Clinical Lessons on Nervous Diseases Author:Silas Weir Mitchell Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. IRREGULARLY RECURRENT MELANCHOLIA WITH LONG INTERVALS AND NOT IN APPARENT RELATION TO FUNCTION. Perhaps there is no more reason to be surprise... more »d at melancholias which recur after a day or days of sanity, than as to those which return after months or years. In cases like that quoted at the close of the last lesson the regular repetition of melancholia in connection with the time of digestion tempts the reason with possibilities of explanation; but in the cases to which I now refer, and shall illustrate with a striking example, no form of explanation as yet seems available. Nevertheless, it is in the careful study of such melancholias and their sequent intervals of soundness of mind that we are offered the best chance of discovering the agencies which can so quickly develop a mental disorder. The following case sought advice while I was writing this paper. It is an example of recurrent melancholia of brief duration, returning every two or three days, and lasting four hours to twenty hours: Case XV.—C. E., retired merchant, aged sixty-five years, married. The father was healthy, and died aged eighty-eight years ; mother healthy, died aged eighty-four years. Three sisters are alive and well. Three brothers died aged respectively seventy-five, seventy-four, and thirty-eight years; one nephew had melancholia with delusions. Had had typhoid fever in 1870—no sequelae; habits good; n0 syphilis. For fifteen years has been liable to feel depressed when his business became troublesome, or in commercial crises. His general health is unusually good. The heart and arteries are far better than is common at his age. He is clear of head, competent in business, sleeps well. His appetite is good ; his bowels regular. Is liable to occasional indigestion, with non- acid eruct...« less