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Morel is regarded as the father of dementia praecox and the degeneration theory. Both of these ideas helped understand mental illness as it was on the rise in 19th and 20th century France. [16] Morel's degeneration theory gained quick popularity across Europe, which allowed it to shape further scientific developments.
Morel's concept of mental degeneration – in which he believed that intoxication and addiction in one generation of a family would lead to hysteria, epilepsy, sexual perversions, insanity, learning disability and sterility in subsequent generations – is an example of Lamarckian biological thinking, and Morel's medical discussions are ...
Benedict Augustin Morel (1809–1873) Dementia is an ancient term which has been in use since at least the time of Lucretius in 50 BC where it meant "being out of one's mind". [ 7 ] Until the seventeenth century, dementia referred to states of cognitive and behavioural deterioration leading to psychosocial incompetence.
He was a loyal supporter of Morel's ideology and advocated the idea that modern civilization posed enormous demands on the nervous system causing impulsive malfunctions. In 1879, he published his "Lehrbuch der Psychiatrie" (English: "Textbook of Insanity"), which would soon become the German bible of degeneration theory. [2]
The theory of degeneration was therefore predicated on evolutionary theory. The forces of degeneration opposed those of evolution, and those afflicted with degeneration were thought to represent a return to an earlier evolutionary stage. One of the earliest and most systematric approaches along such lines is that of Bénédict Morel, who wrote:
Magnan was an influential figure in French psychiatry in the latter half of the 19th century. He is remembered for expanding the concept of degeneration that was first introduced into psychiatry by Bénédict Augustin Morel (1809–1873). Magnan's theory of degeneration was a form of "evolutionary biology" that was based on an hereditary precept.
B. A. Morel's degeneration theory was a theory that held that although societies can progress, they can also remain static or even regress if influenced by a flawed environment, such as national conditions or outside cultural influences. [13]
In some ways, Browne anticipated the French psychiatrist Bénédict Morel whose clinical theories of degeneration were published in his 1857 masterpiece Treatise on Degeneration. Browne – rather surprisingly – supported the idea that insanity was most prevalent amongst the highest rank of society and he concluded that "the agricultural ...