Responsibility in mental disease / by Henry Maudsley, M.D.

  • Maudsley, Henry, 1835-1918.
Date:
1876
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Responsibility in mental disease / by Henry Maudsley, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    The first natural group is idiocy, including imbecility in all its various forms and degrees. In this group must be placed all cases of true moral idiocy and imbecility, many of which appear in the present classification as monomanias of various kinds—for example, cases of instinctive cruelty, destructiveness, and theft. Many kleptomaniacs have, as Dr. Skae justly remarked, had that tendency from their childhood, and have been moral imbeciles. The second group is that of epileptic insanity, including the cases of insanity occurring in connection with epilepsy, some, if not all, of which certainly present special psychological features. Another group is the insanity of pubescence, the disease occurring about the period of pubescence and being apparently initiated by the changes in the circulation and nervous system which then take place. That these important changes do produce a great revolution in the mental and bodily econonry, and become sometimes causes of insanity, especially in those who have a predisposition to the disease, is beyond question, and that the mental symptoms are in some respects special, if not quite distinctive, may also be admitted. The insanity of pregnancy, puerperal insanity, and the insanity of lactation constitute again three distinct groups, a knowledge of the features of which should enable a skilled observer at once to place a particular case in its proper category. At the change of life in women an outbreak of mental disorder sometimes occurs, which, presenting special features, may be de- scribed as climacteric insanity. When insanity occurs in connection with phthisis, and especially when the diseases