The medical jurisprudence of insanity / J.M. Pagan.

  • Pagan, J. M. (John MacMichan), 1802-1868.
Date:
1843
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The medical jurisprudence of insanity / J.M. Pagan. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    stone to be sufficient to remove them from the class of idiots. Complete idiocy renders a person irresponsible in the eye of the law; but a certain degree of weakness of intel- lect, far short of total idiocy, may frequently be held to infer the same irresponsibility. A lunatic, says the same legal authority, is properly one that hath lucid in- terval^ qui gaudet lucidis intervallis; sometimes enjoy- ing his senses, and sometimes not, and that frequently depending upon the state of the moon. Nothing can well be more eiToneous than this. It assumes a theory con- nected with the disease, which, though believed in the time of Blackstone, is disbelieved now, and which renders the definition of no authority whatever. Independently of this objection, a lunatic—meaning thereby an insane person— does not, in nature—whatever he may do in law—some- times enjoy his senses, and sometimes not. There are many cases of insanity, in which lucid intervals of longer or shorter duration do occur; but they do not necessarily form part of the disease in all its forms. The most legal name for insane persons, according to Coke, is no7i compos-mentiscomprising persons under frenzies, or who lose their intellect by disease, those that grow deaf, dumb, and blind, not being born so, or such as are judged by the Court of Chancery incapable of con- ducting their own affairs. The theory of the law is, that the sovereign is the guardian of such. The description of such persons, as given by Coke, is both erroneous and imperfect, as I have already pointed out, and as I shall take occasion to show more fully in the sequel. A person who grows deaf and dumb is not necessarily of unsound mind, any more than a man when he becomes blind. The leading provisions of the law of Scotland for afford- ing relief to those who labour under mental disabilities, are