Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 923

ROBERT WHYTT (1714-1766) Observations on the nature, causes, and cure of those disorders which have been commonly called nervous, hypochondriac, or hysteric. Printed for T. Becket 1765 viii [8] 520 pp. 20.2 cm.

Whytt, a pupil of Monro primus and predecessor of William Cullen in the chair of medicine at Edinburgh, was one of the foremost physicians of the eighteenth century because of his contributions to clinical medicine and particularly to the understanding of reflex action. His clear description of tuberculous meningitis, his explanation of the sentient (sensitivity) principle in involuntary action, and his discussion of the significance of emotions in the natural history of organic diseases easily offset his mistaken emphasis on the value of lime water in the treatment of calculi in the urinary tract. In this work, which Fielding H. Garrison calls "the first important English treatise on neurology after Willis" (An introduction to the history of medicine. 4th ed. Philadelphia, 1929. p. 326), Whytt discusses the significance of emotions in the pathogenesis of nervousness, hypochondria, and hysteria.

Cited references: Cushing W177 (1767 ed.); Garrison-Morton 4841; Waller 10277