On the different forms of insanity : in relation to jurisprudence, designed for the use of persons concerned in legal questions regarding unsoundness of mind.

  • Prichard, James Cowles, 1786-1848.
Date:
1842
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the different forms of insanity : in relation to jurisprudence, designed for the use of persons concerned in legal questions regarding unsoundness of mind. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    that is not within the shades of the very par- tial eclipse : and although the act to be voided can in no way be connected with the influence of the insanity : but to deliver a lunatic from responsibility to criminal justice, above all, in a case of atrocity, the relation between the disease and the act should be apparent. Sir John Nicholl, in a celebrated case, laid down the same doctrine, even more strongly and without the limitation which Lord Erskine had introduced. He says, (i As far as my own observation and experience can direct me, aided by opinions and statements I have heard expressed in society, guided also by what has occurred in these and in other courts of justice, or has been laid down by medical and legal writers; the true criterion is,—where there is delusion of mind, there is insanity; that is, when persons believe things to exist which exist only in their own imagination, and of the non- existence of which neither argument nor proof can convince them, they are of unsound mind; or as one of the counsel accurately expressed it, 6 it is only the belief of facts, which no rational person would have believed, that is insane delusion/ This delusion may sometimes exist on one or two particular subjects, though