Supplement to the Croonian lectures : medical testimony and evidence in cases of lunacy / by Thomas Mayo.

  • Mayo, Thomas, 1790-1871.
Date:
1856
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Supplement to the Croonian lectures : medical testimony and evidence in cases of lunacy / by Thomas Mayo. 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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    make the deception, if acted upon, mischievous to the public. The first of these cases, Greensmith, tried at the Midland Circuit, July, 1837, was a person of industrious habits and an affectionate father; but having fallen into distressed circumstances, he destroys his children by strangling them, in order, as he said, that they might not be turned out into the street. The idea only came to him on the night of his perpe- tirating the crime. After he had strangled two of his children in bed, he went down stairs, where he remained some time; but thinking he might as well suffer for all as for two, he returned to the bed-room, and destroyed the two he had left alive. He shook hands with them before he strangled them. He left the house, and went to a neighbour's, where he said nothing of the murder, until he was apprehended the next day, and taken before the coroner, when he made a full confession. Not one of the witnesses had observed the slightest indica- tion of insanity about him. ' He spoke of the crime which he had committed without the