Insanity in its legal relations / by Roger G. Perkins.

  • Perkins, Roger G.
Date:
1858
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Insanity in its legal relations / by Roger G. Perkins. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    no indictment, and the unfortunate lunatic is quietly sent to an asylum on the oath of two physicians. But by far the most important, least understood, and difficult in diagnosis, of all the forms of morbid exaltation is what is called the homicidal impulse. Several cases of this kind are on record. They are all deeply interesting, but none more so than the following. A woman presented herself at the Central Homoeopathic Dispensary last summer who confessed, with tears and hysterical sobs, to an irresistable impulse to kill her child. | She had been recently confined, (I believe about a month previously,) and had been as she expressed herself ex- ceedingly nervous ever since. She had had but small appetite, but little sleep, hardly any milk, and was in a constant nervous tremor, while describing her distressing and unnatural condition. She told me she had been compelled to run with her child in her arms, into the house of a neighbor, and throwing the child on the bed, to rush distractedly into the street, for fear of yield- ing to the horrid impulse which prompted her. But little idea can be formed of her extreme distress. She wrung her hands and cried most piteously, mingling her sad entreaties for relief with hysterical tears and sobs. Although in a state of extreme nervous erythismus, there seemed to be present no delusion or hallucination. The woman was mentally well in all respects, save in the direction of this unnatural impulse. In this case the erythismus was so marked, that had the patient been un- able to resist the homicidal impulse, there would have been but little difficulty in convincing a grand jury of her unaccounta- bility: but cases occur in which the insane impulse comes on so suddenly and irresistibly, and passes over so immediately after the accomplishment of the bloody deed, there is the great- est conceivable difficulty in diagnosis. # Supposing ourselves called to the psychological investigation of a case in which this form of disease is set up as ground of irresponsibility—the first step is to inquire into the previous character of the accused. We should then bear in mind that certain physical symptoms are to be expected antecedent to the outbreak. These physical symptoms are as follows. There is apt to be an unpleasant feeling at the pit of the stomach, a short shuddering through the body ; the tongue may be loaded; the stomach acid; burning heat may.be felt throughout the ab