On the amendment of the Law of Lunacy : a letter to Lord Brougham / by a phrenologist.

  • Tichborne, Thomas.
Date:
1843
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the amendment of the Law of Lunacy : a letter to Lord Brougham / by a phrenologist. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    sirable to hear the observations of the judges, was not because there was any doubt about the law, but because it might lead to uniformity of practice, and afford a lesson to juries hereafter, that they might know what their duty was. He confessed he looked with great jealousy at any material alteration of the law as to the confinement of persons on the ground of insanity. This was a subject of great delicacy, and his noble and learned friend would hear in mind that persons were very apt to attribute insanity to others. A medical gentle- man had entertained an opinion that no person had a mind altogether sound. The statute of George III. gave power to magistrates to secure a person who meditated an unlawful act, and that law might be somewhat enlarged. Lord CAMPBELL said he should be sorry, for the sake of the character of the administration of justice in this country, if any douht should be thrown upon the verdict lately given in the Central Criminal Court, and it seemed not to be the intention of his noble and learned friend to throw any doubt upon it. He had no doubt that M‘Naughton was properly acquitted; but he agreed > that it would have been more satisfactory if the trial had gone to a conclusion, and a reply had been heard from the Solicitor-General, and there had been a summing-up by the judge. His noble and learned friend had said that the law was correctly laid down by the learned judge ; but what signified how the law was laid down when the trial was stopped ? when the judge asked the Solicitor-General if he could rebut the evidence, and the Solicitor-General said he could not, and would not press the case further ? Let it not be supposed that he (Lord Campbell) meant the slightest reflection upon the learned judge who so highly adorned the bench; but he did regret that he should have been so impressed with the evidence of the medical witnesses, because the impression made upon the public mind was, that if a certain number of medical men said that a person under trial was insane, the trial must be stopped, and cadet qucestio. He contended that the question ought not to have been put; that was for the jury, not for witnesses, to decide the point. It would be dangerous if it should go abroad that the opinion of medical men could acquit. He knew that Dr. Haslam was of opinion that all persons were insane. The case of Hatfield differed from that of M'Naughton. In that case it was proved, not by medical witnesses, but by persons who knew the facts, that he had been in the army and received a severe wound in the head, that he had been discharged from the military hospital as insane, that within three days of his committing the act he declared he had had an interview with the Supreme Being, and that he had made an attempt upon the life of his own child, whom he tenderly loved, within a few hours of his committing the act for which he was tried. He (Lord Campbell) thought the law required no alteration, since by the law as it stood partial : insanity gave no immunity. He would read a short extract from Lord Hale :— “ And this is the condition of very many, especially melancholy persons, who 1 for the most part discover their defect in excessive fears and griefs, and yet I are not wholly destitute of the use of reason; and this partial insanity seems I not to excuse them in the committing of any offence for its matter capital ; for f doubtless most persons that are felons of themselves and others, are under a I degree of partial insanity when they commit these offences; it is very difficult I to define the invisible line that divides perfect and partial insanity ; but it must I rest upon circumstances duly to be weighed and considered both by the judge I and jury, lest on the one side there be a kind of inhumanity towards the I defects of human nature, or on the other side too great an indulgence given to I great crimes.” So that it was necessary to consider the state the person was ! in at the moment, and whether he could distinguish between right and wrong. I He much wished that there should be a more authoritative declaration of the law on the subject than had hitherto existed, and he rejoiced that his noble and learned friend had suggested to the house to take the opinion of the judges, in order that the profession and the public might know what question was to be put to the jury. The public were now inundated with medical works on the subject of insanity, and on the responsibility incurred by insane persons. Those books were read by persons, and their minds became filled with discussions about homicidal tendencies and homicidal propensities, and men but too readily caught up the idea that persons very prone to homicide were in a state of insanity. Alison’s observations on that subject were not unworthy of their