Again, it remains to determine, if possible, how far delusions are dominated respectively by the intellect or the emotions, or even by the volitions.
As before, I begin with a brief statistical analysis.
SUMMARY
Danvers autopsy series, unselected cases 1000
Cases with little or no gross brain disease 306
Cases listed as having autopsychic delusions 106
Cases listed as having only autopsychic delusions 50
Cases for various reasons improperly classified 13
Cases of general paresis in which gross brain lesions were not observed 15
Residue of autopsychic cases 22
The group of 22 cases thus sifted out can be studied from many points of view. We may recall that our former study of allopsychic delusions proved that a large proportion of delusions concerning the environment were in all probability not essentially derived from the environment. Their contents might relate to the environment, but their genesis could better be regarded as autopsychic (intrapersonal). In fact we really found only 6 out of 58 cases of pure allopsychic delusions, which could be safely taken as showing so much coincidence between anamnesis and delusions that a correlation could be risked.
Following the method of our former work on somatic and on environmental delusions, we sought in the first instance PURE cases of autopsychic delusion-information. For a variety of reasons, more than half of the original list, namely, 28 cases, had to be excluded. Many of these exclusions were due to the strong suspicion that the cases were really cases of general paresis, despite the normality of the brains in the gross. The residue of 22 cases include, we are confident, no instance of exudative disease of the syphilitic group, though general syphilization cannot safely be ruled out in all cases.
There are two groups of cases, a group of eleven cases with delusions of a generally pleasant or not unpleasant character (in which group there is a small sub-group of three cases of octogenarians with expansive delusions reminding one of those of general paresis) and a group of eleven cases with delusions of an unpleasant character.
I. CASES HAVING DELUSIONS OF A NATURE PLEASING OR NOT UNPLEASING TO THE BELIEVER
The true emotional nature of the beliefs placed in this group cannot fairly be stated to be pleasurable. But, if not pleasurable, they may perhaps be stated to be complacent, expansive, or of air-castle type. The criteria of their choice have been largely negative: the patients are not recorded as expressing beliefs of a painful or displeasing character: in the absence of which we may suppose the beliefs to be either indifferent or actually pleasing in character.
Of the 11 cases whose delusions were supposedly of an agreeable nature or at least predominantly not unpleasant, there were 3 with delusions reminding one of general paresis. The ages of these three were 80, 84, and 87 respectively. They did not show any pathognomonic sign (e.g. plasma cells) of general paresis. They all showed in common very marked lesions of the cortex, including the frontal regions (in two instances the extent of the frontal lesions was presaged by focal overlying pial changes) .999 was a case of pseudoleukemia with marked cortical devastation but without brain foci of lymphoid cells. Two of the cases showed cell-losses more marked in suprastellate layers; in the third there was universal nerve cell destruction, with active satellitosis caught in process.