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No one who has ever argued with a paranoic will forget how keen a sense of reality he may retain, how logical his arguments are, and how reasonable his delusions appear, if only some one point be granted. With the praecox, however, the opposite impression may be quite as striking.
For instance: "The newer methods of diagnosis of Dementia praecox we look forward to for help in one place where discrimination is important." But surely a psychologist cannot hope to predict conduct by physical findings!
Moreover, by choosing for analysis a case which was neither dementia praecox nor paranoia but a combination of the two, he reaches conclusions which are valuable additions to our knowledge of psychotic processes but merely confuse the issue as to the specific mechanisms of paranoia and dementia praecox.
If character in its totality is organic, so is will, and it therefore resides in the tissues of our organism and is subject to its laws. In some mental diseases the central disturbance is in the will, as Kraepelin postulates in the disease known as Dementia Praecox. The power of choice and the power of acting according to choice disappear gradually, leaving the individual inert and apathetic.
I can well recall in one of his previous communications the fascinating correlations drawn between structural changes and the character of the psychological signs. In dementia praecox particularly, he has shown us how auditory symptoms group about temporal atrophies and optical signs with the occipital and so forth and so on.
This is an objective interest and it is that, we think, which has a causal connexion with his mild degree of deterioration for he has been what we must regard as a praecox for many years and yet has lost so little of his personality that to a layman he would certainly be regarded as little more than a crank.
All his basic moods became altered, and all his wholesome reactions to life disappeared. He was cross and contrary, he had no interest in people or in things, he acted very much as do those patients in an insane hospital who suffer from Dementia Praecox. What is character if it is not interest and curiosity, friendliness and love, obedience and trust, cheerfulness and courage?
A certain compromise may be reached he who digs for gold in his back-yard is not so crazy as he who reaches out his hand for the moon. Nor is the paranoic who chooses to put his interpretation on the surliness of his employer as far estranged from reality as the praecox who recognizes his employer in the person of the physician.
If Dementia praecox postulated criminality, the situation might be different, but, as it stands, the reaction would only be of value in the doubtful cases cases which are so many of them non-institutional. With this vague conception of the psychoses it is not surprising to find that diagnosis used faute de mieux.
There are numerous, very distinct varieties, such as P. floribunda atrosanguinea, with deep red flowers; P. floribunda Elise Rathe, of pendulous habit; P. floribunda John Downie, very beautiful in fruit; P. floribunda pendula, a semi-weeping variety; P. floribunda praecox, early-flowering; P. floribunda mitis, of small size; P. floribunda Halleana or Parkmanii, probably the most beautiful of all the forms; and P. floribunda Fairy Apple and P. floribunda Transcendant Crab, of interest on account of their showy fruit.
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