To the Delineation of “Depersonalization Allied” Phenomena: J. Reil’s and E. von Feuchtersleben’s Concepts of “General Feeling” (Coenaesthesis)

Abstract

The origin of the term and notion of “coenaesthesis” of German-speaking medical school was analyzed. Whereas in Germany the term “Coenaesthesis” was presumably fi rst used by J. Reil’s pupil Ch.F. Huebner (1794) in his written in Latin dissertation and the concept that considered the changes in “general feeling” as a ground for some psychiatric disorders was elaborated by J. Reil (1799, 1805), in Russia the similar ideas were expressed by A.F. Solnzev (1825) in his also written in Latin dissertation as D.D. Fedotov and V.G. Ostroglazov indicate. It may be assumed that the Scotch doctor A. Crichton (Alexander Kreiton in Russian transcription) contributed to the propagation of the concept of “Coenaesthesis” from Germany to Russia, due to his account of German concept of “General feeling” in his “Inquiry into the nature and origin of mental derangement” (1798) and succeeding fi fteen years work in Russia. In German-speaking psychiatry the Reil’s concept of “Coenaesthesis” was farther developed by Austrian doctor and psychiatrist E. von Feuchtersleben (1845), who underlined its meaning not only in hypochondrial but also in hysterical disorders and actively used the term “Coenaesthesis” along with the German term “general feeling”; the concept of general feeling is also refl ected in the famous W. Griesinger’s “Pathology and therapy of mental diseases”. In connection with the following separation from general feeling the muscular, temperature and pressure feelings its notion got narrowed as also the circle of mental disorders that was considered as determined by the different changes in general feeling. That is noticeable in German-speaking psychiatry in the concepts of R. von Kraft-Ebing and E. Kraepelin; while H. Schuele did not use the notion of general feeling at all. In Russia A.F. Solnzev’s concept of Coenaesthesis was for a long time forgotten, but in France in the second half of the XIXth century psychologist and philosopher Th. Ribot opened “cenesthesie” anew. In anglo-saxon psychiatry the disorders of general feeling were never considered as a special psychopathological syndrome (with the exception of its presentation by A. Crichton).