Excerpt from Clinical Lectures on Mental Diseases A Medical Book that is coining out in its Fourth Edition should need no Preface. The demand for it has absolved its Author from any further explanation of its existence. That it was needed, and has so far supplied a need, might be held as proved; and this should be sufficient proof, too, of its merits and exculpation enough of its faults. The study of Mental Disease is now entering on a new era. It has, for the first time, become compulsory on all medical students. This should vivify and stimulate the teaching of it, and affect the study and investigation of the subject in ways and degrees as yet unknown to us. To us teachers the change will not be entirely a gain. For our delightful optional classes will be substituted larger compulsory gatherings. The moral relationship of teacher and taught will no longer be the same. The subtile aroma of perfect freedom to teacher and taught will be gone. The charm, on both sides, of feeling that here at least there was no shadow of the upas tree of impending examination to poison the air will have disappeared. Fortunately, the subject lends itself to teaching in which every intelligent student will be more or less interested. I have always maintained that no subject in his course will keep the average student so mentally alert during an hour of a sultry summer afternoon as a good clinical lecture on mental diseases, well illustrated by patients. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.