Mental diseases: a public health problem
c. Doubt
(13) Moral Insanity (14) Dementia a. Secondary or terminal b. Senile
An elaborate classification was also officially adopted by the Royal College of Physicians of England[142] about the same time. This recognized seven varieties of mania, seven of melancholia and six of dementia. The subject of classifications would not be complete without a reference to Kraepelin. His eighth edition (1910-1915) showed the following:—
1. Psychoses accompanying Injuries to the Brain: Concussion Traumatic delirium Traumatic epilepsy Traumatic enfeeblement
2. Psychoses accompanying Diseases of the Brain: Meningitis Brain tumors Abscesses Hemorrhages Thrombosis Embolism Encephalitis Multiple sclerosis Lobar sclerosis Huntington's chorea Amaurotic idiocy
3. The Intoxication Psychoses: Acute: Endogenous—Uraemia, Eclampsia, Acute yellow atrophy of the liver. Exogenous—Ether, Santonin, Hashish, Nitrous Oxide Gas, Atropin, Hyoscin, Carbonic Oxide Gas, etc. Chronic: Alcohol: Delusional (jealousy) Delirium Tremens Korsakow's Psychosis Acute Hallucinosis (paranoid) Alcoholic paralysis and pseudo-paralysis Morphine Cocaine
4. The Infectious Psychoses: Fever delirium Infection delirium Acute confusion (amentia) Infective exhaustive conditions
5. The Psychoses of Syphilis: Syphilitic neurasthenia Gummatous growths Syphilitic pseudo-paralysis Syphilitic apoplexy Syphilitic epilepsy Paranoid forms Tabetic psychoses Hereditary syphilis
6. Dementia Paralytica: Paralytic, Depressive, Expansive and Agitated forms
7. The Senile and Presenile Psychoses: Presenile psychoses Arteriosclerotic psychoses Senile deterioration
8. The Thyroigenous Psychoses: Basedow's Disease Myxoedema Cretinism
9. The Endogenous Dementias: Dementia praecox: Dementia simplex Hebephrenia Depressive dementia Circular form Agitated form Periodical form Katatonia Paranoid form Schizophasia Paraphrenia: Systematica Expansiva Confabulans Phantastica
10. The Epileptic Psychoses.
11. The Manic Depressive Psychoses: Manic form Depressive form Mixed form
12. The Psychogenic Disorders: Nervous exhaustion Dread neurosis The Induced psychoses The psychoses of the Deaf The Accident or Traumatic neuroses The Psychogenic disorders of Prisoners The Querulants
13. Hysteria
14. Paranoia
15. The Constitutional Disorders: Nervousness The Compulsion neuroses The Impulsion neuroses Sexual perversions
16. The Psychopathic Personalities: The Excitable The Unstable The Impulsive The Eccentric The Liar and Swindler The Antisocial The Quarrelsome
17. Defective Mental Development (oligophrenia)
At the annual meeting of the American Medico-Psychological Association in 1869 Nichols called attention to the statistical studies proposed by the International Congress of Alienists in 1867. As a result of his efforts a series of twenty-one statistical tables was prepared and used unofficially for several years, although never formally adopted. A committee reported again on this subject in 1896, but without any definite action being taken. The Italian psychiatrists have had a classification which has been in general use by them for some time. Interest in this subject has been stimulated by the frequent publications of Kraepelin during the last thirty years. Meyer and Hoch have been largely responsible for bringing his work to the attention of the profession in this country, and Kraepelin's classification with some modifications has come into very general use here. It was not until the publication of its twenty-first annual report in 1909 that the New York State Commission in Lunacy adopted a modern classification of psychoses.
At that time there were practically as many different forms of statistical reports in the United States as there were hospitals. In the meanwhile almost every textbook published during the last fifty years has announced a new classification of mental diseases. They have been based on etiology, pathology, symptomatology and psychology. English, French, German, Italian and American classifications have appeared, each representing, as a rule, different schools of psychiatry. Kempf[143] would discard the term psychosis altogether and speak only of neuroses as "more consistent with the integrative functions of the nervous system." For diagnostic purposes he proposes to separate the benign from the pernicious processes and classify them according to their psychological mechanisms as suppression, repression, compensatory, regression and dissociation neuroses. The easiest way out of all these difficulties, as Southard[144] has said, would be "to deny the existence of entities in mental disease. There are two forms of this contention; first, that mental disease is nothing more or less than insanity, an entity itself, a genus with but one species, or secondly, that all victims of mental disease are individually to be provided with entities, that is, all examples of mental disease are sui generis. The development of psychiatry has killed the former contention stone dead, but the latter contention still flourishes to an extent among those who overstress the individual factor. And this latter contention is bolstered up by the existence of so many psychopathic patients of whom a diagnosis cannot be rendered for practical or theoretical reasons. However, there are no really consistent advocates of the sui generis plan of classification." It is interesting to note that he concedes ... "that the American Medico-Psychological Association's classification, adopted as it has been by a great number of American institutions and by the United States Government for war purposes, is a reasonably good classification and aware that its constituent elements fairly well correspond with what all American psychiatrists agree upon."
Southard[145] raises the question as to how this classification can be used for diagnostic purposes. He answers this query by suggesting "A key to the practical grouping of mental diseases"[146] ... "to be followed, when necessary, like a botanical key in the search for the classification of a plant."... "It is a key to study and not an analytical classification with any pretence to finality."... "The plan is not so much an excursion into nosology as an essay in the technique of psychiatric diagnosis for the tyro."
The problem presenting itself in the adoption of a classification purely for statistical purposes was not a question of a scientific grouping of the psychoses based on either etiological, anatomical, pathological, clinical or prognostic considerations. It was a question of compiling a tabulation or list of clinical entities recognized generally by American psychiatrists, subject to such changes and modifications as may be necessary to make it conform to accepted standards. As a matter of fact, no adequate reason for a classification of mental diseases for any other than statistical purposes has even been advanced by the authors of our textbooks on psychiatry. They do not contribute anything of value whatever to our knowledge of symptomatology, diagnosis or treatment. Practically the only point on which the writers of our textbooks agree is that there is no one fundamental principle upon which a satisfactory classification can be based. It is unfortunate that tradition seems to demand the serious consideration of a problem which many believe admits of no solution and which would mean little or nothing to the future of psychiatry if it were solved. The views of the Committee on Statistics are shown by a quotation from the report made to the Association at its meeting in New York in 1917:—"Your Committee feels that the first essential of a uniform system of statistics in hospitals for the insane is a generally recognized nomenclature of mental diseases. The present condition with respect to the classification of mental diseases is chaotic. Some states use no well-defined classification. In others the classifications used are similar in many respects but differ enough to prevent accurate comparisons. Some states have adopted a uniform system, while others leave the matter entirely to the individual hospitals. This condition of affairs discredits the science of psychiatry and reflects unfavorably upon our Association, which should serve as a correlating and standardizing agency for the whole country. The large task of your Committee therefore has been the formulation of a classification which it could unanimously recommend for adoption by the Association. The task was accomplished only after several prolonged conferences at which classifications now in use in various states and countries, and the recommendations of leading psychiatrists were considered. The classification finally adopted is simple, comprehensive and complete; it copies no other classification but includes the strong features of many others; it meets the demands of the best modern psychiatry but does not slavishly follow any single system. In short, your Committee has endeavored to formulate a classification that could be easily used in every hospital for the insane in this country and that would meet the scientific demands of the present day."
Since the compilation of statistical data relating to the various activities of the hospitals for mental diseases in this country was definitely decided upon by the Association at its meeting in 1913, the membership of the Committee on Statistics has from time to time included the following:—Dr. Thomas W. Salmon, Medical Director, National Committee for Mental Hygiene; Dr. Owen Copp, Physician in Chief and Superintendent, Pennsylvania Hospital, Department for Nervous and Mental Diseases; Dr. E. Stanley Abbot, Medical Director, Public Charities Association of Pennsylvania; Dr. Henry A. Cotton, Medical Director, New Jersey State Hospital, Trenton; Dr. L. Vernon Briggs, Boston, former member of the Massachusetts State Board of Insanity; Dr. Adolf Meyer, Professor of Psychiatry, Johns Hopkins University; Dr. Albert M. Barrett, Professor of Psychiatry and Neurology, University of Michigan; Dr. George H. Kirby, Director of the Psychiatric Institute, New York City; Dr. Samuel T. Orton, Professor of Psychiatry and Director of the Psychopathic Hospital, University of Iowa; Dr. Frankwood E. Williams, Associate Medical Director, National Committee for Mental Hygiene; Dr. Elmer E. Southard, Director of the Massachusetts State Psychiatric Institute; Dr. C. Macfie Campbell, Director of the Boston Psychopathic Hospital, and the writer. Associated with the committee officially were: Dr. August Hoch, formerly Director of the Psychiatric Institute, New York; Dr. H. M. Pollock, Statistician of the New York State Hospital Commission; Miss Edith M. Furbush, Statistician of the National Committee for Mental Hygiene, and various others.
The Association's classification of mental diseases at this time (1921) is as follows:
1. Traumatic psychoses: (a) Traumatic delirium (b) Traumatic constitution (c) Post-traumatic mental enfeeblement (dementia) (d) Other types 2. Senile psychoses: (a) Simple deterioration (b) Presbyophrenic type (c) Delirious and confused types (d) Depressed and agitated type (e) Paranoid types (f) Pre-senile type (g) Other types 3. Psychoses with cerebral arteriosclerosis 4. General paralysis 5. Psychoses with cerebral syphilis 6. Psychoses with Huntington's chorea 7. Psychoses with brain tumor 8. Psychoses with other brain or nervous diseases: (a) Cerebral embolism (b) Paralysis agitans (c) Meningitis, tubercular or other forms (to be specified) (d) Multiple sclerosis (e) Tabes dorsalis (f) Acute chorea (g) Other diseases (to be specified) 9. Alcoholic psychoses: (a) Pathological intoxication (b) Delirium tremens (c) Korsakow's psychosis (d) Acute hallucinosis (e) Chronic hallucinosis (f) Acute paranoid type (g) Chronic paranoid type (h) Alcoholic deterioration (i) Other types, acute or chronic 10. Psychoses due to drugs and other exogenous toxins: (a) Opium (and derivatives), cocaine, bromides, chloral, etc., alone or combined (to be specified) (b) Metals, as lead, arsenic, etc. (to be specified) (c) Gases (to be specified) (d) Other exogenous toxins (to be specified) 11. Psychoses with pellagra 12. Psychoses with other somatic diseases: (a) Delirium with infectious diseases (b) Post-infectious psychosis (c) Exhaustion delirium (d) Delirium of unknown origin (e) Cardio-renal diseases (f) Diseases of the ductless glands (g) Other diseases or conditions (to be specified) 13. Manic-depressive psychoses: (a) Manic type (b) Depressive type (c) Stuporous type (d) Mixed type (e) Circular type (f) Other types 14. Involution melancholia 15. Dementia praecox: (a) Paranoid type (b) Catatonic type (c) Hebephrenic type (d) Simple type (e) Other types 16. Paranoia or paranoid conditions 17. Epileptic psychoses: (a) Epileptic deterioration (b) Epileptic clouded states (c) Other epileptic types (to be specified) 18. Psychoneuroses and neuroses: (a) Hysterical type (b) Psychasthenic type (c) Neurasthenic type (d) Anxiety neuroses (e) Other types 19. Psychoses with psychopathic personality 20. Psychoses with mental deficiency 21. Undiagnosed psychosis 22. Without psychosis (a) Epilepsy without psychosis (b) Alcoholism without psychosis (c) Drug addiction without psychosis (d) Psychopathic personality without psychosis (e) Mental deficiency without psychosis (f) Others (to be specified)