Supplement to the Croonian lectures : Medical testimony and evidence in cases of lunacy.

  • Mayo, Thomas, 1790-1871.
Date:
1856
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Supplement to the Croonian lectures : Medical testimony and evidence in cases of lunacy. 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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    will not be applied to cases that he would readily admit deserve no palliation. Of the case of Brixey, the second of the two cases which I proposed to examine as adduced by Dr. Alfred Taylor, he justly observes, that 4 it shews plainly that in some instances the law makes no difficulty in admitting the plea of insanity, even where the commission of the crime appears to depend on perverted moral feeling only in other words, that the law is extremely inconsistent. For in another part he also justly observes, ‘ that the existence (of moral insanity), as a state independent of simul- taneous disturbance of the reason or intellect, is denied by the great majority of lawyers.’ The case is as follows:* ‘ Ann Brixey was a quiet inoffensive girl, a maid-servant in a respectable family. She had laboured under disordered menstruation, and a short time be- fore the occurrence, had shewn some violence of temper about trivial domestic matters. This was all the evidence of her alleged insanity, if * Med. Jurisprudence, page 864.