On some of the varieties of morbid impulse and perverted instinct / by W.C. McIntosh.

  • McIntosh, William Carmichael, 1838-1931.
Date:
1866
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On some of the varieties of morbid impulse and perverted instinct / by W.C. McIntosh. 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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    bark of any kind. A case of dementia at present under my care had a constant habit, during the earlier stages of his malady, of devouring rubbish of any kind, and especially coals. The latter had to be carefully kept out of his way at all times, under lock and key, and the fire-places guarded. The case of a lunatic is recorded who imagined that his stomach required to be strengthened with iron, and lost no opportunity of swallowing this in any shape; after his death about 20 oz. of nails, &c., were found in his stomach.* Sir B. Brodie relates that, during a paroxysm of insanity, a gentle- man swallowed a pair of compasses, yet they were passed per anura about a fortnight afterwards, without a colicky pain.t A female inmate of an asylum snatched a case of lancets from the hand of the physician and swallowed it in a moment; no trace of the contents was found in the stools, nor when she died, many years afterwards, in the Perth District Asylum, was any appearance of such discovered at the post-mortem examination. Other patients, again, though they do not eat strange kinds of food, yet treat their ordinary diet in such a manner as to excite repugnance and disgust. A lady had the custom of putting slices of beef between her leg and stocking, carrying it there next her skin day after day, and then devouring it when almost putrid. Such a vulturine propensity reminds one of the habits of the turkey-buzzard of the United States. Idiot boys will devour numbers of the common earthworm, and one, mentioned by the good Gilbert White, was quite a bee-eater, remaining during winter in a kind of torpid state in the chimney corner, but in summer hunting all day long for honey-bees, humble-bees, and wasps.| Amongst the lower animals a species of pica often occurs. Cows, when grazing, cannot pass a bit of leather without chewing it with avidity, even to nigh choking themselves; and when observed, they run, ])ertinaciously chewing, until a handful of sand or other dis- agreeable substance is put into their wouths. Though not pure ex- amples of pica, since some of the substances may have been taken to aid digestion, the instances of ostriches in confinement afford interest- ing cases of strange alimentary desires. One, a female, lately died at Lyons, having in its gizzard three tobacco-pipes perfectly intact, a knife, with a copper handle two decimetres long, and twenty-five brass buttons belonging to different corps of infantry; a half-franc piece quite intact; thirty-two sou pieces, having the effigies more or less effaced ; fifty other pieces of copper, worn away to mere spangles of a triangular form; the remains of watch chains, various other nietaUic objects, six large walnuts, and several pieces of a hawthorn walking-stick. Besides, a piece of iron wire had traversed the stomach, and was found encysted in the abdominal walls, without niflictmg any apparent injury on the bird.§ That these were not • VVinslow, ' Obscure Disenses,' p. 652. t ' Lond. and Ediii. Monthly Jour.,' March, 1841.. X ' Nut. Hist, of Selhorno,' )). 211. § • Med. Times and Gazette,' July 5, 1862.