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This comprehensive treatise on hallucinations, dedicated to the memory of Constantin v. Monakow begins with a preface by Henri Bergson, continues with an introduction by the author, wherein the history, general status of the problem and methods of study are reviewed, and is completed in three parts in which the numerous aspects of the subject are discussed in detail.
In part one is found an historical sketch of the development of various concepts of the pathogenesis of genuine hallucinations, a discussion of the question of hallucinated experiences as intensified images, according to experimental and clinical researches, and of depersonalization phenomena and a description of the theories of motivating forces from the standpoint of anatomy and physiology. The second part begins with an introduction to the neurobiological point of view, including the Hughlings Jackson theory of “levels” and his conception of perception. Two chapters are devoted to the organovegetative system wherein the investigations of Baillarger and of Moreau are reviewed and types of hallucinations (visual, auditory, olfactory) appearing during the course of visceral diseases presented with examples from the literature. The concepts of Head regarding hallucinatory states in visceral disease, reflected visceral pains and other sensory expressions are described in some detail, as are also the investigations, ideas and problems which have grown out of the “Eidetiker “phenomena. There is some well formulated description of the fundamental biological importance of the labyrinthine apparatus in relation to a type of hallucinatory experience, and a consideration of states of depersonalization illustrated by accounts of clinical observations.
In the third part of the monograph, the author presents some new aspects or “approximations “of the problem in which he critically reviews and reintegrates the alleged rôles played by the various levels of the instinctive mechanisms in hallucinations and depersonal