ions. Yet
that alone would not exclude the possibility of considering some
diseases, for instance, exclusively from the mental side, and we should
be justified in doing so if those parts of the brain which are the seat
of the mental processes could remain in the diseased state without
influence on other parts of the nervous system and of the whole body. In
such a case it would indeed be sufficient to consider the psychophysical
disturbance from the psychological point of view only, that is, to speak
of the disease as a disorder of intellect, of emotion or will, without
thinking of changes in the brain cells. But such isolation does not
exist in nature. Not only the bodily factors like nutrition and
circulation and sexual functions have a thousandfold influence on the
psychophysical processes, and these in turn change the vegetative
functions of the body, but especially the other parts of the brain and
nervous system can be affected in most different ways. If we want to
consider whether a certain variation of the personality demands curative
treatment, we certainly cannot confine ourselves to the mental
variations. They are after all only parts of the whole group of changes
in the organism and are thus symptoms of a disease which has to be
studied in its totality. The mental symptoms alone may be relatively
slight variations, which in themselves might be sufficiently balanced
not to disturb the equilibrium of life, and yet they may be symptoms of
a brain disturbance which as a whole must interfere with the safety of
life. On the other hand, mental life may appear like a chaos and yet the
disturbance may be the symptom of merely a slight brain affection and
the treatment of the mental symptoms in their apparent severity would be
a useless effort. The mental disturbance, for instance, of the
intoxicated or the hashish smoker, even the delirium of the feverish,
does not suggest a fight against the mental symptoms during the attack.

On the whole, there is a far-reaching independence between the apparent
mental variations and the seriousness of the brain affection. Light
hysteric states may produce a strong absenting of the mind while severe
epileptic conditions of the brain may be accompanied by very slight
mental changes. Every neurasthenic state may play havoc with mental
life, while grave brain destructions may only shade slightly the
character or the intellect. To deal with the mental changes as if they
belonged to a sp