to continually occupy consciousness … the persisting memories assume a stereotyped form … thought tends to become clotted ('gerinnen')."[1] Without attempting to produce further proof Masselon declares that the stereotyped ideas (delusions) are associations of the complex of personality. It is a pity that the author does not linger any longer on this point. It would be very interesting to know in what way, for example, a few neologisms or a "word salad" are associations of the complex of personality, as indeed these are often the only remnants through which we become informed of the existence of ideas. That the psychic life of the adolescent dement "curdles" or "clots" seems to me an excellent simile for the gradual torpescence of the disease; it designates quite pregnantly the impressions entertained by every careful observer of dementia præcox. The author found it quite easy to derive automatism (suggestibilité) from his premises. As to the origin of negativism he offers but vague suppositions, although the French literature on impulsive phenomena afforded him many essential facts for analogous explanations. Masselon also tried association experiments. He found many repetitions of the stimulus words and frequent fancies of an apparently quite fortuitous nature. From these experiments he concluded that the patients are unable to pay attention. A right conclusion! Masselon, however, spent too little time on the "fancies."
From the main results of Masselon's work it can be seen that this author, like his predecessors, is inclined to admit a true central psychological disturbance,[2] a disturbance which sets in at the source of life of all psychic functions; that is, in the realms of apperception, feeling and desire.[3]
Weygandt in his clear elucidation of the psychology of the weak-mindedness in dementia præcox follows Wundt's terminology and calls the terminal process of the disease apperceptive
- ↑ Masselon: l. c., p. 69, 261, 263.
- ↑ Séglas (Leçons cliniques), 1895, says the following about the uncertainty of catatonic accomplishments: There is nothing surprising when one reflects that all movement requires the previous synthesis of a crowd of mental representations—and it is precisely the power to make this mental synthesis which is defective in these individuals.
- ↑ Kant: Kritik der praktischen Vernunft.
