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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    behold mountains raising their heads to the sky. Now, if such persons had not the means of correcting these errone- ous perceptions, they must believe them to be real, and they must become insane. In these cases the faculties of attention and comparison remaining in a sound state, cor- rect the errors of perception. Illusion may exist without the intellectual faculties being diseased, just as the acute- ness of the senses is found to diminish, not unfrequently, without the mental powers participating in the decay. Now, the faculties of the mind likewise may become diseased; some one or other, or all, or some combination of them may perform their functions erroneously, imperfectly, or not at all; and these states may or may not be accom- panied with imperfect function of the organs of sense. But although disease of sensation is corrected by the sound state of the mental faculties, the converse of this is not true, for disease of the intellectual faculties is not remedied by the sound state of the organs of sense, as is familiarly illustrated in the well known case of the hospital patient, who fancied that the hospital in which he was confined was his residence, its servants his attendants, and so forth, yet who confessed that notwithstanding all his magnificence, and his being attended by the first-rate cooks, yet every thing he ate tasted of porridge. Esquirol relates the case of a patient who was allied to the family of Napoleon; he believed that all those who came near him were members of the imperial family; he got into a passion whenever he saw the servants performing any menial duty. He would throw himself at the feet of one of them whom he took for the Emperor, and ask pardon and protection. Esquirol one day bandaged up his eyes, and instantly he became calm and tranquil, and spoke reasonably of his own illu- sions. The same thing happened in subsequent experi- ments; and for twelve hours, upon one occasion, when the