Moral insanity in relation to criminal acts / Dr. Parigot.

  • Parigot, J. (Julius)
Date:
1861
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Moral insanity in relation to criminal acts / Dr. Parigot. 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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    officers are very often at variance because they do not admit the same definitions of terms, especially in cases of moral insanity. A confusion may also arise out of the different value given to words as out of the loose employment of them. The consequences of such a state of things are often to be deplored. The jury and courts having not understood the real state of the case, judgments have been rendered for which the defendant, right or wrong, might as well have tossed up for the verdict. One of the objects of the present paper is to try to dispel some obscurity concerning the diagnosis of moral insanity, including homicidal, suicidal, and impulsive mania and monomania, in which moral faculties are said to be affected. What is the pathological meaning of moral insanity? Dr. Pritchard says that it is a disorder, the symptoms of which are only displayed in the state of feeling, affections, temper, and in the habits and conduct of the individual, or in the exercise of ' those mental faculties which are termed the active and moral powers of the mind. This definition shows that it principally con- cerns the faculty of willing, choosing—in a word, the self-govern- ment of man is in his acts. Eminent and celebrated American medical authorities entertain the same opinion. Dr. Ray adopts this definition, and Dr. Beck says that besides the impulse to murder, there is also included an irresistible impulse to commit injury or do mischief of all kinds. Here, then, the full perversion of volition and natural instincts are clearly defined by men whose authority is recognised in the scientific world. If we want more evidence on the nature and fatal disposition of mind and will, let us read the excellent paper in the American Journal of Insanity (January, 1861), on the involuntary confessions. Drs. Bucknill and Take, in their work on psychological medicine, certainly the best written lately, say that the diagnosis of moral insanity is of the utmost importance and often of the utmost difficulty ; but they think that physical symptoms, standing by themselves, are of little importance in the diagnosis of insanity. We do not at all admit this proposition, and will prove just the reverse, and show the necessity of their presence both in moral insanity and in the simulation of it, in order to detect the reality of both cases. All authors admit now that any trouble, exaltation, depression, abolition, or perversion of any of our mental faculties, is always attended by some derangement of the bodily functions ; the question is only whether the acute or chronic bodily affection is special to each mental derangement ? We believe it to be so, and will apply this rule to the most difficult case of insanity. We intend to establish what is necessary for a good evidence before a court of justice. Of course there will be cases more or less doubtful, but it is a general rule that we try to find for practical purposes. In fact, the study of forensic medicine and its wonder- ful progress, are, in a certain measure, the result of cases which attracted great notoriety. The perusal of these trials is of great