Handbook of law and lunacy, or, The medical practitioner's complete guide in all matters relating to lunacy practice / By James T. Sabben... and J.H. Balfour Browne.

  • Sabben, James Thompson.
Date:
1872
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Handbook of law and lunacy, or, The medical practitioner's complete guide in all matters relating to lunacy practice / By James T. Sabben... and J.H. Balfour Browne. 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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    senses will be next inquired into-—1st, as regards their acuteness or impairment, tested by the capa- bility of reading types of different sizes, or of recognising distant objects, of hearing the ticking of a watch held at different distances from the ear, and of distinguishing by the appropriate senses individually used different tastes, odours, textures, &c. 2ndly. As regards any morbid perversions illusions to which they may be subject, (a) illusions in a' which real impressions are distorted, misrepre- sented, or misinterpreted, as when a cloak hung up is perceived as a horrible spectre, or as when ordinary wholesome bread is felt to taste of arsenic; and (b) hallucinations in which perceptions arise without any analogous external impressions, as when angels and demons are seen in total dark- ness, or as when voices are heard whispering when there is complete silence. Illusions and hallucinations are exceedingly varied in character, and occur in several different forms of insanity. When present they are of course excellent legal proofs of mental unsoundness. Those affect- ing the sense of hearing are the most common, those of vision next so. In acute mania and melancholia complex hallucinations of all the senses are sometimes present. The refusal of food in the insane is sometimes founded upon illu- sions, such as that that which is offered is mixed with blood, or poison, or sulphur, or other noxious