A treatise on the medical jurisprudence of insanity / by I. Ray ; with an introductory essay by D. Spillan.

  • Ray, Isaac, 1807-1881.
Date:
1839
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on the medical jurisprudence of insanity / by I. Ray ; with an introductory essay by D. Spillan. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King's College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    remarks. He divides the subjects of this form of insanity into three classes :— In the first group, the individuals who have the desire to kill, are incited by motives more or less chimerical, more or less contrary to reason: their insanity is obvious to every one. In the second group the homicidal mono- maniacs have no known motives, either imagi- nary or real; the unfortunate individuals who enter into this group being hurried on by a blind impulse, which they strive to resist, and so escape their destructive propensities. In the third group the impulse is sudden,^ in- stantaneous, devoid of anything like reflection, and stronger than the will; the act is commit- ted without any motive whatever, and on some beloved objects. Whatever difference the accomplishing ot the act may establish between this last class and the two preceding, they in reality express only_ the highest degree of one and the same affection - they possess several striking traits of resem; blance, and differ only in the violence and instantaneousness of the execution. The individuals who compose these groups cannot be confounded with criminals. The ho- micide which they commit is not criminal; lor the mere act of killing does not constitute a cri- minal action. . .^ i All or nearly all these individuals, as men- tioned by Esquirol, were of a nervous constitution, and very susceptible of impressions. All, before manifesting a desire to kill, were observed to be mild, kind, and even of a rehgious turn ot mmcl. In all, as in insane persons, there was obsei-ved