small books, most of which I haven’t written about, though there is a clutch of them that have gotten some exposure here on the blog, with most of them being unused diaries, and most of those being Nazi-oriented.  I’ve wondered about the people who would have sat down with those things blank-ish books, thinking about scheduling their time, or recording events, and then deciding not to. Maybe they didn’t want to be reminded of Nazi holidays and/or the birth of Hitler, or the right of duty and the proper way to respond to current events based on the policies of the NSDAP. The diaries are all pretty much like-new, and aren’t even all that old in the scheme of things, though their distance in time doesn’t match their distance in historical “space” (so to speak). 

This diary was for German girls who were members of the Young Girls League (Jungmädelbund), which in the German stratification of Nazism was part of the League of German Girls (Bund Deutscher Mädel), which in turn operated under the broader gender-divided organization of Hitler Youth.

It is difficult as a father of two daughters–one of whom is of the correct age to have been using this diary had circumstances been enormously different–and it is painful to imagine her looking through these pages, at the red-letter days and inspiration photographs, filling in the book and responding to these enormous and not necessarily subtle social pressures.

“Wir folgen!” states the cover of the diary, and it meant it. “We follow”. 

The book itself is not-at-all-fluffy, and pretty adult, set up with five days per page, and with plenty of Nazi propaganda and history. Al of that occupies the first 157 pages; from there to page 220 is a textual review of Hitler Youth philosophy, plus stories of brave young party members, twelve pages of explanation of rune symbology, maps, diagrams, and the like. 

Liberally sprinkled throughout the diary section are many quotes by Hitler and other party sub-luminaries.   For example, opening to the two pages covering December 20-27, we see nothing for Christmas except for its lonely date. Right next door, on the 26th, there is a note marking the day for the death of  Dietrich Eckart–he was one of the founders of the Deutsche Arbeitspartei which became the NSDAP, and was one of the leaders in the Putsch of 1923, jailed in Landesburg with Hitler, though he was released early to die of a heart attack in Bertschesgaden that same year. (I’m sorry that I know that much about such an inferior person, but I do.)  On the page opposite is a note stating that Hitler was released from prison on that day, December 20, 1924, to begin his work again. It is a homely two pages.

There are also a few loose quotes for the writer Hans Baumann, who became a significant nationalist figure in the indoctrination of German youth via his many works for children. Mr. Baumann’s work was not-so-pretty, and after surviving years on the Eastern front and imprisonment he somehow rose up again to become a popular international writer of childrens books and a winner of several awards, all in spite of his great popularity among the National Socialists.  He died in 1988. 

Oh–and this note for April 13, noting that on that day in 1932 “S.A., S.S., H.J, verboten”, referring to the Weimar government banning the S.A., S.S. and Hilterjunge (H.J.) .

And of course February 24 for the 1930 death of  Nazi martyr Horst Wessel, and at the bottom of the same page as long quote from the odious Alfred Rosenberg. 

On and on it goes. 

The book was published by Eher-Verlag (Franz Eher Nachfolger GmbH), which was the central publishing arm for the Nazi Party, and which published, well, pretety much everything, including Mein Kampf, from 1925 to the end.  The building at Thierschstrasse 11 in Munich still stands, a piano company occupying the ground floor now.