Report of the proceedings under a brieve of idiotry, Peter Duncan against David Yoolow, tried at Coupar-Angus, 28-30 Jan., 1837 : with an appendix of relative documents, and an introduction / by Ludovic Colquhoun.

  • Duncan, Peter, active 1837.
Date:
1837
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the proceedings under a brieve of idiotry, Peter Duncan against David Yoolow, tried at Coupar-Angus, 28-30 Jan., 1837 : with an appendix of relative documents, and an introduction / by Ludovic Colquhoun. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Lamar Soutter Library, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Lamar Soutter Library at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.

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    row to him. But if, as I firmly believe to be the case, there does dwell within that feeble and shattered tabernacle a reflect- ing mind, now watching with anxious solicitude the fate of this inquiry—a mind conscious of the disadvantages to which it is ex- posed, and yet sensitively alive to all the sympathies of our na- ture,—by circumstances accustomed, if not compelled, to rely on its own resources for employment, and in solitude driven to feed upon itself, unrelieved by those calls to active exertion which in other cases help to break gloom and banish despair,— if that is truly the condition of my client, I can picture no con- sequences more fearful, no fate more appalling, than that such a man should, through any mistake on your part, or through any failure of duty on mine, be subjected to the endless and count- less mortification of unmerited degradation, of unjust control and subjection to minds perhaps weaker in power and in virtue than his own, and of sad and hopeless excision from the mass of rational beings. You will therefore, I am sure, pardon the anxiety which prompts me still to solicit your attention to the grounds on which I confidently ask your verdict in his favour. I doubt not that many of the considerations which I am about to submit to you must have been suggested to your minds from time to time, while the evidence was in progress ; but it may be useful now to bring them before you in one connected view, along with such additional considerations, if there be any such, as appear to me to be likely to assist you in arriving at what I believe to be the truth of this case, and its proper termination. Permit me, in the first place, to explain to you, under the cor- rection of his Lordship the Sheriff, what really is the proper sub- ject of your inquiry, and what is not so. The necessity of ex- plaining this is forced upon me, by the manner in which my learned friend dealt, not only with what might be called the law of the case, but with its broader features. You are aware that the object of your inquiry is the state of David Yoolow'smind—and in a general sense it may be said, that you are inquiring into the state of his mind, as to soundness or unsoundness. But that is a very general and very loose way of stating it. Soundness of mind is a very indefinite phrase. It has no technical meaning in the law of Scotland, and when used in a popular way, it must be obvious to you that, it admits of various distinctions in charac-