On the question of the state of the autonomic nervous system in mental illness

Abstract

The study of the autonomic nervous system has been going on for 250 years, naturally undergoing a series of successive changes. Of the authors who have most advanced this teaching, we must mention Winslow, who was the first to introduce the name "sympathicus" and establish its relation to the tissues of the whole organism. Then it should be noted the ganglionic nerves and the ganglionic nervous system studied by Johnston, whose nodes turned, in his opinion, voluntary movements into involuntary ones. Then, at the beginning of the 19th century, Bichat, drawing an analogy between animals, plants and humans, divides the life of an organism into animal and plant, denoting the first "vie de relation" and the second "vie de nutrition".