Cornell. University Law Library 
 
 The Moak Collection 
 
 PURCHASED FOR 
 
 The School of Law of Cornell University 
 
 And Presented February 14, 1893 
 IN nEnoRY OF 
 JUDGE DOUGLASS BOARDMAN 
 
 FIR5T DEAN OF THE 8CH00L 
 
 By his Wife and Daugliter 
 A, M, BOARDMA^ and ELLEN D. WILLIAMS 
 
RA1001.M4ri889™"''>''*'"^ 
 
 ''^iKSil'if '"'^ "'* Medico-Legal Soci 
 
 3 1924 017 525 845 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tiiis book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924017525845 
 
PAPEES 
 
 KEAD BEFORE THE 
 
 Medico-Legal Society 
 
 OF NEW YORK, 
 
 FROM ITS ORGANIZATION. 
 
 FIRST SERIES. 
 
 THIRD ILLUSTRATED EDITION. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 THE MEDICO-LEGAIi JOURNAL ASSOCIATION, 
 
 PuBiiiSHBKS, 57 Broadway. 
 
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1SS9, by 
 
 CLABK BELL, Esq., 
 in the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 
 
 TROWS 
 
 PRINTINC AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY, 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
This volume: is ^one of an edition of one thousand, 
 of which this is No / 
 
AMERICAN INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF 
 MEDICAL JURISPRUDENCE. 
 
 The Medico-Legal Society of New York has decided 
 to hold, under its auspices, an International Congress 
 OP Medical Jurisprudence at which representatives 
 from all countries are invited tO' attend and contribute 
 papers. 
 
 The immense progress made in this century in the 
 sciences of biology, neurology, psychiatry physiology, 
 psychology and toxicology have enhanced our knowledge 
 of the functions of brain, nervous organization, and eleva- 
 ted medico-legal science to a higher rank than it ever 
 occupied before. The application of justice is governed 
 by a higher sense of humanity, with our increased knowl- 
 edge of the physical organization of the human mind. 
 The conviction has therefore gained ground, that medi- 
 cine and jurisprudence must combine closer for a clearer 
 definition, and the better understanding of the principles 
 that are rooted in both branches of learning, in the exer- 
 cise of functions which require practical application in 
 the government of society. This is the special field of 
 medico-legal science, and it calls for the most intimate 
 relationship between the faculties of medicine and of 
 law. Eminent men in both hemispheres have rendered 
 great service in the elucidation of the* great principles 
 underlying medico-legal science. In most of the European 
 countries forensic medicine is taught by great specialists 
 attached to the universities, and the same is done in 
 some of our own colleges; nevertheless, there is no uni- 
 form practice in the application of these principles to 
 
the administration of justice. The courts in Germany 
 obtain the opinions of experts officially attached thei'e, 
 which are, however, often disregarded, and neither in 
 this country nor in Europe are the courts bound by the 
 professional opinions of the medical experts. The diver- 
 gence of views must be greatly ascribed to the obscurity 
 which still surrounds certain scientific facts outside of 
 the medical profession, the necessary effect of the 
 absence of intimate and close relationship between the 
 faculties of law and medicine. 
 
 To bring about a nearer approach of the two learned 
 professions in the interest of medico-legal science and a 
 more uniform application of its principles throughout 
 the civilized world, our Society has determined to in- 
 vite the votaries of medico-legal science, the men who 
 have attained eminence in the professions of medicine 
 and law in any part of the world, whose voice will be 
 heard with that respect which is accorded to authority, 
 to meet at an international congress to be held in the 
 city of New York, on the first Tuesday in June, 1889, at 
 Steinway Hall. 
 
 In issuing this call we voice the sentiments of lead- 
 ing jurists and alienists, of prominent members of the 
 bar, and the medical faculty of our whole country, and 
 we may promise to all the gentlemen who will attend 
 a cordial welcome by our citizens and membeTs. 
 
 A congress like this will advance mightily the cause 
 of justice and humanity, and will pave the way for a 
 clearer definition of the principles which should govern 
 the administration of justice in our enlightened age. 
 The intercourse between men eminent in their pro- 
 fession, the exchange of views between them, the treat- 
 ment and discussions of questions that form an integral 
 part of both law and medicine, by those whose voices are 
 
recognized as the leaders of science, will form another 
 link in the universality of all true science. 
 
 The Congress will hold a sosiion of four days. Mem- 
 bers of the Medico-Legal Society will entertain as guests 
 all foreign visitors — and arrangements will be made foi 
 reduced rates of ocean and railway travel for those who 
 attend from a distance. 
 
 The leading societies, home and foreign, who are pur- 
 suing kindred studies, are invited to send delegates. 
 
 The General Co-nmittee of Arrangements is herewith 
 announced. 
 
 These who have been placed upon the International 
 Committee of Arrangements for each State, territory 
 or country will please at once act as our representative in 
 the State or Country where they reside, and are author- 
 ized to obtain titles of papers and names of those who 
 will take part in the Congress, either by attending or 
 contributing papers. 
 
 To assist in defraying the expenses of the Congress, a 
 roll will be made of those who desire to become members 
 of the Congress, and contribute a fee of $3, which will 
 entitle them to a copy of the Bulletin free. Members of 
 the Society who are unable to attend, are urged to enroll 
 as members to aid in def rayijig expenses, and relieve the 
 Society from this burden. 
 
 This should be remitted to Mr. E. W. Chamberlain, 
 Treasurer, No. 120 Broadway, who will keep it as a 
 separate and special fund for the expenses of the Con- 
 gress. ^ 
 
 Members of the Society, residing in the various states 
 of the Union, or the Canadas, wiU be entertained by the 
 resident members, on the same footing as foreign dele- 
 gates or invited guests. 
 
 All Active, Honorary or Corresponding members who 
 
will contribute papers, to be read at this Congress, will 
 please forward their names and the title of their papers 
 to the Corresponding Secretary or to the President of 
 the Society, at No. 57 Broadway, N. Y. City. 
 
 Officers of scientific bodies, in sympathy with Medico- 
 Legal studies, will please lay this announcement bef or 3 
 the members of their societies. 
 
 All students of Forensic Medicine or its kindred and 
 allied sciences, are invited to attend and to contribute 
 papers to be read. We request you to inform us of 
 your decision and of the subject which you may eventu- 
 ally desire to speak upon or the treatise which you may 
 submit. The sooner you can communicate your pleas- 
 ure to us, the more you wiU facilitate the labors of the 
 committee who are charged with the necessary preparg,- 
 tions for the work. 
 
 Please advise the undersigned if you will contribute a 
 paper to this Congress if unable to be present. A bulle- 
 tin of the transactions will be published, at a cost of 
 $2.00 in cloth or $1.50 in paper. Members or others de- 
 siring to secure the same will please remit to the presi- 
 dent of the society. 
 
 Clark Bell, 
 
 President. 
 Albert Bach, 
 
 Secretary. 
 MoRiTZ Ellingee, 
 Cor. Secretary. 
 New York, March, 1889. 
 
COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS: 
 Clakk Bell, Chairman, of New York. 
 
 Judge H. M. Somerville, of Alabama. 
 H. c. Dunavant, M. D., of Arkansas. 
 James Simpson, M. D. , of California. 
 H. Charles Dlman, Esq., of Colorado. 
 H. B. Geib, M. !)•> of Connecticut. 
 R. D. Murray, M. D., of Ilorida. 
 Eugene Foster, M. D., of Georgia. 
 Ed, J. Doering, M. D., of Illinois. 
 W. B. Fletcher, M. D., of Indiana. 
 Jennie McCowen, M. D.. of Iowa. 
 A. N. Drake, M. D., of Kansas. 
 H. K. Pusey, M. D., of Kentucky. 
 Chief Justice B. Bermudes, of Louisiana. 
 Jas. T. Eingold, Esq., of Maryland. 
 Ed. J. Cowles, M. D-, of Massachusetts. 
 Dr. Henry B. Baker, of Michigan. 
 Prof. W. A. Hall, of Minnesota. 
 Prof. H.Aubrey Husband, of Manitoba.B.C. 
 Daniel Clark. M. D., of Toronto, Canada. 
 H. E- Desrosiers, M.D., of Montreal. Can. 
 J. T. Steeves, M. D.,of NewBrunswick. 
 Simon Fitch, M. D., of Nova Scotia. 
 Joaquin G. Lebrado, of Cuba. 
 ' Dr. Louis Penard, of France. 
 Prof. Dr. Furstner, of Germany. 
 Dr. G. E. Bentzen, of Norway. 
 Prof. Senator Andrea Verga, of Italy. 
 Prof. Dr. Paul Kowalewsky, of Russieu 
 Prof. J. Lehman, of Denmark. 
 Ed. M. Perez, M. D., of Bueno Ayres, S. A. 
 Herman Kornfeld, M. D., of Silesia. 
 Dr. Geo. P. Tucker, of New South Wales. 
 W. H. S. Bell, Esq.. of South Africa. 
 Prof. Dr. L. WUle, of Switzerland. 
 
 R. E. Smith, M. D., of Missouri. 
 Judge Locke E. Houston, of Mississippi. 
 Prof. Frank S. Billings, of Nebraska. 
 S. Bishop, M. D., of Nevada. 
 GranvilleP.Conn.M.D., of N. Hampshire. 
 Judge C. G. Garrison, of New Jersey. 
 Prof. Millen Cougtttrev, of New Zealand. 
 .r. D.Roberts, M. D., of North Carolina. 
 W. A. Ward, M. D., of Ohio. 
 .Judge R. B. Westbrook, of Pennsylvania. 
 Oeo'. D. Wilcox, M. D., of Rhode Island. 
 Middleton Michael, M. D. of S. Carolina- 
 Arthur S. Wolff, M. D., of Texas. 
 Wm. James Parker, M. D., of Tennessee. 
 Jos. Draper, M. D. , of V^ermont. 
 W. F. Drewry, M. D., of Virginia. 
 Bx-Gov. W. C. Squire, of Wksh'ton Ter. 
 S. B. Buekmaster, of Wisconsin. 
 Judge W. H. Francis, of Dakota. 
 Judge M. W. Montgomery, of D. C- 
 Dr. Connolly Norman, of Ireland. 
 Dr. W. W. Ireland, of Scotland. 
 Prof. Dr. Arthur P. Luff, of England. 
 Souza Lima, M. D., of Brazil. 
 SenorDon Manel Contreras, of Mexico. 
 Prof. M. Benedict, of Austria. 
 Dr. A. M. Alvarez Taladriz, of Spain. 
 Dr. Bettincourt Rodrigues, of Portugal. 
 Dr. Jose Mouteros. of Guatemala, S. A. 
 Dr. Cowen, of Holland. 
 Jules Morel, M. D., of Belgium. 
 Prof. Dr. P. Von Holtzendorf, of Bavaria. 
 Prof. Axel Key, of Sweden. 
 Prof. Dr. J. Maschka, of Bohemia. 
 
 SUBCOMMITTEE. 
 
 Morris Ellingeh, Chairman. 
 
 Dr. Isaac Lewis Peet. 
 Stephen Smith, M. D. 
 
 Ex-.Iudge Noah Davis. 
 E. W. Chamberlain. Esq. 
 
 I 
 
 SUB-COMMITTEE ON RECEPTION. 
 
 Samuel Wesley Smith, M. D. 
 Frank H. Ingram. M. D. 
 Benno Loewy, Esq. 
 Fred. Peterson, M. D. 
 
 Roger Foster, Esq. 
 Chas. F. Stillman, M. D. 
 William G. Davies, Esq. 
 The President. 
 
 SUB-COMMITTEE ON PUBLICATION. 
 
 Albert Bach, Esq., 
 W. G. Stevenson, M.D. 
 
 J. Mount Bleyer, M. D. 
 The President. 
 
MEDICO-LEGAL SOCIETY. 
 
 OFFICERS FOR 1S89. 
 
 President : 
 CLARK BELL, ESQ. 
 \tt Vice-President : 2nd Vice-President : 
 
 W. G. STEVEN80N, M. D. W. W. GODDING, M. D. 
 
 Vice FresiderUs for tJK States, Territories, Uotuitiee, and (Jountriee. 
 
 Alabama— Judge H. H. Somerville, Montgomery. Minnesota— Hon. C. H.Davis. St. Paul. 
 
 Arltansas— P. O. Hooper, M. D., Little Eock. Missouri— Judge J. C. Normile, St. Louis. 
 
 California— W. W. McParlane, M. I)., Agnew. Mississippi— Dr. C. A. Eioe. Meridlen. 
 
 Colorado— H. Charles UUman, Esq., Denver. Nevada— S. Bishiop, M. D., Eeno. 
 
 Conneoticut— Dr. Henry P. CJeib, Stamford. New Hampshire— Hon. Daniel Barnard, Franklin. 
 
 Dakota— Judge William H. Francis, Bismarck. New Jersey— Gov. E. S. Green, Elizabeth. 
 
 Delaware— New Brunswick -Judge A. L. Palmer, St. John. 
 
 District of Columbia— Judge M. V. Montgomery, New Zealand— Prot. Frank G. Ogston. 
 
 Washington City. Nebraska— Prof . Frank S. Billings, Lincoln. 
 England— Prof. Arthur P. Luff. New York— A. E. McDonald. M. D., New York City. 
 Florida— Dr. King Wylly, Sanford. North Carolina -Eugene Griesom, M. D., Raleigh. 
 Georgia— Dr. Eugene Foster, Augusta. Ohio -W. J. Scott. M. D , Cleveland. 
 Illinois— Dr. E. A. Kilbourne, Elgin. Ontario— Daniel dark. M. D., Toronto. 
 Indiana--W. B. Fletcher, M. D., Indlanapo lis. Pennsylvania- Hon. Henry M. Hoyt, Philadelphia. 
 Iowa— Dr. Jennie McCowen, Davenport. Ehode Island— Henry E. Turner, M. D., Newport. 
 Ireland— E. J. Kinkead, M. D., Galway. South Carolina— Dr. Middleton Michel, Charleston. 
 Kansas— Texas— Hon. Gustave Cook, Houston. 
 Kentucky— Dr. D. W. Tandell, Louisville. Tennessee— John H. Callander, M. D., Nashville. 
 Louisiana— Dr. Joseph Jones, New Orleans. Vermont — Dr. J. Draper. Brattleboro. 
 Manitoba— Prof. H. Ausbrey. Husband. Virginia— Dr. James D. Moncure, Williamsburg. 
 Maryland— H. B. Arnold, M. D., Baltimore. Washington Ter— Ex-Gov. Watson C. Squire. 
 Massachusetts— Ira Eussell, M. D., Winchenden. West Virginia- 
 Michigan— Victor C. Vaughn, Ann Arbor. Wisconsin -S. B. Buckmaster, M. D., Mendota. 
 
 Secretary : Assistant Secretary : 
 
 ALBERT BACH, Esq. FRAXK H. INGRAM, M. D. 
 
 Corresponding Seoreta/ry : Gliemist : 
 
 MORITZ ELLINGER, Esq. CHARLES A. DOREMUS, M. D. 
 
 JYeasurer : Curator and Pathologist : 
 
 E. W. CHAMBERLAIN, Esq. FRED. PETERSON, M. D. 
 
 Librarian : Assistant Lih'arian : 
 
 CHAS. F. STILLMAN, M. D. BENJ^O LOEWY, Esq. 
 
 TRUSTEES. 
 Legal : Medical : 
 
 RICHARD B. KIMBALL, Esq. CHARLES MILNE, M. D. 
 ROGER FOSTER, Esq. J. MOUNT BLEYER, M. D. 
 
 WILLIAM G. DA VIES, Esq. FERD. C. VALENTINE. M. D. 
 
 PERMANENT COMMISSrON. 
 Legal : Medical : 
 
 CLARK BELL, Esq. R. O. DOREMUS, M. D. 
 
 Hon. DAVID DUDLEY FIELD. R L. PARSONS, M. D. 
 Hon. JOHN F. DILLON. STEPHEN SMITH, M. D. 
 
COMMITTEES. 
 
 ON PUBLICATION OF SERIES 4 AND 5 MEDICO-LEGAL 
 PAPERS. 
 W. Gr. Stbvknson, M. D., Chairman. 
 Clark Bell, Esq. F. C. Valentine, M. D. 
 
 R. S. Guernsey, Esq. Chas. S. Fischer, M. D. 
 
 R. B. Kimball, Esq. Amelia Wright, M. D. 
 
 ON RE.SOLUTIONS OF MR. E. W. CHAMBERLAIN REGARDING 
 COMSTOCK SEIZURES. 
 
 E. W. Chamberlain, Chairman. 
 Roger Poster, Esq. W. F. Holcombe, M. D. 
 
 Mori'is EUinger, Esq. Charles Milne, M. D. 
 
 Becno Loewy, Esq. R. J. O'Sullivan, M. D. 
 
 LEGISLATION REGARDING THE INSANE- 
 
 Clark IIell, Esq., Chairman. 
 
 Judge Jno. F. Dillon, N. Y. P. Bryce, M. D., Ala. 
 
 Judge J. C. Normile, Mo. Stephen Smith, M. D., N. Y. 
 
 Gov. R. S. Green, N. J. E. J. Kilbourne. M. D., III. 
 
 Ex-Gov. H. M. Hoyt, Pa. Dr. Thomas 0. Powell, Ga. 
 
 P. O. Hooper, M. D., Ark. Judse H. M. Somerville, Ala. 
 
 Dan'l L. Brinton, M. D. Ex Chief Justice Noah Davis, N. Y. 
 
 G. B. Twitchel!, M. D., N. H. Samuel Wesley Smith, M. D , N. Y. 
 
 W. W. Godding, M. D., D. C. Judge Calvin E. Pratt, N. Y. 
 
 ON REORGANIZATION OF THE MORGUE. 
 
 Clabk Bell, Esq., Chairman. 
 
 Elizabeth N. Bradley, M. D. Chas. A. Doremus, M. D. 
 M. J. B. Messener, M. D. G. F. M. Bond. M. D. 
 Judge S. M. Ehrlich. Mr. Albert Bach. 
 
MEDICO-LEGAL SOCIETY. 
 
 COMMITTEE OF THE STATES A\D TERRITORIES ON EX- 
 TENDING MEMBERSHIP OP THE SOCIETY. 
 
 Alabama.— P. Bi-yce, M. D , 
 
 Tuscaloosa. 
 Akkaksas.— Jas. H. Soutball, 
 
 Osceola, Little Rock. 
 
 Califorkia. — E. Kegensberger, 
 
 M. D., , San Francisco. 
 
 COLOEADO. — H. Cbas. Ullman, Esq. 
 
 Denver. 
 
 Connecticut. — John M. Taylor, 
 
 Hartford. 
 Dakota. — Dr. O. Wellington, Arch- 
 ibald, Jamestown. 
 Delawaee. — 
 
 DistbictofColttmbia. — Judge M. 
 
 V. Montgomery. 
 
 England. — A. Wood Eeuton, Esq,, 
 
 London. 
 
 Floeida.— Dr. C. A. F. Lindonne, 
 
 Fort Reed. 
 
 Geoegia.— Thos. O. Powell, M. D., 
 
 Milledgeville. 
 
 Illikois. — Milo A. McClelland, 
 
 M.D., Chicago. 
 
 Indiana.— W. B. Fletcher, M. D., 
 
 Indianapolis. 
 Iowa.— F. C. Crittenden, M. D., 
 
 Des Moinea. 
 Ireland. — Connolly Norman, M.D. 
 Kansas. — A. N. Drake, M. D., 
 KEHTtrCKY.— Dr. F. H. Clark, 
 
 Lexington. 
 LotrisiANA. — Dr. D. M. Clay. 
 
 Slirevesport. 
 
 JIANITOBA. — H. Anbrey Hnsband, 
 
 Maryland. — Daniel L. Brinton, 
 
 Esq., Baltimore. 
 
 Mass.— Frank K. Paddock, M. D., 
 
 Esq., PittHfield. 
 
 Michigan. — T. E. Buckham, M.D., 
 
 Flint. 
 
 Minnesota.— C. K. Bartlett, M.D., 
 St. Peter. 
 Missouri.- E. E. Smith, M. D., 
 
 St. Joseph. 
 Mississippi.— Dr. E. P. Sale.,' 
 
 Aberdeen. 
 Nebraska.— W. M. Knapp, M. D., 
 Lincoln. 
 Nevada.— S. Bishop, M. D., 
 
 Eeno. 
 New Brunswick.— J. T. Stceves, 
 
 M. D., 
 N. Hampshire. — Dr. Carl H. 
 
 Horscli. 
 New Jersey. — Judge C. G. Garri- 
 son., Camden. 
 New York. —Clark Bell, E<q., Chair- 
 man., New York. 
 New Zealand. — Prof. Millen 
 
 CougUtrey, 
 
 North Carolina.— J. D. Boberta, 
 
 M. D., Goldaboro. 
 
 Ohio — C. H. Blackburn, Esq., Cinn. 
 
 Pennsylvania.— S. Hepburn, Jr., 
 
 Esq., Carlisle. 
 
 Khode Island.— Philip K. Taylor, 
 
 M.D., Wakefield. 
 
 South Carolina. — Dr. Middleton 
 
 Michel, Charleston. 
 
 Tenn.— Dr. Michael Campbell, 
 
 Knoxville. 
 Texas.— Dr. D. K. Wallace, 
 
 Terrell. 
 Vermont.— Dr. J Draper, 
 
 Brattleboro. 
 Virginia.- Dr. J.t,s. D. Moneure, 
 
 AVilllamsburg. 
 
 Washington Ter. — Jolin W. 
 
 Waugbo)., M. D., Fort Stellacoom. 
 
 West Virginia. — 
 
 Wisconsin.— Henry Palmer, M. D., 
 
 Janesville. 
 
ON CRIMINAL RESPONSIBILITY OF DEA.F MUTES. 
 Db. Isaac L. Peet, Chairman. N. Y. 
 
 J. D. Roberts, M. D., N. C. Horace "Wardner, M. D., 111. 
 Thos. O. Powell, jVI. D., Ga. Albert Bach, Esq., N. Y. 
 Judge S. Burdette Hyatt, N. Y. J. Willis Haviland, M. D., Minn. 
 
 ON TRiiNSLATIONS. 
 
 MoKRis ELLmGBR, EsQ., Chairman. 
 
 Ossip Peldman, M. D. Samuel D. Sewards, Esq. 
 
 F. C. Valentine, M. D. Albert Bach, Esq. 
 
 J. Mount Bleyer, M. D. J. R M. Hearne, Esq. 
 
 Prof. E. P. Thwing, M, D. Z. S. Sampson, Esq. 
 Theo. H. Kellogg, M. D. 
 
 ON NATIONAL STATE CHEMISTS. 
 
 Prof. V. C. Vacghan Chairman, of Mich. 
 
 Prof. R. O. Doremus, N. Y. Prof. John J. Reese, Pa. 
 
 Dr; Geo. B. Miller, P. Prof. C. A. Doremus, N, Y. 
 
 Prof. H. A. Mott, N. Y. 
 
 HONORARY AND CORRESPONDING MEMBERS. 
 
 Eonorary. 
 
 John C. Bucknill, M. D., Prof. K. von Krafft-Ebing, 
 
 London, England. Gratz, Austria. 
 
 Ernest Chaudfi, Esq., Henry Maudsley, M. D., 
 
 Paris, France. London, 
 
 Prof. D. Hack Tuke, M. D., Prof. Dr. J. Maschka, 
 
 London, England. Prague, Bohemia. 
 
 'Frank H. Hamilton, M. D., Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, 
 
 New York. London, 
 
 Fordyce Barker, M. D., Hon. Noah Davis, 
 
 New York. New York. 
 
 Hon. Chas. P. Daly, Francis Wharton, LL. D., 
 
 New York. Philadelphia. 
 
 Prof. Brouardel, Paris, France. 
 
Prof. Augustin Andrade, M. D. ' 
 
 City of Mexico. | 
 
 John Abcrcrombie, M. D., 
 
 London. 
 Julius Althaus, M. D., 
 
 London. } 
 
 Prof. Dr. Benj. Ball, ! 
 
 Paris, France, j 
 
 Hon. Gunning S. Bedford, ■ 
 
 New York. : 
 
 Prof. C. M. Brosius, M. D., i 
 
 Berndorf, Germany. | 
 
 A. N. Bell, M. D., 
 
 New Yoili. I 
 
 G. E. Bentzen, M. D., 
 
 Christiania, Norway. ; 
 
 Prof. Leonard! Bianchi, 
 
 Naples, Italy. 
 Prof. Dr. Serafino Biffi, 
 
 Milan, Italy. 
 Hon. Geo. B. Bradley, 
 
 Corning, N. Y. 
 E. Blanche, M. D., 
 
 Paris. 
 
 CORRESPO>fDIXa ME.MBERS. 
 
 John Curwen, M. D., 
 
 Warren, Pa. 
 T. D. Crothers, M. D., 
 
 Hartford, Conn. 
 Prof. R. H. Chittenden. 
 
 New Haven, Conn. 
 N. R. Davis, M. D., 
 
 Chicago, 111. 
 H. E. Desrosiers, M. D., 
 
 Montreal, Canada. 
 F. "W. Draper, M. D., 
 
 36 Worcester street, Boston. 
 
 Prof. Dr. Geo. Dragondorf, 
 
 Dorpat, Russia. 
 Dominick Daly, Esq., 
 
 Birmingham, England. 
 
 Dr. De Jong, 
 
 Amsterdam, Holland. 
 Victor Desguin, M. D., 
 
 Antwerp, Beigium. 
 Leon De Rode, M. D., 
 
 Louvain, Belgium. 
 
 Sir. J. Chrichton Brown, 
 
 London . 
 Jos^ M. Bandera, M. D., 
 
 City of Mexico. 
 
 T. R. Buckham, M. D., 
 
 Flint, Mich. 
 
 Prof. G. Buonomo, 
 
 Naples, Italy. 
 A. L. Carroll, M. D., 
 
 New Brighton, S. I. 
 
 Prof. Charpentier, 
 
 Paris. 
 Prof. Stanford E. Chailld, 
 
 New Orleans, La. 
 Senor Don Manuel Contreras, 
 
 City of Mexico. 
 Hod. S. S. Cox, N. Y. City 
 
 Henry Coutagne, M. D. 
 
 Lyons, France. 
 T. de Musgrave Clay, M. D., 
 
 Pau, France. 
 T. S. Clouston, M. D., 
 
 Edinburgh, Scotland. 
 
 * Deceased. 
 
 I Dr. Pliny Earle, 
 
 Northampton, Mass. 
 ' Prof. J. J. Elwell, 
 
 Cleveland, Ohio. 
 
 Prof. M. G. Elzey, 
 
 Washington, D. C. 
 
 Prof. Albrecht Erlenmeyer, 
 
 Berndorf, Germany. 
 M. D. Ewell, M. D., 
 
 Chicago, 111. 
 Dr. Landon B. Edwards, 
 
 Richmond, Va. 
 Simon Fitch, M. D., 
 
 Halifax, N. S. 
 Dr. Enrique A. Frimont, 
 
 Ozuluama, Mexico. 
 Prof. E. Ferri, 
 
 Sienne„ Italy. 
 
 » Prof. Ach. Foville, M. D., 
 
 Paris. 
 Prof. Dr. Furstner, 
 
 Heidelberg, Germany. 
 *Th. Gallard, U. U. 
 
 Paris, France. 
 James A. Gray, M. D., 
 
 Atlanta, Ga. 
 Prof. R. Garofolo, 
 
 Naples, Italy. 
 
MEDICO-LEGAL SOCIETY 
 
 * Gen'l Procurator, Dr. Julius Glaser, 
 Vienna, Auslria. 
 W. R. Gowers, M. D, 
 
 London. 
 Prof. Matihew Hay, 
 
 Aberdeen, Scotland. 
 J. L. Hanna, Esq., 
 
 Baltimore, Md. 
 
 Prof. Dr. F. von Iloltzendorf, 
 
 Munich, Bavaria. 
 Ernest Hart, M. D., 
 
 London . 
 Prof. H. Heiberg, 
 
 Christiania, Norway. 
 Prof. A. W. Hoffman, 
 
 Berlin, Germany. 
 Dr. Gershom H. Hill, 
 
 Independence, Iowa. 
 Jabez Hogg, M. D., 
 
 London. 
 Prof. E. Horsford, 
 
 Cambridge, Mass. 
 Prof. Hoffman, 
 
 Gratz, Austria. 
 C. H. Hughes, M. D., 
 
 St. Louis, Mo. 
 
 Prof. H. Aubrey Husband, 
 
 Manitoba, B. C. 
 
 W. W. Ireland, M. D., 
 
 Edinburgh, Scotland. 
 
 Prof. Axel. TCey, 
 
 Stockholm, Sweden. 
 Prof. Dr. Heiman Kornfeld, 
 
 Grotkau, Silesia. 
 Prof. Dr. A. LaCassagne, 
 
 Lyons, France. 
 Prof. Henry M . Lyman , 
 
 Chicago, 111. 
 
 Corresponding. 
 
 Dr. Souza Lima, 
 
 Rio Janeiro, Brazil. 
 
 Brewer Mattocks, M. D., 
 
 St. Paul, Minn. 
 Hon. Guy H. McMaster, 
 
 Bath, N. Y. 
 Jules Morel, M. D., 
 
 Ghent, Belgium 
 Prof. A. Motet, 
 
 Paris, France. 
 Prof. Dr. Mierzejewski, 
 
 St. Petersburgj Russia. 
 Prof. Dr. L. Meyer, 
 
 Gottingen, Germany 
 Prof. R. Otto, 
 
 Germany. 
 Ed. M. Perez, M. D., 
 
 Buenos Ayres, S. A. 
 G. Vivian Poore, M. D., 
 
 London, England. 
 John Dixon Mann, M. D., 
 
 Manchester, England. 
 
 Prof. John M. Packard, 
 
 Philadelphia. 
 Joseph Parrish, M. D., 
 
 Burlington, N. J. 
 Dr. J. A. Peeters, 
 
 Gheel, Belgium. 
 Dr. Louis Penard, 
 
 Versailles, Franca. 
 Augustus J. Pepper, M. D., 
 
 London. 
 Prof. r. Pollock, 
 
 Lor.tyon. 
 S. D. Presby, M. D., 
 
 Taunton, Mass. 
 Dr. John H. Rauch, 
 
 Springfield, Jll. 
 Prof. Roman Ramirez, M. D., 
 
 City of Mexico. 
 *Dr. Ramaer, 
 
 The Hague, Holland, 
 Prof. John J. Reese, 
 
 Philadelphia, Fa, 
 
 Prof. Dr. V. Reubold, 
 
 Wurzberg, Germany. 
 Prof. Dr. Ludwig Schlager, 
 
 Vienna, .Vistria. 
 
 *Gen. Staats Anwalt -Sc-'JiTarze, 
 
 '""esdec. Saxony. 
 
 Joaquin G. Lebredo, M. D., 
 
 Havana, Cuba. 
 Dr. L. Lewin, 
 
 Berlin, Germany. 
 Prof. Max Leidsdorf,' q, e. Shuttleworth. M. D. 
 
 Vienna, Austria. Lancaster, Eng. 
 
 Prof. J. Lehmann, 'Dr. Thomas Stevenson, 
 
 Copenhagen, Denmark, t London 
 
 * Deceased. 
 
CORRESPONDING MEMBERS. 
 
 Corresponding. 
 
 VI. H. O. Sankey, M. D., 
 SMchuich, N. Shrewsbury, Englar.d. 
 
 Geo. II. Savage, M; D., 
 
 Bethlem Hospital, London. 
 
 H. R. Storer, M. D., 
 
 Newport, R. I. 
 •Prof. Dr. Axel Jaderholm, 
 
 Stockholm, Sweden. 
 
 Prof. Arrigio Tamassia, 
 
 Padova, Italy. 
 Prof. Augusto Tamburini, 
 
 Turin, Italy. 
 
 C. Meymott Tidy, M. D. , 
 
 London. 
 
 Geo. P. Tucker, M. T>. , 
 
 Sidney, Australia. 
 
 Dr. Rafael Xnicia, 
 
 Madrid, Spain. 
 
 L. W. Baker, 
 
 Baldwinville, Mass. 
 R. 8. Sutton, M.D., 
 
 Pittsburgh, Pa. 
 Hon. Charles H. Daniels, 
 
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 Buffalo, N. Y. 
 
 D. Lentz, 
 
 Government Director Belgium Asy- 
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 Prof. Dr. Paul Kowalewsky, 
 
 Kharkofl, Russia. 
 Prof. Senator Andrea Verga, 
 
 President Society di Freniatria, 
 Milan, Italy. 
 Dr. W. H. Taylor, 
 Secy. Mass. Medico-Legal Society, 
 New Bedford, Mass. 
 Dr. Giulio Chiarugi, Sienna, Italy. 
 W..H. 8. Bell, 
 Grahamstown, 
 
 Cape Good Hope, 8. Africa. 
 Ed Netterville Blake, Esq., 
 
 Dublin, Ireland. 
 John Hinmot, 
 
 Edinburgh, Scotland. 
 Dr. Scott Helm, Chicago. 
 
 Dr. Ed J. Doering, Chicago. 
 
 D. A. K. Steele, Chicago. 
 
 Emile Hourteloup, Paris, France, 
 Dr. Fred, Needham 
 
 Gloucester, England, 
 Prof. M, Benedict, 
 
 Vienna, Austria. 
 Dr. H. Laehr, 
 
 Berlin, Germany. 
 
 Dr. Cowan, 
 
 Dordrecht, Holland, 
 Dr, Wm. Laudau, Berlin, Germany, 
 Dr. Bettencourt Rodrigaes. Lisbon. 
 Dr. Semal, Mons, Belgium. 
 
 * Deceased' 
 
 O. W. Wight, Esq., M. D., 
 
 Detroit, Miclu 
 
 Prof. Dr. "Wilhelm Emil Wahlberg, 
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 F. 'Winsor, M. D., 
 
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 Prof, T. G. Wormley, M, D., 
 
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 Prof. Dr. L. Wille, 
 
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 Dr. M. von Buri, 
 
 Leipzig, Gernxany- 
 Ely Vander Warker, M. D, 
 
 Syracuse, N. Y, 
 
 t orbes Winslow, M. D. , 
 
 London. 
 
 William C. Wile, M, D,, 
 
 Sandy Hook, Conn. 
 
 Norman Kerr, M.D., 
 
 President Society for Study 
 
 and Cure of Inebriety. 
 London. 
 Hon, Stanley Mathews, 
 
 Justice Supreme Court, 
 
 U, S., Washington, D. C. 
 Dr, P. Heger, 
 
 President Society of Mental 
 
 Medicine of Belgium, 
 Brussels, Belgium, 
 Dr. P. Lcntz, Sec. of Societe of 
 
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 Supt. Asylum for Insane, 
 
 Tournai, Belgium. 
 Dr. Jose Monteros, 
 
 Guatemala, 8. A, 
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 Prof. Dr, Lefebvre, 
 
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 Dr. V, Magnan, Paris, France. 
 
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 Dr. G. Fielding Blandford, 
 
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 Edwin Chadwick, Esq., C. B., 
 
 London. 
 
 C. F. Buswell, Esq., Boston, Mass. 
 Dr, Jules Socquet, Paris, France. 
 Adolph Kallay, M, D., 
 
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 Dr. Arthur P, Luff, 
 
 London, England. 
 
 Dr, A. McAIvarez Taladriz, 
 
 Valladolid, Spain. 
 Dr, Guiseppe D. Abundo, 
 
 Pisa, Italy. 
 
Supt. Condewater Asylum, 
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 Dr. Persyn, 
 
 President Netlierland Society of 
 Psychiatry, Holland. 
 
 Dr. Ruysch, 
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 The Hague. 
 
 Inspector-General of Prison 
 Brussels, Belgi 
 Pror. C. Lucchini, 
 Editor Ekvista Penale de Bologtii 
 
 II 
 D. J. G. Pinkham, M.D., 
 President Med. Leg. Society of Ma 
 Lynn, M 
 
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 PHOTO- CRAVU RE CO 
 
CLAKK BELL. 
 
 FoEEiTsic medicine, or medical jurisprudence, is probably the 
 youngest branch of scientific disciplinoy and the translation 
 from theory into practice belongs to this centnry. The full 
 and universal recognition of its principles will become possible 
 only when a still higher civilization will have been reached, 
 and when the scientists of all civilized countries will have suc- 
 ceeded in embodying its principles into the legislation of the 
 nations. Progress in this direction may be expected from a 
 co-operation of the leading minds on medicine and jurispru- 
 dence, and the International Congress to be held in the United 
 States must be hailed with acclamation as the first step in that 
 direction. That the United States should be foremost in sum- 
 moning such a Congress is not surprising, as she occupies a 
 high rank in the practical application of science to life. Nor 
 must it be overlooked that the efforts made in effecting a union 
 between the medical and forensic faculties, for the advancement 
 of medical science, have been more persistent here than in any 
 other country. The Medico-Legal Society of New York is the 
 first society of its kind which can be designated as international 
 in its character. On its roll of active and corresponding mem- 
 bers are found the representatives of medico-legal science from 
 all countries, regardless of the fact that men who are prominent 
 in the science of medicine and jurisprudence from all the States 
 of the Union are on its list. 
 
 This remarkable success is due, in no small degree, to the 
 devoted labors, the indefatigable energy, and great scientific 
 accomplishments of Clark Bell, the present president of the 
 society. 
 
 It may be properly claimed that Dr. T. Eomeyn Beck, who 
 
CLAEK BELL. 
 
 died in 1855, was the father of medico-legal science in -this 
 country, but his labors, carried on through a lifetinie, were 
 confined within the sphere of lectures on medical jurisprudence, 
 the education of disciples who might spread the knowledge im- 
 parted, and thus gradually create a wider interest for it in the 
 learned world, and the publication of his treatise. 
 
 It is true, a small society for the cultivation of medicp-legal 
 science was organized, but very few members w^ere attracted to 
 it, and the bar as well as the medical practitioners were for a 
 long time unaware of the existence of such a body. This 
 condition of things was changed with the election, in 1872, 
 of Mr. Bell as president of the society. He infused life into 
 it, his indomitable energy was transferred to the few, and 
 a large list of members was soon added. Thanks to his 
 thorough knowledge of the many questions that could and 
 should be brought within the proper i-ange of discussion, he in- 
 fused an interest into the meetings of the society never evinced 
 before, and gradually medico-legal science was recognized as 
 one of the legitimate and indispensable branches with which 
 every accomplished jurist, and every medical student, should 
 be conversant. After one year's service he was re-elected in 
 1873 and 1874, and with some intervals has served as the pre- 
 siding officer until now. However, whether in the chair or 
 not, his interest in the society and medico-legal science never 
 flagged, nor his efforts to make propaganda far and wide for its 
 principles. Some of his learned contributions received wide 
 attention, such as his papers on " Suicide and. Legislation," 
 "The Coroner's Office," "Madness and Crime," "The Eights 
 of the Insane," " Shall We Hang the Insane who Commit 
 Homicides," and others. In this dii'ection his creation of 
 The Medico-Legal Journal must now probably be counted 
 as one of his most meritorious achievements. To that jour- 
 nal, of which he is the founder and editor, is due the ex- 
 tended interest which the learned world, in this country and in 
 Europe, is paying to the medico-legal labors in this country, 
 and the willingness of distinguished scientists to identify them- 
 selves with the work as it is progressing, and the ready co- 
 
CLAKK BELL. 
 
 operation given by tlieni is making the New York Medico- 
 Legal Society the centre of tliis science. 
 
 Tlirough his efforts the most distinguislied men in law and 
 medicine, in this country and abroad, have enrolled their names 
 in the list of members, and with their aid it became finally 
 possible to summon an International Congress to meet in the 
 United States. 
 
 His labors have not been without recognition. The Medico- 
 Legal Society of France has elected him one of its honorary 
 members ; so has the Belgian Society of Mental Medicine, and 
 the I*fetherland Society of Psychiatry. He is also an honorary 
 member of the Medical Jurisprudence Society of Philadelphia, 
 of the Medico-Legal Society of Chicago, and of the Medico- 
 Legal Society of Rhode Island. He is also a corresponding 
 member of the Society of Frenatrie of Italy, of the Belgian 
 Academy of Anthropology, of the New York Academy of An- 
 thropology, and of the Massachusetts Medico-Legal Society. 
 
 Under the guidance, and through the energy of Mr. Clark 
 Bell, medico-legal science has made rapid strides forward, its 
 steady progress is secured, and the future histoi'ian of the de- 
 velopment and growth of medico-legal science will have to as- 
 sign a prominent place to Clark Bell as one of its most devoted, 
 enthusiastic, and successful promoters in this century. 
 
 M. E. 
 
PREFACE TO THE THIRD ILLUSTRATED EDITION. 
 
 The preliminary meetings which resulted in the organization 
 of tlie Medico-Legal Society in the city of New York were held 
 on June 4, 1867. 
 
 Tlie certificate of incorporation of the society was filed June 
 20, 1868. Dr. T. C. Finnell, the first president, was elected 
 October, 1867, though Dr. Wooster Beach had presided at the 
 earlier meetino;s of the society. Hon. Jacob F. Miller sue- 
 ceeded Dr. Finnell as president, who was in turn succeeded 
 by Dr. Stephen Kogers. 
 
 The organization, while embracing earnest workers and able 
 members of both professions, was quite small, and excited little 
 interest, except among the members, until the election of 
 Stephen Eggees, M.D., to the chair, in 1870. Dr. Eogers was 
 earnest, enthusiastic, and threw great energy and zeal into the 
 work. 
 
 He induced prominent members both of the bar and the 
 medical profession to unite with the society. It was through 
 his infiuence that Mr. Claek Bell became a member in 1870, 
 and he was elected into the executive committee directly after 
 his election. 
 
 Dr. Eogers strongly favored Mr. Bell as his successor, and he 
 was elected president in the fall of 1872. On assuming the 
 chair Mr. Bell recommended that steps be at once taken to 
 found a library for the society which should embrace all the 
 
PEEFACE TO TPIE THIED ILLCSTEATED EDITION. 
 
 current literature on medical jurisprudence in the English, 
 French, and German languages. 
 
 He also urged the publication of all the papers read before 
 the society in the public press, and recommended that steps be 
 taken to publish in a bound volume all the papers that had 
 been read before the society. This action brought the Medico- 
 Legal Society at once into prominence, and the public press 
 began for the first time to take an interest in the subjects dis- 
 cussed before the body. 
 
 Mr. Bell threw such energy, labor, and zeal into the work 
 that the society grew from a small number of members at his 
 inaugural, in 1872, to over four hundred active members when 
 lie pronounced his retiring address, in November, 1875, after 
 serving three terms. 
 
 Professor Feank H. Hamilton succeeded Mr. Bell in the 
 presidency in 1875, serving two terms. Hon. Geoege H. Tea- 
 man was elected in 1877 to that office, serving two years. Dr. 
 Charles Wood was elected in 1879, serving two terms, when 
 Mr. Clark Bell was again re-elected president of tlie society, 
 serving three years. He pronounced the first inaugural ad- 
 dress, November 14, 1872. 
 
 The First Series of Medico-Legal Papees was published by 
 McDivitt, Campbell & Co., in 1874, mainly through Mr. Bell's 
 exertions, and an edition of one thousand copies was issued, 
 toward which the society subscribed about three hundred dol- 
 lars. 
 
 After this first volume was published, Mr. Bell's successors 
 in the presidency did not succeed in arranging for the publica- 
 tion of the Second and Third Series, as originally voted by the 
 body, and it was not until after six years, November 14, 1882, 
 when Mr. Bell was again called to the chair, upon his earnest 
 recommendation and effort that the publication of the Second 
 .Series was commenced and completed, and issued in 1882, and 
 the Third Series in 1886. 
 
 Mr. Bell, refusing re-election in 1885, was succeeded by Pro- 
 fessor K. O. Doeemus in the chair for the year 1885, and Dr. 
 Isaac Lewis Peet for the year 1886. 
 
PEEFACE TO THE THIED ILLTJSTEATED EDITION. 
 
 In 1887, by an almost unanimous vote, Mr. Bell was again 
 called to the presidency of the society, which position he still 
 holds. 
 
 The Medico-Legal Journal was founded in 1883, upon Mr. 
 Bell's recommendation, who took editorial charge thereof ; the 
 first number was issued in June, 1883. The proper publication 
 of the more important papers read before the society prior to 
 the founding of the journal became of the utmost importance in 
 preserving to forensic literature these contributions, many of 
 which were from men of the highest eminence in each of the 
 professions. Series 2 and 3 have been published and Series 4 
 is about half -completed, and will be followed by Series 5, which 
 will contain the major part of such papers as are of especial 
 value, read prior to the commencement of the journal. 
 
 The First Series of these Medico-Legal Papers has been for 
 some years wholly out of print. No copy of it could be , ob- 
 tained. This was found to seriously interfere with the sale of 
 the succeeding numbers, as many libraries and members were 
 unwilling to place broken sets upon their library shelves. 
 
 The recent increase of membership of the society, the success 
 which attended its labor of nationalization, has thrown upon 
 the body the duty of republishing another edition of this first 
 number of the series, and it has been decided to embellish the 
 edition with portraits and short sketches to make the volume 
 more attractive and interesting. 
 
 It is hoped that the present edition, will be taken by the 
 newly elected members, and such of the libraries as desire to 
 have the series complete for reference. 
 
 Every medical library in this country, every law library, and 
 the great European libraries of both professions, will be incom- 
 plete without this rdsume of that part of the labors of the 
 Medico-Legal Society embraced within the period from the 
 foundation of the society in 1867 to June, 1883, when the 
 foundation of the journal provided for the preservation and 
 publication of its later labors in volumes which could be bound 
 and preserved. 
 
 This series of volumes, when complete, and the volumes of 
 
PREFACE TO THE THIRD ILLUSTRATED EDITION. 
 
 The Medico-Legal Journal will give to the learned professions 
 and to the world, a complete history of the progress and work 
 of the Medico-Legal Society from the date of its foundation to 
 the present hour. 
 
 The Medico-Legal Society has no more important duty, no 
 more pressing obligation, than to complete this series of vol- 
 umes, so rich and fruitful, so identified with the progress of the 
 science of medical jurisprudence in America. 
 
 May, 1889. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The publication of all the papers read before the Medico- 
 Legal Society of New York had for many years been discussed 
 and proposed in Tarious forms. At the meeting of the Execu- 
 tive Committee of the Society in December, 1872, the Presi- 
 dent was authorized to name a committee of three to propose 
 a plan and to ascertain all the details relating to such publica- 
 tion, and to make a report thereon. This Committee consisted 
 of WniiAM A. Hammond, M. D., E. S. Gueensey, Esq., and 
 Stephen Eogebs, M. D. 
 
 At the following January meeting of the Executive Commit- 
 tee of the Society, Mr. E. S. Guernsey, the Chairman of the 
 Publication Committee, reported the plan, which was unani- 
 mously adopted, under which this volume now appears. 
 Many of the papers which it contains have been published in 
 different forms, and in various newspapers, magazines, and re- 
 views, and some have never been published. These were all 
 collected, and are arranged in a chronological order, as read 
 before the Society, and some of them are now pubhshed for 
 the first time. 
 
 Each of the Papers contained in this volume has been re- 
 vised by the individual author of it expressly for this publioa- 
 tion, which renders this collection one of increased value, and, 
 while it will be found particularly useful to the Legal and 
 Medical professions, it cannot fail to be of interest to the gen- 
 eral public. 
 
 New Tobk, Novernher 2, 1874. 
 
t' . 
 
 «f"^ 
 
 <■' 
 
 ^ ? 
 
 X 
 
 r 
 
 ?V«', 
 
 
 w 
 
 
 
 
 - 1 
 
 
 ' 
 
 •i-ii:^,'i^Sa 
 
 PHILIP PINEL, 
 
 Statue. 
 
PHILIP PINEL. 
 
 BoEN April 20, 1Y45, near the close of the first half of 
 the eighteenth century, it was not till the end of 1792, and 
 near the beginning of the nineteenth, at the height of the 
 French Revolution, that he was able to consummate the grow- 
 ing purpose of his useful life in striking off the chains of the 
 unfortunate in the Bicetre, which was soon followed at Sal- 
 petriere, and to lay on sure foundations the sound doctrine of 
 humanity and love in the conduct and management of the 
 insane. 
 
 He died, October 26, 1826, at the ripe old age of eighty- one 
 years, full of honors, and strong in the confidence and afPection 
 of the French people. 
 
 '•'■Itis well to honor the illustrious dead, hut it is still 'better 
 to perpetuate their merrwry" says the venerable ex-President 
 of the Societe Medico-Psychologique, at the dedication of the 
 statue placed to his memory, in Paris, on the Place de la Sal- 
 petriere — in the name of that society. 
 
 Dr. D. Hack Tuke, the son of the illustrious founder of the 
 York fletreat, says of Pinel to the committee in charge of the 
 inauguration of the statue : " The works of Pinel, in truth, 
 proved that he was a messenger sent from God for the in- 
 sane." 
 
 " He remains for France the grand figure to whom all alien- 
 ists render just homage." 
 
 Dr. Anton Ritti closed his eloquent address by saying of 
 Pinel that " he effaced from the portals of tlie sombre dwell- 
 ings of the insane, that fearful inscription : ' Leave hope behind, 
 oh ! ye who enter here ! ' " 
 
 The greater lesson of this life, and its long delayed public 
 
PHILIP PINEL. 
 
 recognition is, that the alienists of France, near the close of the 
 nineteenth century, place in enduring and eternal remembrance 
 this statue, in honor of their greatest name, after almost a hun- 
 dred years have crowned with immortal glory the sublime 
 teachings of his useful life. The print we give is a copy of 
 the statue erected in Paris to the memory of this celebrated 
 Frenchman, as reproduced in the journal Annales Medico- 
 PsycJiologiques, the organ of the Paris society under whose 
 auspices the statue was erected in the French capital in 1885. 
 
 C. B. 
 
WILLIAM TUKE. 
 
 (1732-1822.) 
 
 When a man's name is famous and his memory is revered, 
 more than a century and a half after his birth, there must be 
 some good reason for it, and the desire is natural to see the 
 features of one who thus left his mark upon the age in which 
 he lived. We are able to gratify this desire by giving an out- 
 line of the countenance of .this remarkable man and practical 
 philanthropist. When in England we begged it of his great- 
 grandson, Dr. Hack Tuke, of London, who informed us that it 
 was taken when his ancestor was about sixty years of age. In 
 an obituary notice of him it is noted that although he hardly 
 reached the middle size, " he was erect, portly, and of a iirm 
 step. He had a noble forehead, a majestic brow, the eye of an 
 eagle, an arched nose, thin lips, a projecting chin, and a com- 
 manding voice ; his countenance and bust entirely of the Roman 
 cast, while his mien was patriarchal and dignified." Tliis de- 
 scription obviously applies to a much later period of life than 
 that at which the likeness which we are able to present to our 
 readers was sketched. 
 
 Everyone familiar with the history of the reformation of the 
 treatment of the insane in Britain knows what it was that 
 made his name to be held in honor where he lived, and vener- 
 ated after his death. He became aware of the cruel treatment 
 to which insane persons were subjected ; he recoiled from the 
 secrecy with which they were concealed from their relations 
 and friends when once placed in an asylum ; he was altogether 
 free from the notion that they were bewitched or possessed, and 
 must therefore be regarded with wonder and horror; his com- 
 bined humanity and common-sense seemed to lead him directly 
 
WIIiLIAM TDKE. 
 
 to the possibility of caring for and teaching them with the con- 
 sideration and kindness employed in other disorders. By little 
 and little the accomplishment of these hopes was fulfilled. 
 Nothing bnt an inflexible will, indomitable energy and pluck, 
 could have brought about the success of his labors and induced 
 others to co-operate with him. This is the work which has 
 made him deserving of the grateful remembrance of his coun- 
 trymen, and not of them only, but of many abroad who re- 
 ceived their knowledge of a better system of managing the 
 insane fi'om the example set by the institntion at York, founded 
 by Tuke in 1792, and called " The Eetreat," in order to indi- 
 cate its true character as a refuge for shattered and scattered 
 brains from the distractions of life. 
 
 We who live at a period when the general methods of treat- 
 ment of the insane are humane, can hardly realize the almost 
 universally bad character of the treatment to which they were 
 subjected at that period. For the most part they were either 
 neglected or were the victims of modes of medical treatment 
 which are now recognized to be extremely injurious. 
 
 Tlie Retreat was established in the hope of ameliorating the 
 condition of the insane, and was conducted on humane princi- 
 ples. Irons were never on any pretence employed, and the re- 
 sort to personal restraint was only permitted in extreme cases. 
 The law of kindness was kept prominently in view. The per-: 
 vading influence of men not merely good, but animated by 
 common-sense and enlightened views, was soon felt. The object 
 in view in the establishment of this institution was indeed real- 
 ized to a greater extent than was expected of Tuke when he 
 projected it. His life was extended to a great age — ninety — 
 and he pursued this noble work till within a short period of his 
 death in 1822. In the obituary notice from which we have 
 already quoted occurs the following passage : " William Tuke 
 has given honor to his family by his virtue, his talents, and his 
 public spirit, and left them a splendid name. . . . This 
 great man is gone. He lived a long life, without a blot or 
 stain or even a reflection on his bright and fair career. His 
 name and example will never die." 
 
WILLIAM TUKE. 
 
 Our space does not allow of a notice of those who co-operated 
 with him in establishing and conducting the Retreat — Jepson, 
 Fowler, Lindley Murray, and others, the last mentioned being 
 an American who took up his residence in York and became 
 the celebrated grammarian. Tuke's son and grandson, Ilenry 
 and Samuel Tuke, supported and continued the work, the latter 
 iti 1813 dedicating to him a book on the results of treatment at 
 the Retreat, which became famous and greatly extended the 
 public acquaintance with the reformed sj'stem. Legislation fol- 
 lowed, William Tuke himself having to give evidence before 
 the House of Commons. 
 
 Although the Retreat was, in the first instance, established 
 for the Society of Friends, and its management has been 
 always vested in it, its repute gradually led to its extension 
 beyond the limits of that body, and we understand that at the 
 present time there are nearly as many non-members as mem- 
 bers cured within its walls. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Intkoductiok. — Containing history of formation of the Medico- 
 Legal Society of New Tori .... .ii-xiii 
 
 The Law in Keference to Suicide and Intempeiance in Life Insur- 
 ance. By William Shrady, LL.B 1-37 
 
 The Influence of Methomania upon Business and Criminal Respon- 
 sibility. By Stephen Rogers, M.D 38-60, 
 
 Methomania. By James J. O'Dea, M.D 61-73 
 
 Hereditary Diseases of the Nervous System unattended by Mental 
 
 Aberration. By Stephen Rogers, M.D 74-91 
 
 Laws Relating to Inebriate Asylums and Habitual Drunkards. By 
 
 William Shrady, A.M., LL.B 92-113 
 
 Mental Unsoundness, as affecting Testamentary Capacity. By 
 
 Jacob Shrady, LL.B., Couuselor-at-Law 114-133 
 
 Analysis of the Evidence in the Stenuecke-Schoeppe Alleged Poi- 
 soning Case. Report of Committee 134-134 
 
 Medical Points in regard to the Suicide and Intemperance Provisos 
 
 of Life Insurance Policies. By Dr. S. Teller 135-145 
 
 Hereditary Influence in Mental Diseases. By James J. O'Dea, M.D. 146-169 
 
 The Law in Reference to the Sale of Poisons by Druggists. By 
 
 Francis Tillou, Esq., Counselor-at-Law 170-176 
 
 A Medico-Legal Study of the Case of Daniel McFarland. By Wil- 
 liam A- Hammond, M.D 177-303 
 
 A Medico-Legal Opinion relative to the Sanity of Carlton Gates. 
 
 By Charles A. Lee, M.D 204-333 
 
 Does the Law deal unfairly with Questions of Insanity ? By Judge 
 
 J. V. Campbell S34-349 
 
 The Plea of Insanity in Criminal Cases. By James J. O'Dea, M.D. 250-375 
 
 On Sects in Medicine. By John C. Peters, M.D 276-397 
 
 Can Chloroform be used to Facilitate Robbery? By Stephen 
 
 Rogers, M.D 398-317 
 
 The Medico-Legal value of Confession as an Evidence of Quilt. By 
 
 William A. Hammond, M.D 818-381 
 
 Suggestions Relative to the Sequestration of the Person of Alleged 
 
 Lunatics. By R. L. Parsons, M.D .- 3.33-373 
 
IV CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 Medico-Legal Considerations upon Alcoliolism and the Moral and 
 Criminal Responsibility of Inebriates. By Paluel De Marmon, 
 
 M.D 374r-402 
 
 The Sphere, Eights, and Obligations of Medical Experts. By James 
 
 J. O'Dea, M.D 402-44£ 
 
 The Legitimate Influence of Epilepsy upon Criminal Responsibility. 
 
 By Meredith Clymer, M.D 444-467 
 
 Medico-Legal Suggestions on Insanity. By Cliarles A. Lee, M. D . . . 467—488 
 Medico-Legal Notes on the Case of Edward H. Rnloil ; with Obser- 
 vations upon, and measurement of, his cranium, brain, etc. By 
 
 George Burr, M.D 489-515 
 
 The Physical Status and Criminal Responsibility of the Totally 
 
 Uneducated Deaf and Dumb. By Isaac Lewis Feet, A.M 516-545 
 
 Appendix. — Constitution and By-Laws of the Medico-Legal Society. 545-551 
 Index. 562 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTEATIOl^S. 
 
 FACING FAQE 
 
 Bell, Glabe, Portrait and Sketch of Frontispiece 
 
 Beck, T. Rombyn, Portrait and Sketch o£ 92 
 
 Bbakd, George M., Portrait and Sketch of 176 
 
 Bllingek, M., Portrait and Sketch of 332 
 
 Field, D. D., Portrait and Sketch of 402 
 
 GuiSLAiN, Bust, Statue, and Sketch of xvi 
 
 GlTBKNSEY, R. S. , Portrait and Sketch of 249 
 
 Miller, Jacob ¥., Portrait of 74 
 
 Peet, Isaac Lewis, Portrait and Sketch of 516 
 
 PiNEL, Statue and Sketch of iii 
 
 ' Rogers, Stephen, Portrait of 37 
 
 TUKB, the elder, Portrait and Sketch of iii 
 
 Taylor, Alfred Swains, Portrait and Sketch of 114 
 
 Wood, Charles S., Portrait and Sketch of 488 
 
 York Retreat, View and Sketch of iv 
 
YOEK RETREAT. 
 
 We are indebted to the kindness and courtesy of Dr. D. Hack 
 Tuke, of London, for the portrait sketch of his ancestor, Will- 
 iam Tuke, which we give in this volume. It is from a pen-and- 
 ink sketch preserved in the family. The memory of William 
 Tuke, like that of Connolly, Pinel, and Guislain, will be green 
 and blessed as the years roll on. 
 
 It seems to us fit, when we give this face to the world, that 
 we should also give with it the theatre of his early work, that 
 York Retreat which he made famous among alienists and 
 philanthropists throughout all the world as the spot where a 
 new doctrine, a new truth, and a new force was to be planted 
 and take root in the care and treatment of the insane, in place 
 of that system whose scandalous abuses had been exposed in a 
 private asylum at York, near the site of the institution founded 
 by the Society of Friends through his instrumentality and zeal. 
 The foundation-stone of York Retreat was laid in the fulness 
 of the new doctrine of love, of tenderness, of hinckiess in the 
 care and management of the insane. 
 
 This was the inscription cut into it : 
 
 " Hoc FECIT. 
 
 Amigoeum Caeitas in Humanitas 
 
 AiiGUMENTUM, 
 
 Anno Domini, MDCcxcn." 
 
 This cut is reproduced from the frontispiece of the work of 
 Dr. D. Hack Tuke's "History of the Insane in the British 
 Isles." 
 
 It is the old Retreat founded in 1792, and is that known in 
 England in 1813 as the pioneer institution for ameliorating the 
 condition and treatment of the insane, famous throughout 
 Christendom, and indissolubly associated with the name, fame, 
 and memory of William Tuke and his descendants. C. B. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The " New Toek Medico-Legal Society " has resolved to 
 present to tlie public, in the form of bound volumes, the sei 
 papers which have been and which may in. future be read 
 before it. With this, the first one, it has appeared appropriate 
 that an account of the causes which gave origin to, and the 
 circumstances which attended the beginning of the Society 
 be presented. All institutions have a real or supposed 
 necessity for their existence, and are required to fill an individ- 
 ual or public demand. Inventions without useful applicability 
 are short-hved. This was not the case with the New York 
 Medico-Legal Society. Up to the time of its organization 
 legal medicine had not, in this city or State, an association, 
 nor a college, nor any institution which could be called its 
 own. It was, therefore, as is beheved, the offspring of a 
 public demand, which it has now supphed. The circum- 
 stances attending its beginning, and which chiefly con- 
 tributed to its development, can hardly fail to be of inter- 
 est to any one who reads this book. At least, so it has 
 been thought, hence a limited space is here allowed to 
 their detail. 
 
 Few pubhc offices have been more disparaged than that 
 of coroner. While it is not proposed to protest againstf 
 justified criticism — and there has beyond a doubt been 
 much of that — ^it is justice to that department of the New 
 York city government that this occasion be taken to state 
 
vi INTEODUOTION. 
 
 that two of our scientific societies unquestionably origin- 
 ated in the coroner's department. The first in chronologi- 
 cal order is the "New York Pathological Society" which 
 was started about 1844 by some of the deputy coroners ; 
 (Drs. Goldsmith and J. 0. Peters). The second, in the 
 same order, is the "New York Medico- Legal Society," 
 whose early history we proceed to concisely sketch as a 
 preface to this volume of papers read before it. 
 
 The precise date of the first suggestion looking towards 
 the organization of this Society is not preserved, but there 
 has not been a single doubt expressed, to our knowledge, 
 that "Wooster Beach, Jr., M. D., originated the idea. Dr. 
 Beach became a deputy coroner about the year 1855, and, 
 after an experience of five or six years (according to Dr. 
 T. C. Finnell, who, in his remarks at the first annual 
 dinner of the Society, places it in 1860), introduced the 
 subject, in a conversational way, to his colleagues in the 
 coroner's office, and soon after went, in company with 
 them, to Dr. FinneU's office to confer with him upon the 
 scheme. It would appear, however, that no material ad- 
 vance in the project was effected till some years later. 
 Dr. Beach, who is as remarkable for writing little, as he 
 is for originating much, says, in a letter : " Before we or- 
 ganized as a society, two of the assistant coroners, with 
 myself, had occasional conversations," etc. These con- 
 versations must, if Dr. Finnell's dates are correct, have 
 been carried on through years, for no definite organization 
 took place till the summer of 1867. Up to that time, 
 writes Dr. Beach, " we often discussed the pathological 
 and medical points of the cases that came to our notice 
 as coroners, quite to our satisfaction, but we not infrequently 
 had occasion to regret that there was no lawyer among 
 us to discuss the legal points. Out of this want sprang 
 
INTRODUCTION. TU 
 
 my idea that our discussions should be where lawyers 
 might unite with us. This idea naturally suggested an 
 increase in the subjects, and a much broader field of en- 
 quiry than the coroner's autopsies would afford, and of 
 course an organization considerably numerous, to conduct 
 those enquiries and discussions ; in short, a society of lawyers 
 and physicians occurred to me. Several gentlemen of the 
 medical and legal profession to whom I mentioned the idea 
 heartily approved of it, and soon after, the nucleus of the 
 New York Medico-Legal Society was formed." The italics 
 are our own, indicating that in fact very Uttle was done till 
 about the time of the first formal meeting. That meeting 
 was held, pursuant to an arrangement or call, at the resi- 
 dence of Simeon N. Leo, M. D., 228 West 21st street, on 
 the 4th of June, 1867. It was not a success, according to 
 the minutes, for so few who had been called, came, it was 
 deemed advisable to postpone the work of organization of 
 a society tiU a larger number could be assembled. An 
 adjournment of one week was agreed upon, after electing 
 Dr. Beach temporary chairman, and Dr. Simeon N. Leo 
 temporary secretary. At the adjourned meeting, which was 
 held on the 11th of June, 1867, at the same place, very 
 important business in the way of a permanent organization 
 was transacted. 
 
 First, the coming Society was named. 
 
 Dr. Beach, the Chairman, announced that, as first in order. 
 The minutes state that the first name proposed was. Academy 
 or School of Patlwlogy and Forensic Medicine. The second 
 one added to this, and Therapeutics. The third one pro- 
 posed was. Society of Pathology and Forensic Medicine. The 
 fourth one, and the one it now bears, was proposed by J. J. 
 O'Dea, M. D., then of this city, now of Staten Island. 
 
 To Dr. O'Dea then belongs the honor of christening that 
 
vm INTEODUCTION. 
 
 infant Society, to whose growth and rapid development he 
 has been ever since one of its most constant, talented, and 
 liberal contributors. This having been done, the next in 
 order was the appointment of a committee to prepare the 
 constitution and by-laws for its government. This com- 
 mittee was composed of Dr. O'Dea, Chairman, Dr. John 
 Beach, and Dr. Wooster Beach. No lawyers are mentioned. 
 At a meeting held on the 2d of July, 1867, this committee 
 presented the first draft of constitution and by-laws, which, 
 after Httle discussion and some slight alterations, was adopt- 
 ed. A comparison of the original constitution and by-laws 
 with those now in force, shows that by subsequent acts of the 
 Society, induced, doubtless, by the demands of its growth and 
 changing conditions, very extensive and radical amendments 
 have been adopted. Some of the provisions of that original 
 document seem worthy of historic note, as exhibiting the zeal 
 and energy of the pioneers of our Society. Their ideas were 
 in quite a military vein. For example : the President was em- 
 powered to publicly " reprimand any member for misconduct, 
 and for refusal or neglect to comply with any rule of the Soci- 
 ety." The order of business required the caUing of the roU 
 before reading the minutes of preceding meeting, the absentees 
 noted, so that another section of the by-laws might be en- 
 forced ; viz., any member absent from two consecutive meet- 
 ings, without presenting satisfactory excuse therefor to the 
 President, was subject to a fine of twenty-five cents. No 
 provision was made for the reading of essays or papers before 
 the Society ; but instead thereof, we find an almost compul- 
 sory requirement on the members to present post-mortem 
 specimens, clearly showing that the field of labor before the 
 Society was not yet comprehended. For example : section 
 second of chapter fifth of the constitution requires that the 
 members " shall use all legitimate means to procure autopsies, 
 
INTEODUCTION. IS 
 
 describe the result of each, and shaE bring before the Society 
 as many pathological specimens as possible." 
 
 This looked so much Kke a second pathological society, 
 that, at one of the early meetings. Dr. Wooster Beach, the 
 chairman, felt obliged to remark, that this Society " was 
 intended not to interfere in any way with the old Patho- 
 logical Society, but to serve as a sort of auxiliary to it." 
 
 His controlling idea was, that the medico-legal bearings of 
 pathological specimens presented to this Society, should 
 alone receive its attention. He personally informs us, that it 
 was his practice, during his presidency, to remind the mem- 
 bers of the Society that to this idea and object, the patholog- 
 ical contributions to it should be limited. 
 
 It, however, seems by the statements found in the minutes, 
 that for many months after the primary meetings, it was little 
 else than a pathological society. So thoroughly organic was 
 this idea among the members, and so persistent was the pro- 
 pensity to make the meetings places for pathological exhibi- 
 tion, that long after the Society had grown to such propor- 
 tions that its meetings were attended by large numbers of 
 legal gentlemen, as well as ladies, specimens of disgusting 
 mien, and totally devoid of medico-legal interest, were con- 
 tinually passed at the meetings, like contribution-plates, 
 from seat to seat, under the noses of the audience. It finally 
 became necessary, in order to avoid this infliction upon the 
 then mixed assembly at the meetings, to restrict this exhi- 
 bition of specimens to those possessing medico-legal interest, 
 and to place them in such locahty that those present desirous 
 of so doing could go and examine them. 
 
 By the adoption of the constitution and by-laws above- 
 mentioned, the term of office in the Society was limited to 
 one year, commencing at the first regular meeting in October, 
 which in those days was the first Tuesday, the meetings then. 
 
X INTRODUCTION. 
 
 being held every week, not as now once a montli. This fre- 
 quency of the meetings soon became oppressive, as it would 
 seem, for we find that at a meeting held on the 3d of Sep- 
 tember, 1867, a previously appointed committee reported on 
 the subject of the time and the places of holding the meet- 
 ings, in favor of having them once in two weeks, and that 
 they be held at the member's houses, and not at the house 
 of a single one. The same report also shows that the system 
 of fining for non-attendance did not work satisfactorily. 
 Instead of it, it was recommended and adopted " that should 
 any person duly elected member be absent from the meetings 
 for six consecutive months after his election, his name shall 
 be erased from the roll, unless, after due notification of the 
 fact, he render satisfactory excuse for such absence." Although 
 the minutes do not so state, it is presumable that this law was 
 to apply to persons who had attended meetings after their 
 election. The roU-call, however, was stiU continued, adding 
 a second caU the last thing before adjournment, so as to give 
 any member the credit of being present, even though late. 
 At the same meeting notice was given that proposed amend- 
 ments to the constitution would be offered at the next meet- 
 ing, showing that at this early date, the Society began to 
 discover new wants. The only subject involving lawyers 
 which was discussed, under the preliminary organization, 
 was that of " The duties of Medical Witnesses," and occurred 
 at the meetings in September, 1867, at which the minutes do 
 not show that any lawyer appeared. So far as the minutes 
 inform us, the drift of the discussion was in the direction of 
 the duties of medical witnesses to themselves, and to other 
 doctors similarly situated, and not their duties towards the 
 public as the exponents of scientific truths. 
 
 The first annual election under the constitution adopted in 
 June, as heretofore stated, as held the first Tuesday of 
 
INTRODUCTION. X] 
 
 October, 1867, resulting in the election of Dr. T. 0. FinneU, 
 President; Eobert Newman and John Beach, Yice-Presi- 
 dents. 
 
 This was a grateful and well-deserved comphment to Dr. 
 FinneU, who had been, from the very beginning, an enthusi- 
 astic and zealous supporter and fosterer of Dr. Beach's 
 project, and, from long experience in the executive man- 
 agement of medical societies, was eminently quahfied for the 
 position. Dr. O'Dea was elected Secretary, for which impor- 
 tant position he had shown his fitness during the preceding 
 temporary organization. Though the available minutes do 
 not state when, it is evident that some time before this elec- 
 tion, or soon after it, there was an amendment of the consti- 
 tution, for two vice-presidents were that year (1867 and 1868) 
 registered, and a corresponding secretary — ^Dr. J. F. Chau- 
 veau having been elected to the latter office — ^that is to say, 
 one vice-president and a corresponding secretary added to 
 the original list of officers. 
 
 It is a matter of historic importance, as well as of justice, to 
 here state, that for many months after its temporary organi- 
 zation, indeed up to the time of its first election under the 
 constitution, the meetings of the Society had been held at 
 Dr. Leo's residence. This marked hospitality of Dr. Leo was 
 the subject of a formal vote of thanks at the meeting of 
 September 3, 1867 ; the exact terms used to express those 
 thanks are, that the " Society consider Dr. Leo's long-con- 
 tinued hospitaHty worthy of its gratitude." From that date 
 the Society met at various places, sometimes at the resi- 
 dences of the members, and at other times in the coroner's 
 office, City HaU. 
 
 Its legal status from the October election (1867), to June, 
 1868, was that of a voluntary society. On the 20th of June, 
 1868, it filed its certificate of incorporation in due form, and 
 
Sii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 in accordance with the general act of the State of New Tort 
 relative to the incorporation of scientific and other societies, 
 and became an incorporated society.* This was the chief 
 act distinguishing Dr. FinneU's first year of the presidency, 
 and for which the Society is indebted, as we are personally 
 informed, to Dr. Bahan, one of the incorporators. Dur- 
 ing this year also the almost purely pathological charac- 
 ter of the Society began very markedly to give way to the 
 reading and to the discussion of papers upon subjects involv- 
 ing legal questions. On the 22d of the same month of the 
 election we find Dr. O'Dea recorded as reading a paper on 
 " Malpractice." Later in the year one by Dr. Terry on 
 
 * The following is the certificate of incorporation filed in the office of the 
 Secretary of State, at the city of Albany, on the 20th day of June, 1868 : 
 
 State op New Yokk. 
 City and Cotjntt of New York. 
 
 June 6th, 1868. 
 
 We, the undersigned, do hereby associate ourselves together, and form a 
 society, pursuant to the provisions of an act of the Legislature of the State 
 of New York, entitled " Of Benevolent, Charitable, Scientific, and Mission- 
 ary Societies," and, in compliance with the requirements of said act, we do 
 liereby certify as follows : 
 
 First. — The name and title by which said Society shall be known in law 
 is "The Medico-Legal Society." 
 
 Second. — The object for which said Society is formed is the acquisition by 
 its members of a knowledge of Medical Jurisprudence by investigation and 
 debate, showing the application of medical science to numerous of the cases 
 daily presenting themselves before legal tribunals. 
 
 Third. — The number of trustees of such Society, to manage the same, 
 shall be six, and the names of such trustees for the first year of its exist- 
 ence are Thomas C. Finnell, Eobert Newman, James J. O'Dea, Thomas S. 
 Bahan, John Beach, and David McAdam, all of whom are of full age and 
 citizens of the United States. 
 
 Fourth. — The place where the business of said Society shall be conducted 
 8 the City, County, and State of New York. 
 
INTEODUOTION. xiii 
 
 "Infanticide," one by Dr. Stirling on " Evidences of Criminal 
 Abortion," and early in 1868 one on " Eape," by J. F. Miller, 
 Esq. So far as the miautes inform us, Mr. Miller is the first 
 lawyer who took an active part in the proceedings of the 
 Society. When the first lawyers were elected to member- 
 ship in the Society, the available miautes do not inform us, 
 but certainly no such election is noted before the first election 
 under the constitution, that is to say, before the first Tuesday 
 in October, 1867, or during Dr. Beach's chairmanship, notwith- 
 standing the fact that he originated the idea of including law- 
 yers among its members. There, however, must have been 
 efficient efforts made to increase the members from both pro- 
 fessions from the beginning of Dr. Finnell's presidency, for it 
 appears that early in 1868 the Society numbered 38 physi- 
 cians and 9 lawyers, the more prominent of the latter being 
 J. F. Miller, John H. Anthon, and Francis TiUou. From this 
 date the progress of the Society has been a matter of pub- 
 lished record in the cotemporaneous medical and law jour- 
 nals, and need not be repeated here; indeed the following 
 collection of papers, read before it, will give the best possible 
 idea of the character and extent of its work. From a very 
 modest but zealous nucleus, as Dr. Beach termed it, it has 
 grown, during the seven years of its existence, so as to rank 
 among our large medical societies of New York city. Accord- 
 ing to Dr. FinneU, its historian,* the Society has a claim 
 to the distinction of being the first of its kind to organ- 
 ize in the world. As respects the Medico-Legal Society of 
 Paris, the only other one of whose existence we have knowl- 
 edge, this is certainly true. The Paris Society was organized 
 on the 10th of February, 1868 ; ours July 2d, 1867, and 
 soon after the two Societies instituted an inter-correspond- 
 
 • Medico-Lngal Society dinner already quoted. 
 
XIV INTKODUCTION. 
 
 ence. . We subjoin, in form of note, the first two letters of thia 
 correspondence as interesting historic items.* 
 
 * New York, 
 May 5th, 1868. 
 
 8.) 
 To the " Societe de Mededne Legal de Paris." 
 
 SrE: — The " New York Medico-Legal Society," having been informed of 
 the organization of " La Society de Medecine Legal de Paris," at its last 
 meeting, held on the 33d inst., ordered, that a letter be addressed to you, 
 expressing the pleasure we feel in knowing that a Society has been organ- 
 ized in Prance by the same name, and for the same objects as our own ; 
 and the happiness it will afEord us to correspond with you on interesting 
 points of medical jurisprudence ; to receive the published reports of your 
 proceedings, and to send you ours. Paris and New York, grand commercial 
 and scientific centers, have long needed medico-legal societies. We greet 
 you cordially in the hope that we labor unitedly for the promotion of Sci- 
 ence and the vindication of Truth. This Society has had the pleasure of 
 availing itself of this opportunity to express its high respect for your 
 President, A. Devergie — ^long known to us as an author on legal medicine 
 and a faithful laborer in this department of science — ^by unanimously 
 electing him honorary member. 
 With assurances of sincere respect, 
 
 I am, yours very truly, 
 
 JEAN F. CHAUVEAU, M.D., 
 
 Corresponding Secretary, 
 N. T. Medico-Legal Society. 
 
 T. C. FiNNELL, M.D., 
 
 President, 
 
 Paeis, 1 
 June 19, 1868. ) 
 To the President of the Medico-Legal Society of New York. 
 
 Snt : — The SocietS de Medecine Legal de Paris, at its regular meeting of 
 June 11th, 1868, received, with great pleasure and satisfaction, your letter 
 of June 5th inst., conveying the kind words of congratulation and fellow- 
 ship of the New York Medico-Legal Society, and suggesting an interchange 
 of published transactions. 
 In behalf of this Society I reply that it will be happy to send to you, at 
 
INTEODUCTION. Sy 
 
 Having no knowledge wMoli enables us to gainsay this 
 statement, we accept it as fact, and most sincerely hope that 
 the professions to which it pertains wiU sustain it so as to 
 constitute it first also in science and legal learning. S. B. 
 
 the end of each yeai, the report of its labors, which report ■will be pub- 
 lished in the "Annals of Hygiene and Legal Medicine" by Balli6re & Son. 
 This Society avails itself of the opportunity to say, that it will always 
 gladly confer with that of New York when occasion offers. Our Society 
 was especially gratified by the expression of esteem which you gave for 
 our President, M. A. Devergie, by electing him honorary member ; and, as 
 a reciprocation of this courtesy, our Society has conferred the title of hon- 
 orary membership on Dr. T. C. Finnell, your President. It has also con- 
 ferred the title of Foreign Corresponding Member on Dr. Jean F. Chauveau, 
 your Corresponding Secretary. 
 
 Happy to be the medium of this interchange of sentiments between the 
 Societies, 
 
 I am, very respectfully, yours, 
 
 T. GALLARD, 
 Secretary of the Societe de Medeeine Legal de Parii, 
 A. Detersie, 
 
 President. 
 
.^ 
 
 
 C ,' 
 
 
 
 JOSEPH GUISLAJN, 
 Bust. 
 
JOSEPH GUISLAm. 
 
 By Jules Mokel, M.D. 
 Hospice Guislain, Belgium. 
 
 GtnsLADT was born in Ghent, February 2, 1797, and began 
 bis medical studies in the School of Medicine of the Department 
 of the Schelde, and took bis degree of physician in 1819. 
 
 From that time commenced bis first interest in the welfare 
 of the insane, with whom be came first in contact in an asylum 
 of the town. He witnessed the inhuman treatment inflicted 
 upon these poor beings, and bis generous lieart was moved. 
 He decided to help these unfortunates, and directed his studies 
 to mental diseases. In 1827 his " Traite de 1' Alienation men- 
 tale et les Hospices des Alienes " was published. In this work 
 he depicts the sad position of these poor people, and shows the 
 moral and physical methods by which their health may be re- 
 stored. This book was a success, and Guislain was appointed 
 chief physician of the Insane Asylums in Ghent. In 1835 lie 
 published his " Traits sur les Lois," and from that moment lie 
 never doubted the possibility of the recovery of these people, 
 till then abandoned, and victims of tlie most revolting ignorance 
 and carelessness. This work was quite a revelation, and had 
 the honor of being translated into different languages. Guis- 
 lain became with Pinel the liberator of the insane; all his life 
 was then devoted to their cause. 
 
 Children have their St. Yincent de Paul, and the deaf and 
 dumb liave their Abbe de I'Epee, but till that day nothing had 
 been done for the insane. In 1838 be published "Hn Expose 
 de I'Etat des Alienes en Belgique," in which he describes to us 
 the patients kept in their families more numerous even than 
 
JOSEPH GUISLAIN. 
 
 those who were in the asylums. It was thought the patients 
 did not feel heat or cold, nor the bad treatment inflicted upon 
 them. These poor unfortunates were badly fed, left to them- 
 selves, in houses squalid beyond imagination. 
 
 Cheerless, forgotten by those whom once they loved, they 
 generally died for want of care. In the public institutions 
 their situation was not better in any respect ; they were locked 
 up without the order of a physician ; there was no protection 
 for them at all. 
 
 It devolved upon Guislain to awaken the government from 
 this apathy, and a commission of ten members was intrusted 
 with the duty of improving the condition of the insane. Guis- 
 lain was the reporter, but, in spite of all his activity, it was not 
 till 1850 that the Parliament adopted a law which spoke in 
 favor of the insane. This improvement, however, did not pre- 
 vent Guislain from continuing his philanthropic efforts. With 
 the help of the criminal authorities he organized tlie asylums 
 of Ghent, and in 1851 the commission of the civil hospitals 
 bnilt an asylum (modele), which is to-day world-renowned. The 
 old prison is today a palace ; the jail, locks, chains have disap- 
 peared and have made room for beautiful lawns, where green 
 grass and flowei's are found in abundance. 
 
 From that time a great many asylums were built. Guislain 
 was Professor at the University of Ghent, and lectured upon 
 philosophy and iTiental diseases. This last course was pub- 
 lished in 1852, under the title " Le9ons orales sur les Phreno- 
 pathes." This edition was soon exhausted, and where it was 
 sold it was necessary to pay a price higher than it had cost the 
 book-seller. D. Yugeles published in 1871 a new edition, with 
 notes prepared by Guislain himself for a later edition, aug- 
 mented by a notice of the chief progress which the science of 
 mental medicine had since made. It is in this refined work 
 that one can admire the noble intelligence, the sure judgment, 
 the profound knowledge, and the philanthropic heart of the 
 wi'iter. 
 
 He sacrificed all for the sake of the insane, he loved them, 
 they constituted for him a family to which he devoted liis ex- 
 
JOSEPH GTJISLAIN. 
 
 istence. A great many authors praised tins great man, but it 
 was left to a foreign physician, Dr. Brierre de Boismont, to put 
 in a clear light the merits of this great scientific man and the 
 noble qualities of the great philanthropist. His name, esteemed 
 by all physicians who pay attention to mental diseases round 
 the world, was immortalized after his death, which occurred in 
 1860. The asylum for which he spent the best part of his life 
 bears his name, and the Commission of Ghent rendered thus a 
 well-deserved homage to the reformer of asylums, and the lib- 
 erator of the insane. 
 
 More than that, Guislain extended his sphere of action to 
 the development of mental diseases. He worked ardently to 
 obtain a law against alcoholic excesses. In a word, he did not 
 lose a moment in his life ; he was a genuine thinker, but prac- 
 tical and of unequalled perseverance. 
 
 His last will was made in favor of the insane ; he left for 
 them and to the coming scion of the hospitals in Ghent $10,000, 
 besides his library, and a collection of paintings, which is kept 
 in the hospital in Ghent. His marble bust, the work of An- 
 toine Van Eenaeme, was offered to him by his old pupils, in 
 homage of his great talent and his devotion. It is kept in the 
 public library in the University of Ghent. 
 
 He was the founder and the president of the Society of Med- 
 icine in Ghent, and to this society he bequeathed also a sum of 
 money, to help defray the expenses of lectures, and to institute 
 a prize every five years. As a man, Guislain was sincere, of a 
 ' noble character, dreaming only of good. He was simple, un- 
 assuming, and very amiable. The day he was buried was a 
 day of mourning for his entire native town, because one of its 
 most worthy citizens was lost forever ; a man whose only aim 
 was to do good, who was in the habit of attacking abuses, but 
 with great tact and strong arguments. As we have said al- 
 ready, the memory of Guislain is not likely to be forgotten by 
 a grateful nation. 
 
 The Belgian physicians, in a meeting in 1882, in the hospital 
 "Guislain," declared loudly that not enough had been done for 
 the benefactor of humanity, and they decided to perpetuate his 
 
JOSEPH GUISLAIN. 
 
 memory by erecting to him a, statue. A public subscription 
 was opened; tlie city and the provinces brought their contin- 
 gent, but, better still, the physicians throughout the world felt 
 it their duty to co-operate in paying tliis debt of gratitude. 
 
 There was a competition among diiferent sculptors of tlie 
 country, and it was to M. Hausburs de Schaerheekler, of Brus- 
 sels, that the great honor fell of reproducing the noble features 
 of this illustrious son of Belgium. While I write these lines 
 the statue of Guislain is an object of admiration to the public 
 who visit the Salon des Beaux Arts in the birthplace of the 
 immortal physician. 
 
 Note by Clabk Bell, Esq. 
 
 The gifted and lamented B. C. Ingels, in response to a request for a 
 portrait of Guislain, to be sent tlie editor of Tlie Medico-Legal Journal, 
 remitted a fine copy of Dr. Burggi-aeve's work, entitled " Etudes Me- 
 dico-Psyohologiques de Joseph Guislain " (Th. L6sique, Brussels, 1867), 
 which contains the portraits we reproduce in this volume. The first is 
 a copy of the bust of Guislain, by A. Van Eenaeme, and the other was 
 the design of a statue in his honor by the same artist. 
 
 Dr. Ingels engaged to write for the Journal the sketch that was to 
 accompany these representations. His sad death prevented this work 
 by him, but to whom could it be better intrusted than to his friend and 
 colleague. Dr. Jules Morel, then President of the Society of Mental 
 Medicine of Belgium, the friend, admirer, compatriot, and colleague of 
 Guislain, and who has now been made Superintendent of the Hospice 
 Guislain, named in his honor. 
 
 The statue here given must not be confounded with the statue since 
 erected to the memory of Guislain. 
 
 The name of Guislain and his memory will remain immortal, and, like 
 those of Pinel in France, Connolly and the elder Tuke, of England, will 
 stand as bright and lustrous lights, to mark the changes they inaugu- 
 rated early in our century, for the amelioration of the condition of the 
 unfortunate insane confined in public and private asylums. 
 
 The translation of the sketch of Guislain, from the French, was made 
 by Mrs. Dr. S. N. Leo. 
 
; , '^1 
 
 
 1 
 
 / l^-^., '5* 
 
 A '■:» \ 
 
 \:y/] V 
 
 ^¥j-«<W" i •"--i.jJlSt.j^"' 
 
 JOSEPH GUI SLA IN, 
 Proposed Slahic. 
 
THE J^Js^W^ 
 
 IN BEFKREirOB TO 
 
 SUICIDE ANB INTEMPEEANCE 
 
 LIFE INSUEANCE.t 
 
 By WILLIAM SHEADY, LL.B.* 
 
 Life iNSUEiNCE is usually effected in this country iu a way 
 quite similar to that of fire insurance by our mutual compa- 
 nies ; that is, an application must be first made by the insured ; 
 and to this application queries are annexed by the insurers, 
 which relate with great minuteness and detail to every topic 
 which can affect the probability of life. These must be 
 answered fully ; and if the insured be other than the hfe 
 insured, there are usually questions for each of them. In 
 some cases, there are also some questions asked, which should 
 be answered by the physician of the life insured, and others 
 by his friends or relatives ; or other means are provided to 
 have the evidence of the physician and friends. Every com- 
 pany has a different way of putting their questions, and it is 
 not worth my while here to speak of them in detail. The 
 rules, as to the obligation of answeriag them, and as to the 
 sufficiency of the answers, must be the same in life insurance 
 as in fire insurance ; or rather must rest upon the same prin- 
 ciples. 
 
 Life insurance policies always contain certain restrictions 
 or limitations as to place ; the life insured are not permitted 
 to go beyond certain limits or certain places. The exception; 
 
 * Read before the Society, Nov 11, 1869. 
 f From Insurance Monitor. 
 
2 LAW OF SUICIDE AND INTEMPEEANOE 
 
 however, wMcli has created perhaps the most discussion, is 
 that with regard to self-inflicted death, which avoids the 
 policy. This seK-destruction may be Tolimtary and wrongful, 
 or it may result from disease or insanity, for which the person 
 destroying himself should not be held responsible for the act 
 committed. If a policy is accepted, which expressly declares 
 that should the insured die by his own hands, whether wiU- 
 fuEy, knowingly, or intentionally, or otherwise, there is no 
 doubt that this clause would have its fuU and literal effect. 
 This, however, becomes a difficult question to solve, where the 
 words " die by his own hands " are used, as a great many 
 cases might arise which would come withia that condition. 
 
 In BorradaUe v. Hunter, 5 Manning & Granger, 639, the 
 pohcy contained a proviso, that in case " the assured should 
 die by his own hands, or by the hands of justice, or ia conse- 
 quence of a duel," the pohcy should be void. The assured 
 threw himself from Vauxhall Bridge into the Thames, and was 
 drowned. In a suit on the pohcy, Erskine, J., instructed the 
 jury " that if the assured, by his own act, intentionally de- 
 stroyed his own hfe, and that he was not only conscious of the 
 probable consequences of the act, but did it for the express 
 purpose of destroying himself voluntarily, having at the time 
 sufficient mind to wUl to destroy his Hfe, the case would be 
 brought within the condition of the pohcy ; but if he was not 
 in a state of mind to know the consequences of the act, then 
 it would not come within the condition." The jury found that 
 the assured " threw himself from the bridge with the intention 
 of destroying his life ; but at the time of committing the act 
 he was not capable of judging between right and wrong." It 
 was held (TindaU, J., dissenting) that the policy was avoided, 
 as the proviso included aU acts of intentional self-destruction, 
 and was not limited by the accompanying proviso to acts of 
 felonious suicide. 
 
 Erskine, J., said : " Looking simply at that branch of the 
 proviso upon which the issue was raised, it seems to me that 
 the only qualification that a hberal interpretation of the 
 words, with reference to the nature of the contract, requires, 
 
IN LIPE mSUBANCE. d 
 
 is, that the act of self-destruction should be the voluntary and 
 wilful act of a man having at the time sufficient powers of 
 mind and reason to understand the physical nature and con- 
 sequences of sucli act, and having at the time a purpose and 
 intention to cause his own death by that act ; and that the 
 question whether at the time he was capable of understanding 
 and appreciating the moral nature and quahty of his purpose 
 is not relevant to the inquiry, further than as it might help to 
 illustrate the extent of his capacity to understand the physical 
 character of the act itself. It appears, indeed, to me that, 
 excluding for the present the consideration of the immediate 
 context of the words in question, the fair inference to be di'awn 
 from the nature of the contract would be, that the parties 
 intended to include all wilful acts of seK-destruction, whatever 
 might be the moral responsibility of the assured at the time ; 
 for, although the probable results of bodily disease, producing 
 death by physical means, may be the fair subjects, of calcula- 
 tion, the consequences of mental disorder, whether produced 
 by bodily disease, by external circumstances, or by corrupted 
 principle, are equally beyond the reach of any reasonable esti- 
 mate. And reasons might be suggested why tliose who have 
 the direction of insurance offices should not choose to under- 
 take the risk of such consequences even in cases of clear and 
 undoubted insanity. It is well known that the conduct of 
 insane patients is, in some degree, under the control of their 
 hopes and fears, and that especially their affection for others 
 often exercises a sway over their minds where fear of death or 
 of personal suffering might have no influence ; and insurers 
 might well desire not to part with this restraint upon the 
 mind and conduct of the assured, nor to release from aU 
 pecuniary interest in the continuance of the hfe of the assured, 
 those on whose watchfulness its preservation might depend ; 
 and they might most reasonably desire to exclude from aU 
 questions between themselves and the representatives of the 
 assured, the topic of criminaHty so Kkely to excite the compas- 
 sionate prejudices of a jury which were most powerfully 
 appealed to on the trial of this cause." 
 
 Oh. J. Tindall held that the terms " dying by his own hands " 
 
4 LAW OF SUICIDE AND INTEMPERANCE 
 
 being associated with the terms " dying by the hands of jus 
 tice, or in consequence of a duel," which last cases designated 
 criminal acts, on the principle of noscitur a sociis should be in- 
 terpreted as meaning self-destruction. ' 
 
 It will be observed the majority of the Court in the aboTe 
 case exclude from the condition cases of mere accident, and of 
 insanity extending to unconsciousness of the act done or of its 
 physical consequences. 
 
 In Clift V. Schwabe, 3 0. B., 437, which was determined in 
 the Exchequer Chamber in 1846, where the condition was that 
 the policy should be void if the life insured " should commit 
 suicide," it was held by a majority of the Court (Eolfe, 
 Baron ; Paterson, J.; Alderson, B.; Parke, B.) that the terms 
 of the condition included all acts of voluntary self-destruction, 
 whether he was or was not at the time a responsible moral 
 agent. Pollock, C. B., and Wightmau, J., dissented.* 
 
 But the proper way no doubt is to look at the probable in- 
 tention of the insurers who seem only to exclude all crimiual 
 acts ; all other risks they are wOHng to take. The following 
 decisions show in what hght the Courts regard criminal acts of 
 the insured, and suicide or death by one's own hands would 
 only be within the restriction of the pohcy where it was vol- 
 untary and wrongful. 
 
 In Fauntleroy's case there was no clause in the policy in 
 regard to death by the hands of justice, but the life assured 
 was convicted of forgery, sentenced, and executed. The pohcy 
 was sustained at the BoUs, but upon appeal to the House of 
 Lords the decree was reversed. 
 
 Lord Chancellor Lyndhurst held that a policy expressly in- 
 suring against such a risk would be void on the plainest prin- 
 ciple's of pubHc policy, as taking away one of the restraints 
 operating on the minds of men against the commission of 
 crime, namely, the interest we have in the welfare and pros- 
 perity of our coimections, and effect could not be given to it 
 
 * So held also in Dufaur v. Professional Life Assurance Company, 25 
 Beavins, 599. 
 
IN LIFE INSUEANCE. 5 
 
 on an event which, if expressed in terms, would have rendered 
 the poUcy, as far as that condition went at least, altogether 
 void. Where a poHoy provided that it should be void if the 
 life assured " should die in the known violation of a law of the 
 State," it was held that to avoid it, the killing of the life 
 assured, in an altercation, must have been justifiable or excus- 
 able homicide, and not merely under circumstances which 
 would make the slayer guilty of manslaughter.* 
 
 Where a slave refused to surrender to patrols, and, attempt- 
 ing to escape, was shot by one of them in the right side, of 
 which wound he died ia a few minutes, this was held not to 
 come within the cases excepted in a pohoy of insurance on his 
 hfe of " death by means of invasion, insurrection, riot or civil 
 commotion, or of any mihtary or usurped authority, or by the 
 hands of justice." t 
 
 A pohcy of life insurance contained a proviso, that if the 
 insured should die " in the known violation of any law of these 
 States," said poUcy should be void. The insured was shot by 
 a party whom he had previously struck; held, that if the 
 blow amounted to an assault, and the shooting was a part of 
 the same continuous transaction, and took place in conse- 
 quence of said assault, the policy was void. By a majority of 
 the Court, it is not essential that the deceased should have 
 had reason to beheve that his criminal act might expose his 
 hfe to danger.:]: 
 
 A policy of life insurance contained a condition " that in 
 case the said E. shall die by his own hand, or in consequence 
 of a duel, or the violation of any law, or by the hands of jus- 
 tice, the pohcy shall be void," the jury found that the said E. 
 (on whose hfe the pohcy was taken) killed himself as " the 
 result of a blind and irresistible impulse, over which the wiU had 
 no control ; " held, that the insurers were hable. The condition 
 did not apply to suicide in a fit of insanity (Kent, J., dissenting.)|j 
 
 * Harper v. Phoenix Insurance Co., 18 Missouri, 109 ; 19 Missouri, 506. 
 
 t Spruill ». N. C, Mutual Life Insurance Co., 1 Jones' N. C, 136. 
 
 % ClufE V. Mutual Benefit Life Insurance Company, 13 Allen, 308 ; Ameri- 
 can Law Review, vol. 2(1, 1867 and '68. 
 
 \ Eastabrook v. Union Mutual Life Insurance Company, 54 Maine, 234 ; 
 American Law Review, vol. 3, p. 128. 
 
6 LAW OF SUICIDE AND INTEMPEEANCE 
 
 Breasted v. Farmers' Loan and Trust Company, 4 Hill, 73. 
 The declaration was on a policy of insurance upon the life oi 
 Hiram Comfort, the plaintiff's intestate. The policy contained 
 a clause providing that, in case the assured should die upon 
 the seas, or by his own hand, or in consequence of a duel, or 
 by the hands of justice, etc., the policy should be void. The 
 defendant pleaded that Comfort committed suicide by drown- 
 ing himself in the Hudson Biver. BepHcation, that when the 
 assured drowned himself he was of unsound mind and wholly 
 unconscious of the act. 
 
 W. C. Noyes for the defendant insisted that the replication 
 furnished no answer to the matter set forth in the plea. He 
 commented on Chitty's Medical Jurisprudence, 354. Bex v. 
 Saloway (3 Modem Cases, 100) ; Smith's Mercantile Law, 
 256 ; Ellis on Insurance, 102-3 ; Blaney on Life Assurance, 
 App., 151 ; McCuH's Com. Dictionary, 710, 711, edition of 
 1839; Jacob's Law Dictionary, title "Felo de se," same title. 
 Homicide, 111 ; Bums' Law Dictionary, " Felo de se ;" 
 Webster's Dictionary, " Suicide ;" Park on Insurance, 578, 585, 
 586, 6th London edition ; 1 Phil, on Insurance, 577, 2d edition ; 
 BeU's Principles of Law of Scotland, 203, Section 523, 4th 
 edition ; Smith's For. Med., 518. Tyrie v. Fletcher, Cowp., 
 699. Bernon v. Woodbridge, Dougl., 789. The Amicable 
 Society v. BoUand, 4 Bligh's Beports, N. S., 194 (2 Dow. & 
 Clark, 1 S. C.) ; (Margins on Insurance, 32). 
 
 Mr. Sherwood, for the plaintiff, cited and commented on (1 
 Hale's P. C, 412), (1 Hawks' P. C, Chap. 9, Sees. 1-6) ; 
 Wood's Inst., 345 ; 4 Black. Com., 189. 
 
 By the Court, Nelson, Ch. J. : The question arises upon the 
 demurrer, whether Comfort's self-destruction, in a fit of insan- 
 ity, can be deemed a death by his own hand, within the mean- 
 ing of the pohcy. I am of opinion that it cannot. Since the 
 argument of the case, I have examined many precedents of 
 life pohcies used by the different insurance companies, and am 
 entirely satisfied that the words in the pohcy in question im- 
 port a death by suicide ; provisos declaring the policy to be 
 void in case the insured commit suicide, 'ot die by his own 
 hand, are used indiscriminately by different insurance com- 
 
IN LTPE INSUEASCE. 7 
 
 pahies as expressing tlie same idea ; and so they are evidently 
 understood by the writers upon this branch of the law. The 
 policies of the " Society for Equitable Assurance on Lives," 
 and of the "Grown Life Assurance Company" contain the 
 same form of expression as that employed in the policy in 
 question (EUis on Insurance, 230, 234) ; and EUis refers to the 
 phraseology as importing the usual condition to be found in 
 all the policies, though a majority of them probably use the 
 word suicide. That word is used in the policies issued by the 
 following companies, viz.: the Royal Exchange and London 
 Assurance, the "Westminster Society, the Equitable Assurance, 
 the PeKcan Life Lisurance (Marsh on Lisurance, 780), and 
 the Sun Life Assurance (2 McCuU's Com. Diet., 93, 94, Ameri- 
 can edition) ; and it is said by the American editor of the 
 book last cited (p. 95, note), that the policies issued in this 
 country contain the same phraseology. (See also 3 Kent's Com., 
 369.) 
 
 Mr. Selwyn mentions several of the insurance companies 
 above named and others, including those whose pohcies con- 
 tain the same words as the one in question, and speaks of the 
 proviso as meaning, in all cases, an act of suicide (2 Selw. N. 
 P. by Wieaton, 788 to 790, American edition of 1823 ; also 
 Smith's Mercantile Law, 256). 
 
 The connection in which the words stand in the policy 
 would seem to indicate that they were intended to express a 
 criminal act of self-destruction ; as they are found in conjunc- 
 tion with the provision relating to the termination of the life 
 of the insured in a duel, or by his execution as a criminal. 
 This association may weU characterize and aid in determining 
 the somewhat indefinite and equivocal import of the phrase. 
 Speaking legally also (and the policy should be subjected to 
 this test), self-destruction by a fellow-being bereft of reason 
 can with no more propriety be ascribed to the act of his own 
 hand than to the deadly instrument that may have been used 
 for the purpose. The drowning of Comfort was no more his 
 act, in the sense of the law, than if he had been impelled by 
 irresistible physical power ; nor is there any greater reason for 
 exempting the company from the risk assumed in the policy 
 
8 LAW OF SUICIDE AND INTEMPERANCE 
 
 than if his death had been occasioned by such means. Con- 
 struing these words, therefore, according to their true, and, 
 as I apprehend, universally received meaniag among insurance 
 offices, there can be no doubt that the termination of Com- 
 fort's life was not withia the saving clause of the policy. 
 Suicide involves the deliberate termination of one's existence 
 while in the possession and enjoyment of his mental faculties. 
 Self-slaughter by an insane man or a lunatic is not an act of 
 suicide within the meaning of the law (Blackstone's Com- 
 mentaries, 189 ; 1 Hale's P. C, 411, 412). 
 
 I am of opinion, therefore, that the plaintiff is entitled to 
 judgment on the demurrer, and it was accordingly so ordered. 
 The decision of the Supreme Court was affirmed in the Court 
 of Appeals, 4 Seldon, 299, but not with unanimity ; five judges 
 voting for an affirmance and three for a reversal. The opinion 
 of the majority, delivered by Judge WiUard, and the dissent- 
 ing opinion of Judge Gardiner, present the arguments on their 
 respective sides, the latter sustaining the decisions of the 
 EngUsh Courts.* 
 
 St. Louis Mutual Life Insurance Company v. Graves. JV. 
 Y. Daily Tramcript, March 7, 1871. 
 
 Judge Kobertson delivered the foUowing opinion, in which 
 Judge Peters concurred : 
 
 Only a few days after the inter-marriage of Leslie 0. Graves 
 and Mary E. Searles, both bom and reared in Lexington, 
 Kentucky, he procured for her benefit from the appellant, a 
 life insurance company of St. Louis, Missouri, a policy insur- 
 ing his life to the amount of five thousand doUars to her use, 
 on several prescribed conditions, among which are the foUow- 
 
 ing: 
 
 " If the said person whose life is insured shall die by his 
 own hand, by delirium tremens, or the use of opium, or in con- 
 sequence of a duel, or the laws of any nation, state, or province, 
 that then, in such case, the policy shall be null and void." 
 
 * Per contra s <■ the opinion of Bigelow, Chief Justice, in Dean v, Amer- 
 ican Insurance Co., 4 Allen, p. 96 ; also Hartman v. Keystone Insurance Co., 
 
 9 Harris, 479. 
 
IN LIFE INSXIRANCE. 9 
 
 All these terms alike, being ejusdem generis, imply a deatli aa 
 the natural consequence of some voluntary act of the assured 
 "which he had the moral power to avoid, and against which, 
 therefore, the underwriters would not insure, and could not 
 consistently with the pubhc pohcy have insured. The inevit- 
 able act of an insane man, who in that respect is morally dead, 
 is not, va. the sense of the law or of the recited condi- 
 tions, his volxmtary act. An iasane act is no more voluntary 
 than any act constrained by extraneous force would be the 
 voluntary and responsible act of the victim of accident or re- 
 sistless power over his will. The object of the pohcy was to 
 insure against involuntary death without the fault of the 
 assured. 
 
 Graves was insured as a free moral agent, who as such might 
 voluntarily so act as to increase the contemplated risk. It ,was 
 prudent and just, therefore, to provide in the pohcy agauist 
 any extraordinary perils to hfe resulting from the voluntary 
 conduct of the assured, who, by necessary imphcation, under- 
 took to abstain from any act jeopardizing his life beyond the 
 ordinary accidents to which it was hable without his fault. 
 For this precautionary condition there was a reasonable and 
 consistent motive. But there was no such motive for avoid- 
 ing the pohcy for inevitable suicide, which, whether accidental 
 or otherwise agaiast the free wiU of a rational mind, is essen- 
 tially in the category of natural death from ordinary causes, 
 as indisputably insured against. Mental insanity is disease ; 
 and the pohcy insures against death by disease of any sort 
 which ordinary prudence could not avoid. Death by insanity 
 is death by disease, and is so considered in medical jurispru- 
 dence. Why except from the insurance death by insanity ? 
 Did not the parties contemplate death by any disease not 
 avoidable by prudent and proper conduct ? The underwriters 
 took all such risk and no other ; and to prevent fraud or im- 
 posture, excepted death by opium or by delirium tremens, and 
 other causes which the assured could avoid, and ought to 
 avoid, and therefore imphedly undertook to avoid. Death 
 " by his own hand " is in the same class of causes for avoid- 
 ance, and means the same character of avoidable death. The 
 
10 LAW OF SUICIDE AND HSTEMPEBANCE 
 
 mind is the man, and the conditions of avoidance all alike con* 
 template a rational mind and presiding will. Death by opium, 
 therefore, means not the accidental or involuntary, but the 
 rational and voluntary use of opium ; death by delirium tre- 
 mens imports death by voluntary and habitual drunkenness ; 
 and death by dueUng is a voluntary act, all of which deaths 
 might and ought to have been avoided. So, for the same rea- 
 son, death " by his own hand " means suicide, not accidental 
 or coerced, but premeditated by a sound mind and perpetrated 
 by a free wiU ; and a voluntary act of the wiU. necessarily im- 
 plies hberty and self-control; and consequently the act of an 
 insane mind or subjugated will is not voluntary. It is not the 
 act of the man, but of some power above him, and which his 
 will cannot elude or control. The condition as to " death by 
 his own hand" reasonably imports, therefore, that if the 
 insured should commit suicide voluntarily when he had the 
 moral power to forbear, just as he might commit it by the 
 habitual use of opium or intoxicating hquors, the policy 
 should be thereby avoided. The death in each case alike, 
 must be the volimtary act of a sane mind and a responsible 
 will. As poUcies are peculiar in their style, and not easily 
 inteUigible by the common mind, this language should, in cases 
 of doubt, be most favorably construed for the benefit of the 
 asstu-ed. This is enough for this ease. There is some appa- 
 rent conflict in the adjudged cases on the construction of just 
 such a condition of avoidance in a life poUcy as that which 
 we are considering ; but there is no very essential diversity in 
 principle ; all that is judicial, with perhaps one exception, 
 concurring in the priuciple that to avoid the policy the death 
 must be " voluntary." And no mind, itself rational, can con- 
 template any act as voluntary unless it be the offspring of a 
 free vohtioUj unconstrained by inevitable duress, physical or 
 moral. 
 
 In the case of Dean v. American Insurance Company, 4 
 Allen's Reports ; the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, jn an 
 elaborate self-contradictory and unconclusive opinion, seemed 
 inchned to construe the words " if he died by his own hand," 
 
DJ LIFE INSUEANCE. 11 
 
 as intended to mean seK-destruction, however or by -whomso- 
 ever effected. But, to escape the absurdity of including 
 death by accident, the opinion concludes that the avoiding 
 act must be voluntary. 
 
 This argument is surely a felo de se, or must concede that 
 all suicide, however effected, is voluntary, and this is a petitio 
 prindpii, and begs the question. This case, therefore, though 
 apparently the strongest against us, is when its metaphysical 
 labyrinth is threaded, corroborative of our conclusion that the 
 avoiding act must be voluntary. This interpretation of the 
 decision can be evaded only by the assumption that it uses 
 the word " voluntary " in some recondite sense, inconsistent 
 with its legal and metaphysical import. 
 
 In Hartman v. Keystone Insurance Company (9 Harris, 
 479), the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania say that the words 
 " die by his own hand," standing alone, " mean any sort of 
 suicide." This has no essential bearing on the question we 
 are considering, and noscitur a sociis, cannot be disregarded. 
 But several American cases ably, and, as we think, conclusively 
 sustain our construction. 
 
 In Breasted v. The Farmers' Loan and Trust Company (4 
 Hill, 74), the Supreme Court of New York, in a powerful 
 opinion by Nelson, now of the United States Supreme Court, 
 adjudged that " suicide " and " died by his own hands," as 
 generally used in pohcies were synonymous, and that " die by 
 his own hands " means voluntary self-destruction by the free 
 will of a sane man ; and said " self-destruction by a fellow- 
 being bereft of reason can with no more propriety be 
 ascribed to the act of his own hand than to the deadly instru- 
 ment that may have been used for the purpose." 
 
 " The drowning of Comfort was no more his act in the sense 
 of the law than if he had been impelled by irresistible phys- 
 ical force." 
 
 " Self-slaughter by an insane man or a lunatic is not an act 
 of suicide within the meaning of the law " (4 Black. Com., 
 189 ; 1 Hale's P. C, 411). 
 
 Tn this case, therefore, the Court decided that the policy 
 
12 LAW OF SUICIDE AND INTEMPEEANCE 
 
 was not avoided, though the assured died by his own hand, 
 but without a self-controlling will to avoid the act. And on 
 an appeal to the Court of Appeals that judgment was affirmed 
 by a more argumentative opinion by WiUard (Selden's 
 Reports, 303), in which it was adjudged that " suicide " and 
 " death by his own hand " were synonymous in poHcies. And 
 the Court said that in each the act must be intentional, and 
 therefore criminal, which could not be the case if the mind 
 was constrained by moral or physical duress ; and said also 
 " can it make any difference whether this coercion came from 
 the hand of man or the visitation of Providence ? " 
 
 And the same principle is recognized and enforced by mas- 
 terly argument by the Supreme Court of Maine, in the case 
 of Esterbrook v. The Union Mutual Life Insurance Company 
 (54 Maine Eeports, 225), in which the Court cite and criticise 
 the British case of Borradaile v. Hunter (5 Manning & Gran- 
 ger, 639), and that of Clift v. Schwabe (3 Manning & Granger, 
 437). 
 
 Now, in the case of Borradaile v. Hunter, a majority of the 
 Court, Chief Justice Tyndall and others dissenting, decided the 
 poHcy was avoided by the self-destruction of the assured, be- 
 cause the jury found that the act was voluntary ; thus imply- 
 ing that unless the act was voluntary, the poHey had not been 
 avoided. And this, so far, is coincident with our opinion. 
 But that Court seemed to think that knowledge of right and 
 wrong may make an insane act voluntary. This inconsistency 
 of the past generation on the phenomena of insanity is 
 exploded by the advancing science of this more rectified age. 
 Moreover it seems that not only Tyndall, but Maule, PoUock, 
 Creswell, Tenterden and other eminent jurists of England, 
 disapproved the inconsistent doctrine in Borradaile v. Himter 
 and Clift v. Schwabe which followed it, and that Lord St. 
 Leonards says in a note to Bunyan on Insurance, 75, 
 " Sed quere the decision. " Those cases are, therefore, not full 
 and unquestioned authority even in England, except so far as 
 they support our conclusion that the act cannot avoid the 
 policy unless it be " voluntary," is. 
 
IN LITE INSUEANCE. 18 
 
 Hence, referring to those British cases as coincident in 
 reason with Breasted v. Farmers' Loan and Trust Company, 
 as reported in Hill and Seldon (Phillips on Insurance, Section 
 895) says, in effect, that any mental derangement sufficient to 
 exonerate a party from a contract would render a person in- 
 capable of occasioning the forfeiture of such a poKcy as 
 this. 
 
 "We may now conclude that principle, reason, and authority, 
 all concurring, show that an insane act is not voluntary, and 
 that to avoid the poUcy in this case the act of self-destruction 
 must have been voluntary. Was Graves' death a voluntary 
 act ? This is the Vital question for solution by the law and 
 the facts. 
 
 Every seK-destroyer literally dies " by his own hand ;" but 
 technical suicide imphes a sane and controlling mind. All 
 this the parties to the pohcy must be presumed to have imder- 
 stood, and consequently to have contemplated, by the words 
 " if he died by his own hand," the death of a sane man by 
 his own voluntary act, and not by accident or the merely 
 mechanical hand of a maniac. 
 
 In about four months after the date of the pohcy the assured 
 was shot in the head, about ten o'clock, on the night of tho 
 17th of April, 1867, and, immediately after the report of the 
 fatal shot, was found lying dead and alone in the dark, in his 
 Hvery stable, near a pistol which he had only a few moments 
 before unfortunately procured from a friend ; and, though the 
 contrary has been assumed, yet the circumstances will allow 
 scarcely a doubt that he died "by his own hand." 
 
 To recover on the poKcy the widow of the assured brought 
 this action, and averred that the fatal shot was the involimtary 
 offspring of a momentary paroxysm of moral insanity, which 
 subjugated his wiU, and impelled the homicide beyond the 
 power of self-control, or successful resistance. The appellant 
 demurred, and, being overruled, traversed those allegations ; 
 and on that substantial issue the jury found for the appellee, 
 and the judge rendered judgment against the appellant, now 
 sought to be reversed. According to matured philosophy and 
 the corroborating authority of elementary writers such as 
 
14 LAW OP StnCIDE AND INTEMPERANCE 
 
 Priehard and Esquirol and Kay and Taylor, and of many 
 modem adjudications, both British and American, there may 
 be moral as well as intellectual insanity, and essentially con- 
 tradistinguished from it. When, as often happens from con- 
 genital mal-organization or supervenient disturbance of the 
 normal condition of a sound mind in a sound body, the senses 
 present false images which, accredited necessarily by the 
 deluded victim as iutuitive certainties, no reasoning or proof 
 oan rectify the illusion of a mind in such abnormal condition, 
 and, consequently, as no punitory sanction can prevent the 
 effects of such iusane delusion, there is no legal responsibility. 
 This is called intellectual insanity. But, while the senses are 
 apparently sound and true, the affections may be perverted, 
 or the moral sentiments unhinged, in such a degree as to sub- 
 jugate the will to some morbid appetite or ungovernable pas- 
 sion, and thus precipitate against the wiU insane but con- 
 scious wrong. This is conti'adistinctively called moral insanity. 
 Such are the forms of monomania entitled kleptomania, pyro- 
 mania, nymphomania, homicidal mania, etc., now well defined 
 and recognized as irresponsible insanity. Whether and how 
 far these two distinctive forms of insanity run into and sym- 
 pathize witli each other is unknown. But generally the one 
 is apparently untinged by the other, and in moral dethrone- 
 ment by insane passion there may be no delusion, but the will 
 is overwhelmed by dehrious passion, which it can neither 
 stifle nor successfully resist. Smith v. Commonwealth (1 
 Duvall) is Kentucky authority supporting this theory. The 
 appellee rests her case on the plea that her husband's suicide 
 was an act of moral insanity ; and her counsel assume that all 
 suicide is an ?nsane act, or prima facie evidence of insanity in 
 some phase. All this is controverted by the appellant ; and 
 here hes the issue discussed and tried. 
 
 On the question whether a' sane mind can commit voluntary 
 suicide, there has been some conflict of opinion. Some medico- 
 jurists insist that suicide is necessarily an insane act ; others 
 that it is ojAj prima jfacie evidence of insanity. 
 
 The first hypothesis has been generally discredited, and the 
 latter much doubted, in all time and every form, ever since the 
 
IN LIFE INSURANCE. 15 
 
 suicides of Themistocles, Demosthenes, Hannibal, and Oato 
 of Utica. Without faith in a future state of retribution, the 
 historic men seemed, each and all, to prefer, on rational calcu- 
 lation, annihilation to hopeless torture or degradation. -Even 
 assurance of immortality might not always stay the voluntary 
 hand of the reasoning suicide. Martyrdom for faith or prin- 
 ciple' or opinion, though not a positive act of suicide, is yet 
 virtually self-immolation on the altar of truth and of posthu- 
 mous fame. And many such seM-sacrifioes illustrate the mid- 
 dle ages, and even subsequent periods of the earth's history, 
 without the imputation or suspicion of impeUing iasanity. 
 Still self-destruction is so rare and awful as in itself and by 
 itself, to imply iasanity, in the absence of proof of motive or 
 predisposing causes. Such are our judicial theories on this 
 occult subject. 
 
 Without elaboration of the elements of physiology or 
 psychology, or analysis of Eay, or Esquirol, or Prichard, or 
 Taylor, aU substantially concurrent or of British and American 
 adjudications, in some respects conflicting, we are content with 
 the conclusion that the foregoing outline sufficiently defines 
 the law of this case. 
 
 In giving and refusing instructions on the trial, the Circuit 
 Judge, with one exception, substantially applied the law as 
 thus defined. If paroxysm of moral insanity caused the 
 death of the assured, the suicidal act was involuntary, and at 
 the instant unavoidable, even if he then knew its ille- 
 gality and all its consequences ; for such knowledge, as be- 
 fore suggested, is inconsistent with that form of insanity, and, 
 therefore, the Court did not err in refusing to instruct the 
 jury otherwise, and of which the appellant most complains. 
 But instruction number three, given for appellee, may be so 
 interpreted as to be misleading and erroneous, and was there- 
 fore improperly given. This is the exception before suggested. 
 The evidence of insanity is conflicting. The assured was not 
 only blessed with a loved and loving young wife, but with 
 prosperity in busings, without any disclosed cause to be tired 
 of life. Evidence of a rumor that on the night preceding his 
 death, he had burned his brother's rival livery stable wag 
 
16 LAW OF SUICIDE AND INTEMPERANCE 
 
 admitted. That accusation, if he knew it, might h-ave oper- 
 ated as a powerful motive to escape by suicide the agony of 
 overwhelming disgrace ; and, therefore, the admission of the tes- 
 timony might not have been prejudicial to the appellant, and 
 especially as during the evening of the iuterveniag day L. 0. 
 Graves took several copious and soKtary draughts of intoxi- 
 catiag Hquors, as if to drown distress and give him a false and 
 reckless courage for a desperate deed, which cabn and sober 
 he could not perpetrate. But as we cannot know the effect 
 of that testimony on the mind of the jury, we adjudge the 
 evidence incompetent unless he had heard the rumor. It also 
 appears that only a few moments before the report of the 
 pistol, he by much importunity procured the weapon from a 
 friend, and was drunk. These facts conduce to the conclusion 
 that the suicide was voluntary and premeditated, and was not 
 the inevitable result of moral insanity. 
 
 On the other hand, his apparent felicity in his domestic 
 relations and prospects, the monstrous character of the act 
 itself, and the want of certain proof of any strong motive 
 for it, fortify the prima facie presumption of insanity, which 
 is stiU more strengthened by the testimony of doctors Chipley 
 and Skillman, who both, after hearing the evidence, concurred 
 in the behef that, if Graves shot himseK, the act was the off- 
 spring of moral mania. 
 
 The probabilities are so neairly balanced that the prepon- 
 derance would not allow this Court to set aside a verdict 
 either way for want of evidence to support it. But the 
 resisted admission of the opinions of many unprofessional 
 witnesses expressed on a long hypothetical question as to 
 whether they thought that, under all the circumstances. 
 Graves if sane would have shot himself, was a substantial 
 error, prejudicial to the appellant. 
 
 For that error, the error in instruction number three, and 
 the error in admitting evidence of the monomania, the 
 judgment is reversed, and the cause remanded for a new 
 trial. 
 
 Chief Justice Williams delivered the following separate 
 opinion, in which Judge Hardin concurred : 
 
IN LIFE INSUBANCE 17 
 
 January 7, 1867, Leslie 0. Graves, appellee's husband, pro- 
 cured from appellant a policy of insurance on Ms life, in his 
 wife's name and for her benefit, which contains a proviso with 
 six several paragraphs, the fourth beiag as follows : 
 
 " If the said person whose life is hereby insured shall pass 
 beyond the above described limits ; or shall be personally 
 engaged in blasting, mining, sub-marine operations, or the 
 production of highly inflammable or explosive substances ; or 
 in working or managing a steam-engine in any capacity ; or 
 as a mariaer engineer, fireman, conductor, or laborer in any 
 capacity upon service on any sea, sound, inlet, river, lake or 
 railroad ; or shall enter any military or naval service whatso- 
 ever (the militia when not in active service excepted), without 
 the consent of this company in each of the foregoing cases, 
 previously given in writing ; or if he shall die by his own 
 hand, by delirium tremens, or the use of opium, or in conse- 
 quences of a duel, or the violation of the law of any nation, 
 state, or province ; * * this pohcy shall be void." 
 
 Without the least sign of previous mental or moral insanity, 
 so far as the evidence in this case exhibits, and after stimu- 
 lating himseK freely with ardent spirits, as though to raise 
 his animal courage to an adequate degree for the act, and 
 after importuning a friend to loan him his pistol, which the 
 friend, though he at first declined, did, on being pressed, and 
 promised a return within a very short time, Leslie 0. Graves 
 shot himself on the evening of April 17, 1867, about ten 
 o'clock, and died instantly, and within less than a half-hour 
 after obtaining the pistol. The only possible clue to account 
 for any disposition to take his own life was a current rumor 
 about the city of his residence (Lexington), that through his 
 instrumentality his brother's rival livery-stable had but two 
 nights before been burned; but even this is not proved to 
 have reached his ears. 
 
 In this suit on said poUcy by the wife, the jury have found 
 for her the sum stipulated, five thousand, under the following 
 among other instructions of the Court : 
 
 " That before the jury can find for the defendant, they must 
 be satisfied from the evidence given that LesUe 0. Graves, 
 
18 LAW OF SUICIDE AND INTEMPEBANCE 
 
 whose life was iasured by the defendant, committeid suicide, 
 and that when he did the act his intellect was unimpaired, 
 and that he knew it was forbidden both by moral and human 
 law, yet if they believe from the evidence that at the instant 
 of the commission of the act his will was subordinated by 
 any uncontrollable passion or emotion causing him to do the 
 act, it was an act of moral insanity, and they ought, if they 
 so believe, to find for the plaintiff." 
 
 And we are now asked to say that this is law. In all the 
 vague, uncertain, intangible, and undefined theories of ihe 
 most impracticable metaphysician on psychology and moral 
 insanity no Court of last resort iu England or America, so 
 far as has been brought to our knowledge, ever before 
 announced such a startUng, irresponsible, and dangerous 
 proposition of law. For if this be law, then no longer is there 
 responsibility for homicide, unless it be perpetrated in calm, 
 cool, considerate condition of mind. What is this proposition 
 when compressed in a single sentence ? That if his " intellect 
 was unimpaired, and that he knew it was forbidden both by 
 moral and human law, yet if at the instant of the act his wOl 
 was subordinated by any uncontrollable passion or emotion 
 causing him to do the act, it was moral iasanity, and they 
 ought to find for the plaintiff." Concede that it was through 
 either passion or mortification, or fear of disgrace because of 
 this rumor, and instead of killing himself he had killed his 
 brother, or some one else whom he suspected of being con- 
 nected with the rumor, should this transport of passion or 
 mortification or fear of disgrace have exempted him from 
 criminal responsibility ? 
 
 If so, then, indeed, the more violent the passion and desper- 
 ate the deed the more secure from punishment will be the 
 perpetrator of homicide or other crime. Had Graves killed 
 another under the circumstances developed in this case, we 
 should enter our most solemn protest against his exoneration 
 from responsibility. But it is not necessary to put this case 
 on any such grounds, for this is a civil suit, founded on a civil 
 contract. 
 
 The doctrine of moral insanity, ever dangerous as it is to 
 
IN UFE INSUEANOE. 19 
 
 the seciirity of the citizen's hfe, and pregnant as it is with 
 evils to society, has but httle or no appUcation to this case. 
 Too uncertain and intangible for the practical consideration of 
 juries, and unsafe in the hands of even the most learned and 
 astute jurist, it should never be resorted to for exemption 
 from responsibihty save on the most irrefragable evidence, 
 developing unquestionable testimony of that morbid or dis- 
 eased condition of the affections or passions so as to control 
 and overpower or subordinate the will before the act com- 
 plained of ; for if the act is to be evidence of moral insanity 
 for the suicide, so it will be for the homicide, the parricide, 
 and the seducer and the ravisher. But as the general cove- 
 nants of the policy assured against all deaths by disease, 
 whether of body or mind, what did the parties mean by 
 inserting the proviso that the company was not to be respon- 
 sible " if he shall die by his own hand ? " These are important 
 and pregnant words, full of meaning. In natural and common 
 parlance there would be but httle difficulty in this determina- 
 tion, for the whole contract and the objects of the parties as 
 therein evinced. But the refinements of astute and meta- 
 physical minds have refined away this in exploring the mazy, 
 dark, and hmitless region of psychology and moral insanity, 
 and herein hes the difficulty. 
 
 The party did not intend to insure against self-destruction ; 
 yet says the refined metaphysician, this means a voluntary 
 self-destruction is evidence in itself of such moral insanity. So 
 the act of taking his own life disproves the self-destruction. 
 Was there ever a more self-destroying argument or theory ? 
 And if this theory be true that the act of suicide evidences 
 insanity, either moral or mental, does this not itself estabhsh 
 the fact that it was against such death that the company 
 refused to insure, and so provided for its exemption from the 
 operation of the general covenants of the pohcy ? If moral 
 insanity, when the mind is left unimpaired, is to be substituted 
 for disease, to what purpose were the words ? What kind of 
 self-destruction did they provide against? For the astute 
 metaphysicians who testified in this case gave it as their 
 opinioL. that in a Christian country no sane man would com- 
 
20 LAW OF SUICIDE AND INTEMPERANOE 
 
 mit suicide, and so testified nearly eTery other witness, and 
 there were many who were called to the point; and so, it is 
 presumed, found the jury, for this is the sole act of insanity 
 proved, or attempted to be proved, in the case. 
 
 Now this actual practical reductio ad absurdum illustrates 
 the uncertain and intangible impalpability of such a theory. 
 Here the insurance company does not insure against seK- 
 destruction. This, says the theorist, does not embrace an act 
 of moral or mental insanity, and that the act of self-destruc- 
 tion evidences, in itself, such moral insanity ; the inevitable 
 logical result, therefore, is, that as self-destruction testifies to 
 moral insanity, which is not embraced in the proviso, so self- 
 destruction is not embraced in the words " if he die by his 
 own hands." If this be so, what do they mean ? For there 
 they stand as part of the covenant, and as a qualification to 
 the previously used general terms of responsibility by the com- 
 pany. This, in effect and to all legal and practical purposes, 
 nullifies and abohshes the proviso and renders it a mere 
 hrutum fulmen, a senseless, imbecile provision. 
 
 If, then, we would escape this illogical absurdity, and attach 
 any sensible meaning to these words, and given them any 
 effective operation, we must find a more practical solution 
 than the theory of moral insanity has or can present to us. 
 
 It is remarkable, that all the decisions brought, or which 
 have come to our view, have been made upon strongly devel- 
 oped and distinctly marked cases of prior intellectual insanity, 
 and do not embrace a single case of moral insanity ; yet there 
 was a divided court, whether of England or the American 
 States, save alone that of Massachusetts, in the great case of 
 Dean et al. v. American Life Insurance Company (4 Allen, 
 96), wherein the reasoning of Chief Justice Bigelow was so 
 clear, strong, and palpable, and presented such a clear, prac- 
 tical point in such cases, that it unanimously carried that 
 Court of six judges, deservedly distinguished for their learning 
 and ability. 
 
 It is no argument to say that the literal meaning of those 
 words would avoid the policy on every self-destruction, how- 
 ever this might be produced, whether by the merest casualty, 
 
IN UFE INSURANCE. 21 
 
 or by tlie raviag maniac who knew not right from wrong, nor 
 life from death. Such a meaning has not been contended for 
 ioj the insurer nor its attorney, nor justified by the opinion of 
 any judge ; but a reasonable and fair construction is sought to 
 be placed on them, as derived from the whole contract and 
 the objects of the parties as therein manifested. 
 
 Borradaile v. Hunter, decided in 1843, is a leading English 
 case (44 English Common Law Reports, 336), in which the jury 
 found specially " that Mr. Borradaile voluntarily threw him- 
 self from the bridge (over the Thames), with the intention of 
 destroying his life ; but at the time committing the act he was 
 not capable of judging between right and wrong." There 
 were many acts of insanity before the suicide proved ; besides, 
 he was a divine, and doubtless well instructed in moral and 
 future responsibility, which greatly strengthened the other 
 evidence of insanity ; yet Mr. Justice ErsMne entered the 
 verdict for the defendant ; but afterward, upon rule to set it 
 aside, the case came before the Superior Court, consisting of 
 the Lord Chief Justice TindaU and Justices Maule, Erskine, 
 Coltman, and Creswell, the Lord Chief Justice alone dis- 
 sentiug. 
 
 Erskine said : " Looking simply at that branch of the pro- 
 viso upon which the issue was raised, it seems to me that the 
 only qualification that a liberal interpretation of the words 
 with reference to the nature of the contract requires is, that 
 the act of seK-destruction should be the voluntary and wilful 
 act of the man, having at the time sufficient powers of mind 
 aid reason to understand the physical nature and conse- 
 quences of such act, and having at the time a purpose 
 and intention to cause his own death by the act ; and that 
 the question whether at the time he was capable of under- 
 standing and appreciating the moral nature and quaUty of his 
 purpose is not relevant to the inquiry, further than as it might 
 help to illustrate the extent of his capacity to understand the 
 physical character of the act itself." The language of the 
 English policy was identical with the one under consideration, 
 and judgment was entered for the defendant. 
 
22 LAW OP SUICIDE AND INTEMPEEANCE 
 
 Three years subsequently another English case came under 
 review of her Courts, to wit : CMft v. Schwabe, 54 En^sh 
 Common Law Eeports, 437. This, however, was upon a 
 policy providing that it should be void if the person whose 
 life was insured should commit suicide. In this case it was 
 held by five to two judges that the word suicide must be taken 
 in its common acceptation, not being a word of art to which a 
 legal technical meaniag attaches, but in ordinary parlance 
 means one who had purposely killed himself. ' 
 
 The Court, upon solemn argument and due consideration 
 again affirmed the principles announced in Borradaile v 
 Hunter, and held the policy void, because the said Schwabe, 
 whose hfe was insured, committed suicide by taking sulphuric 
 acid with the intent to kill himself, though then of unsound 
 mind. The reasoning in this was similar to the other case, 
 since which time the law has been regarded as so settled in 
 England. 
 
 In 1843 the Senate of New York, sitting as a Court of 
 Errors in Breasted v. Farmers' Loan and Trust Company (4 
 HiU, 74), held that " suicide involves the dehberate termina- 
 tion of one's esistence while in possession and enjoy- 
 ment of his mental faculties, self-slaughter by an insane man 
 or lunatic is not an act of suicide within the meaning of 
 law." 
 
 But the evidence or character of Comfort's insanity is not 
 given in the short, unphUosophic and weak argumentation of 
 this poUtical body, though written by its Chief Justice. The 
 same case, however, went up to the Appellate Court from the 
 Supreme Court of New York in 1853 (4 Selden, 803), and it 
 appears therein " that the assured threw himself into the 
 Hudson Eiver from the steamboat Erie, while insane, for the 
 purpose of drowning himself, not being capable at the time, of 
 distinguishing between right and wrong," as found by the 
 referees. 
 
 Here was evidence of insanity, before he perpetrated the 
 deed, to such an extent as to destroy his knowledge and power 
 to discriminate between right and wrong ; and what was said 
 in the opinion of the Court much more argumentative than 
 
IN LIFE INSURANCE. 23 
 
 the other, must be taken in reference to such character of 
 mental insanity. Aud while a majority of the Court evidently 
 felt the cogency of the reasoning and authority of the English 
 Courts, still it drew a distinction between the facts insisting 
 that in the Enghsh cases the suicide had acted voluntarily 
 but not so with Comfort ; so that they were deciding in a case 
 where no voUtion had been exercised, nor was there power to 
 distinguish between right and wrong, which makes out a case 
 of bad intellectual lunacy ; yet even here was a nearly equally 
 divided Court, or a majority of four against a minority of 
 three on such a case. 
 
 The next case is that of Esterbrook v. The Union Mutual 
 Life Insurance Company (54 Maine, 226), in which the 
 Supreme Court of Maine, by a divided Court of four to one, 
 upon a pohcy identical in language to the one in this case, 
 and upon the finding of the jury " that the seK-destruction 
 was the result of a bhnd and irresistible impulse over which 
 the will had no control, and that the self-destruction was not 
 an act of vohtion," — ^held that the policy was not avoided by 
 such an act committed by one laboring under such insanity. 
 
 But in the case of Hartman v. Keystone Insurance Com- 
 pany (21 Penn., 479), the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, by 
 Chief Justice Black, held that " the words ' die by his own 
 hand ' must be disconnected from those which follows, stand- 
 ing alone they mean any sort of suicide ; " one judge dissent- 
 ing, one absent, and three concurring. 
 
 In Dean v. American Mutual Life Insurance Company (4 
 Allen, 96), the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, by unanimity 
 of the six judges, held that a poUcy containiag the words in 
 the proviso that if the assured " shall die by his own hand " 
 it is to be void, means to exclude risks of " the destruction of 
 life by the vohmtary and intentional act of the party assured." 
 The Court said : " The moral responsibility for the act does 
 not affect the nature of the hazard. The object is to guard 
 against loss arising from a particular mode of death. The 
 causa causus, the motive or influence which guided or con- 
 trolled the wiU of the party committing the act, is immaterial 
 
24 LAW OF SUICIDE AND INTEMPERANCE 
 
 as affecting the risk which the insurers intended to except 
 from the policy. This view is entirely consistent with the 
 nature of the contract. It is the ordinary case of an excep- 
 tion of a risk which would otherwise fall within the general 
 terms of the pohoy. These comprehend death by disease 
 either of the body or brain, from whatever cause arising. 
 The proviso exempts the insurers from Habihty when hfe is 
 destroyed by the act of the party insured although it may be 
 distinctly traced as the result of a diseased mind. It may 
 weU be that insurers would be willing to assume the risk of 
 the results flowing" from all disease of tbe body, producing 
 death by the operation of physical causes, and yet deem it 
 expedient to avoid the hazards of mental disorder in its effects 
 on the wiU of the assured, whether it originated in bodily dis- 
 ease or arose from external circumstances, or was produced 
 by a want of moral and religious culture." 
 
 The Court again said, the question is not how far can the 
 literal meaning of the words be extended, but what is a 
 reasonable limitation and qualification of them, having regard 
 to the nature of the contract and the objects intended to be 
 accompUshed by it ? 
 
 Applying this principle to the proviso, it woxdd seem to be 
 reasonable to hold that they were intended to except from the 
 policy all cases of death caused by the voluntary act of the 
 assured, when his deed of self-destruction was the result of 
 intention, by a person knowing the nature and consequences 
 of the act, although it may have been done under an insane 
 delusion, which rendered the party morally and legally irre- 
 sponsible. 
 
 If the suicide was an act of volition, however excited or 
 impelled, it may in a just sense be said that he died by his 
 own hand. If the death was caused by accident, by superior 
 and overwhelming force, in the madness of dehrium, or under 
 any combination of circumstances from which it may be 
 fairly inferred that the act of self-destruction was not the 
 result of the wiU, or intention of the party adapting means to 
 the end, and contemplating the physical nature and effect of 
 the act, then it may be justly held to be a loss not excepted 
 
IN LIFE INSUEiNCE. 25 
 
 within tlie meaning of the proviso. A party cannot be said 
 to die by his own hand, in the sense ia which those words are 
 used ia the pohcy, whose self-destruction does not proceed 
 from the exercise of an act of vohtion, but is the result of 
 blind impulse, oi mistake or accident, or of other circum- 
 stances over which the will can exercise no control. 
 
 This is the tangible, practical view of the subject, and within 
 the comprehension of plain, sensible men, such as generally 
 make contracts, and such as juries are generally composed of, 
 and embraces the true philosophy of the proviso, and the 
 reasons, for its insertion, rendering it intelligible and valuable. 
 It is remarkable that every one of these cases, both in Eng- 
 land and America, arose out of intellectual insanity — a dis- 
 ease often, if not universally, produced by physical derange- 
 ment evidenced before the act of self-destruction. If judges 
 could differ in such eases — and a great majority hold that 
 even the insanity must be of such a degree as to preclude 
 voUtion and a comprehension of the physical result of the act 
 before it should be exonerated from the operation of the pro- 
 vision in the pohcy — could it not be rationally inferred that 
 in a case of mere moral insanity, where the iatellect was left 
 unimpaired, with a full comprehension of the act and physical 
 result thereof, and studiously adapting the means to the end, 
 the judges would have been unanimous that the mere impulse 
 of passion at the instant of the act, however strong and over- 
 whelming and controlling over the miad, could not rescue it 
 from the operation of the proviso ? 
 
 It never has been anticipated by any law-writer known to 
 us that the mere transports of passion at the time the fatal 
 deed is done, when the mind remains unimpaired and in the 
 exercise of its intellectual faculties, however violent and over- 
 whelming, shall exonerate from even criminal responsibility, 
 much less to avoid civil contracts. The close proximity of 
 the words " shall die by his own hand " to words signifying 
 criminal intent, no more indicates that such intent enters into 
 their meaning than does their close proximity to other words 
 importing no such intent, but an innocent one, show that they 
 should be construed to mean irresponsible, innocent action ; 
 
26 LAW OP SUICIDE AND INTEMPEKANCE 
 
 and as tliese words stand in close connection with both classes 
 of words, how shall Courts determine that they are to be con- 
 strued by the one rather than the other? Evidently these words, 
 as held by Chief Justice Black, in the Pennsylvania case, and 
 by other Courts, must be construed by themselves, and in their 
 common, natural signification held to mean what the parties 
 understand, as derived from the whole contract, its nature, and 
 objects. 
 
 The opinions of witnesses, not founded on science, but as a 
 mere theory of morals or ethics, whether given by professional 
 or unprofessional men, are wholly inadmissible as evidence. 
 Hence, the opinion of even physicians that no sane man in a 
 Christian country would commit suicide, not being founded on 
 the science or phenomena of the mind, but rather a theory of 
 morals, religion, and future responsibility, is not evidence. 
 
 Nor should the Court have permitted the so recent rumor 
 about the city to be proved over the defendant's objections, 
 udIcss it had been carried home to the knowledge of 
 deceased. 
 
 The sanity of the suicide, like that of the homicide, is legally 
 presumed, and the evidence of insanity must be sufficiently 
 potent to overcome both this legal presumption and the evi- 
 dence of sanity, and estabhsh, to the satisfaction of the jury, 
 insanity (Graham v. Commonwealth, 16 B. Mon., 587 ; Kriel 
 V. Commonwealth, 5 Bush., 362). The mere prohibited act 
 can rarely, if ever, do this. 
 
 It would be well on another trial to submit special facts and 
 have a special finding of the jury, so that the Court may pro- 
 nounce the judgment of law upon such finding. 
 
 Wherefore, concurring in the reversal, but not in the law as 
 expounded by Judges Eobertson and Peters, we have herein 
 given our opinion. 
 
 Catharine S. Gibson, respondent, v. The American Mutual 
 Life Insurance Company, appellant (Transcript Appeals, Vol. 
 v., p. 261). This was an action on a policy of insurance on 
 the Ufe of Marcus W. Gibson, issued March 8, 1858, for 
 seven years, payable to Catharine S. Gibson, his wife. The 
 
m IIFE INSURANCE. 27 
 
 defences set up in the answer, and insisted upon on the trial 
 were : 
 
 First. That the proof furnished " omitted to state truly the 
 cause of the death of said Marcus." 
 
 Second. That "the said Marcus "W. Gibson committed sui- 
 cide by designedly shooting and wounding himself, with the 
 design and for the purpose of producing death, of which shoot- 
 ing and wounding said Marcus died." 
 
 The proofs furnished, and which were produced by the 
 defendant on the trial and offered in evidence, were the cer- 
 tificate of the officiating clergyman at the funeral of Gibson, 
 and the statement of John G. Meachem, the attending physi- 
 cian of Gibson during his last sickness, made in answer to 
 printed interrogations furnished by the defendant, and the 
 affidavit of the plaintiff. The condition required, among 
 other things, the proof should contain the names of the physi- 
 cian or physicians, and other friends in attendance, and the 
 place and date of burial, the affidavit of the medical attend- 
 ance, etc. 
 
 Gibson died on the 24:th day of March, 1860. The defend- 
 ant proved, by Gibson's declarations, that '■ he was crossing 
 a log with his gun in his hand ; that his foot slipped, and he 
 fell off, and the gun went off and shot him through the 
 bowels." After receiving the wound which caused his death, 
 Gibson was brought to his own home, and hved about twenty- 
 four hours. 
 
 The defendant put the following question to one of the 
 witnesses : " Have you had an opportunity of knowing his 
 religious sentiments ? " and proposed to show that Gibson was 
 an infidel. This evidence was excluded by the judge, and 
 the defendant excepted to his decision. 
 
 To another witness the defendant put the question : " Did 
 you know his rehgious sentiments ? " and offered to show that 
 Gibson was an atheist. This evidence was excluded, and the 
 defendant excepted to the decision. 
 
28 LAW OF SUICIDE AKD INTEMPERANCE 
 
 The jury rendered a verdict for the plaintiff, and \ipon an 
 appeal to the General Term the judgment was affirmed. 
 
 In the decision of the Court of Appeals, Ch. J. Hunt says : 
 " In his elaborate argument the defendant's counsel insists, as 
 his first ground of appeal, that the preliminary proofs were 
 deficient in that they did not contain the affidavit or certifi- 
 cate of Dr, Bartlett, as one of his attending physicians. 
 Although he had been a practising physician. Dr. Bartlett 
 was not such at the time of the death of Gibson, and had not 
 been for some years previous. He was one of the sympa- 
 thizing friends, who, on occasions of accident or death, are 
 present to give aid and comfort. Mrs. Gibson, immediately 
 on the arrival of her husband, dispatched a messenger for 
 Dr. Meachem, the family physician. In the meantime, the 
 wounded man being in great pain, some one suggested that 
 Dr. Bartlett had better make an examination of his wounds. 
 Mrs. Gibson assenting, he did so, and also gave him morphine 
 to reheve his pain. Upon the arrival of Dr. Meachem, he 
 took charge of the case. 
 
 " It does not appear that Dr. Bartlett acted in any other 
 than a friendly capacity, or that he had at any time desired 
 or expected compensation for his services. I do not know 
 that he could claim compensation in money for his kind 
 offices, any more than could the other neighbors present and 
 assisting. The defendant did not make any request that this 
 question should be submitted to the jury ; but claimed, as a 
 matter of law, that Dr. Bartlett was an attending physician. 
 This claim cannot be sustained. 
 
 " The question in contention at the Circuit was, whether 
 the death of the deceased was accidental, or whether it was a 
 case of intentional self-destruction. To aid ia elucidating this 
 inquiry, the defendant insists that he had a right to show that 
 the deceased was an infidel and an atheist, and thence to draw 
 an argument in support of the theory of intentional suicide. 
 The defendant insists upon the competency of this evidence, 
 upon the further ground that every man is presumed to be a 
 Christian ; that the Christian rehgion prohibits self-slaughter ; 
 that this presumption may operate on the minds of the jury, 
 
IN LIFE INSURANCE. 29 
 
 and should be allowed to be overtlirowii by the testimony 
 offered. It is not necessary to say how far, or how precisely 
 the presumption of personal Christianity exists. That we Hve 
 in a Christian country is certaialy acknowledged by the laws 
 of the land, which prohibit blasphemy and profanity, and 
 enjoia the observance of Sunday. That we beheve iu a gov- 
 erning Providence, by whom crime will be punished and virtue 
 rewarded,~is assumed in every oath that is administered. To 
 say, however, that every man is presumed to be a personal 
 Christian, upon whose mind and upon whose actions the pre- 
 cepts of the Gospel exercise an influence, is so much against 
 our common experience, that it cannot be admitted as a legal 
 principle. It may be argued, however, that a man may hold 
 this behef, although his actions be not at all times mfluenced 
 by it. This is probably true ; and here arises the difficulty 
 in the admission of the evidence offered. It is speculative, 
 uncertain, remote, and based upon no well-defined legal priu- 
 ciples. Consider the great variety of creeds held by those 
 calling themselves Christians. We find not only the Boman 
 Cathohc, the Episcopalian, the Presbyterian, the Methodist, 
 and Baptist, but a large class who believe in the punishment 
 of sia ia this world, and the ultimate salvation of the whole 
 human race. These are aU Christians in every acceptation of 
 that term. They aU acknowledge the inspiration of the Holy 
 Scriptures, and the obligation of its commands. In what 
 way, and how far, do these systems of behef operate upon the 
 conduct of man? 
 
 " Is it certain that he who believes in the eternal punish- 
 ment of the impenitent in a future world is a better observer 
 of the laws of his country, and more free from actual crime, 
 than he who denies that doctrine ? Or is it certain that he 
 who beheves in the final salvation of aU men would refrain 
 from an offence which he would have committed had he 
 believed there was no future state ? No man can answer with 
 certainty. 
 
 " Does the fact that a man beheves in the Christian rehgion 
 furnish legal evidence that in a particular case he has not 
 violated the laws of God, or of his country? Experience 
 
30 LAW OP SUICIDE AND KTEMPEEANCE 
 
 teaches us that not only believers in the Christian rehgion, 
 but those who for years have had the highest evidence that 
 they might expect the ultimate reward of the good Christian, 
 are guilty of grave offences, moral and legal. The law takes 
 man as he is, with his passions, his appetites, his moral traiu- ' 
 ing and his rehgion. With all these elements his life is a 
 struggle and a contradiction. What his actions will be, can 
 be determined by no form of belief, and by no fixed principle 
 of law. Each man's case wiU be different from that of his 
 neighbor, and from day to day will be different from his own. 
 The " Infidel " is one who does not recognize the inspiration 
 or obhgation of the Holy Scriptures, or the generally recog- 
 nized features of the Christian rehgion. The " Atheist " is 
 one who does not beheve in the existence of a God. The 
 result of this absence of behef upon his actions is speculative 
 entirely. Does his soul shrink back at the idea of annihila- 
 tion ? We know not. He may not admit the existence of a 
 soul, and the eternal rest of the grave may form liis idea of 
 Paradise. On the one side would stand the idea of annihila- 
 tion, and on the other that of an offended God. Who can 
 say, as a matter of fact, which would produce the strongest 
 effect upon the human mind ? Is there any feeling or prin- 
 ciple stronger than that instinctive dread of death which all 
 men feel, and which neither the faith of the Christian nor the 
 reasoning of the Atheist can overcome ? It does not depend 
 upon life or faith. It is iustinctive and common to ah men. 
 It would, iu my judgment, be incompetent to impeach one's 
 conduct, and to adjudge one's motives and principles upon the 
 proposed idea. 
 
 " To adjudge that a man's behef in Christianity wiU prevent, 
 or tend to prevent the commission of suicide, or that Atheism 
 will produce, or tend to produce, a contrary effect, is to adopt 
 a principle more subtle and speculative, more uncertain and 
 more remote, than the law can recognize. If a sound argu- 
 ment, it would be apphcable, to some extent, in every case 
 where character was ia evidence. Would it be a just ground 
 of impeachment of the good character of a party to an action, 
 that he is an Infidel or an Atheist ? 
 
IN LIFE INSURANCE. 31 
 
 " If Gibson had been the plaintiff, in an action of slander, 
 could his opponent have reduced his damages by showing his 
 behef ia these respects ? If he had been iadicted for murder, 
 and the question of character had been iatroduced into the 
 issue, could the prosecution have attacked him by showing his 
 scepticism? or could he have sustained his character hj 
 proof that he held a rehgious behef ? Such a suggestion finds 
 no countenance ia the authorities. Conduct and hfe, distia- 
 guished from behef, give the standard of character. In law it 
 would be a totally immaterial circumstance. It affords no 
 certain practical test of conduct. The offer, in the present 
 case, is based upon the same idea ; and the argument in its 
 defence, although plausible and attractive, cannot be sus- 
 tained. 
 
 " Judgment should be affirmed, with costs ; ah. concurring, 
 it was affirmed." 
 
 The following case has been selected as representing the 
 important features in relation to intemperance and other bad 
 habits which are calculated to injure the health of the insured, 
 and the principle seems to be well estabhshed, that it is the 
 business of the insurers to question the party about to be 
 insured fully in reference to aU his habits of eating and drink- 
 ing ; and also in regard to any other habit which is calculated 
 to impair or injure his constitution ; but beyond that he is 
 not bound to disclose any fact not called for by a general or 
 specific question. 
 
 Bawls V. The American Life Insurance Company, 36 Bar- 
 bour's Supreme Court Eeports, page 357 (affirmed in 27 N. T., 
 282). Motion for a new trial upon a case and exceptions, 
 ^he action was upon a poUcy of insurance, issued by the de- 
 fendant, dated July 28th, 1853, for $5,000, on the hfe of John 
 L. Fish, of Rochester, N. T., payable to the plaintiff. The 
 complaint averred the execution and dehvery of the pohcy, 
 and set forth the pohcy and the conditions annexed thereto. 
 It also averred the payment of the annual premiums on the 
 pohcy up to July 1, 1857, the interest of the plaintiff in the 
 life of Fish, the death of Fish at Rochester, on the 24th day 
 
32 LAW OF SUICIDE AND INTEMPEEANCE 
 
 of Pebruary, 1857 ; that from the time the poKcy was made, 
 to his death, Fish fully performed and compUed with all the 
 conditions of the policy to be performed and complied with 
 by him, and did not do any act or thing prohibited by the 
 terms of the policy ; and that the pohcy was in full force at 
 the time of his decease ; that due notice and proof of the 
 death of Fish, and of the circumstances attending the same, 
 were furnished to the defendant, March 6, 1857, in the manner 
 provided in the conditions annexed to the policy ; and that 
 although more than ninety days had elapsed since the notice 
 and proofs were furnished, the defendant had not paid the 
 $5,000. 
 
 The answer of the defendant contained five articles or parts. 
 The first ignored and so traversed the plaintiff's interest in the 
 life of Fish ; the second alleged that Fish did not perform 
 and comply with all the conditions of the policy to be per- 
 formed and complied with by him, and did many acts and 
 things prohibited by the terms of the policy. Also, that the 
 plaintiff had not made proof, in the manner provided in the 
 conditions annexed to the policy, of the death of Fish, and 
 that such pretended proofs omitted to state truly the cause of 
 his death. 
 
 The third averred, that among the written statements and 
 representations made to the defendant by the plaintiff, 
 respecting the Hfe, health, etc., of Fish, presented to the 
 defendant before issuing the policy, and in consideration of 
 which the policy was issued, there was a written statement 
 and representation by Fish, in which he stated and repre- 
 sented that his health was at that time good ; that he had not 
 been afflicted since childhood with hver complaint or general 
 debility. There was also a statement by one Shipman, in 
 which Shipman stated that he believed Fish to be then in 
 good health ; that he considered Fish healthy and free from 
 any circumstance tending to shorten life ; that he believed 
 Fish did not indulge in any habits or practices which had 
 impaired or would impair his health or constitution ; that he 
 beheved that the occupation, employment, and manner of Hfe 
 of Fish did, in his opinion, agree with his constitution ; and 
 
IN LIFE INSUEANCE. 33 
 
 that Eisli's prospects of attaining old age were as good as 
 those of any man. That the plaintiff and Fish, at the same 
 time, referred to one Marsh respecting, the general health and 
 manner of life of Fish, and procured and dehvered, or caused 
 to be procured and dehvered to the defendant, a paper signed 
 by Marsh, and which was one of the written statements on 
 which the poHcy was issued, in which Marsh declared that 
 Fish did not, to his knowledge, indulge in any habits or 
 practices which had impaired or would impair his constitution 
 and general Health ; that he had not any reason to believe 
 that Fish had an impaired or feeble constitution ; that he 
 considered Fish healthy and free from any circumstances 
 tending to shorten life ; that his opinion was, considering the 
 general longevity of Fish's family, his occupation, habits, 
 constitution, general and present health, that the chance of 
 Fish's living to old age was as good as that of ordinary per- 
 son s. That the plaintiff and Fish procured from one Holmes, 
 and forwarded to the defendant, a statement of Holmes, that 
 Fish did not, in his opinion, indulge in any practices or habits 
 which had impaired or would impair his constitution and 
 general health ; that he beUeved the questions contained in 
 the apphcation were fully and properly answered, and that no 
 material fact was omitted ; and that Fish was likely to hve to 
 old age. That the policy was issued on the express warranty 
 of the party assured that aU the said statements were, and 
 each of them was, true ; and that if any misrepresentations or 
 concealments were contained in the statements or representa- 
 tions the pohcy should be void, and all the premiums should 
 be forfeited to the company. And that each and every state- 
 ment in the said written statements and representations of 
 Fish, Shipman, Marsh and Holmes, in this article of the 
 answer referred to, was false ; that Fish and the plaintiff, 
 before and at the time o'f issuing the pohcy, had notice 
 thereof ; and that, by reason of the premises, the pohcy was 
 void. 
 
 The fourth article of the answer averred, that before, and 
 at the time of issuing the pohcy, Fish was and had long been 
 a man of Heentious, intemperate and disorderly habits and 
 3 
 
34 LAW OP SUICIDE AND INTEMPEEANCE , 
 
 practices, and frequently or habitually indulged in habits and 
 practices which had impaired or would impair his health and 
 constitution, and shorten his life ; and in the frequent or con- 
 stant habit of neglecting or idolating the laws or rules of good 
 conduct or regimen, on which health and long Hfe greatly 
 depend. All which the plaintiflf, Fish, Shipman and Marsh, 
 well knew, or had good reason to believe, at the time their 
 representations were made, and at and before the issuiug of 
 the pohcy ; and though the defendant was ignorant thereof, 
 they did not, nor did any of them, give notice thereof to the 
 defendant, but concealed the same ; and the poHcy was, there- 
 fore, void. 
 
 The fifth article averred, that Fish " died iu consequence of 
 intemperate drinking," and that, by reason thereof, the said 
 insurance ceased and terminated, and no right of action 
 accrued thereon to the plaintiff. 
 
 On the trial the defendant, on the caU of the plaintiff, pro- 
 duced, and the plaintiff put in evidence, the proofs of loss 
 furnished by him to the defendant, and proved that such 
 proofs were delivered to the defendant in March, 1857. The 
 plaintiff also proved that on the 28th day of May, 1850, Fish 
 and one Holmes, as partners, were indebted to the firm of 
 Eeed & Rawls, of which the plaintiff was a member, in the 
 sum of $9,675.73, and that no part of the debt had been paid. 
 The plaintiff then rested, and the defendant moved for a non- 
 suit, ■which was denied, and the defendant excepted. The 
 defendant then offered and read in evidence the statements of 
 Fish, Shipman and Marsh, and adduced testimony for the 
 purpose of showing that, prior to the application for the 
 policy in suit, July, 1853, Fish was of intemperate habits. 
 The plaintiff adduced testimony tending to show that Fish 
 was not of intemperate habits when the policy in suit was 
 applied for. 
 
 The Court then charged the jury ; to portions of which 
 charge the counsel for the defendant excepted. The following 
 question was submitted to the jury for their answer. Ques- 
 tion : « Was John L. Fish, on the 16th day of July, 1853, to 
 the knowledge of Mr. Marsh, in the habit of intemperate 
 
IN LIFE INSUKANCE. 35 
 
 drinking, to sucli an extent as had impaired or would, in the 
 opinion of Mr. Marsh, impair his constitution or general 
 health ? " The jury found a verdict for the plaintiff for 
 $6,081.57, and answered the question submitted to them, as 
 follows : " The jury think the statement made by Mr. Marsh, 
 on the 16th day of July, 1853, was truthfully made, according 
 to the best of his knowledge." 
 
 By the Court, Johnson, J. : The contract of insurance, if 
 honestly and fairly obtained, was a valid contract in its incep- 
 tion. The plaintiff had an interest in the contiauance of the 
 life of the party insured, being his creditor. The fact that 
 the debt was due to him, as a member of a partnership, and 
 from another partnership of which Fish was a member, 
 can make no difference. Fish, as a member of his firm, was 
 individually hable for the whole debt, and the plaintiff, as a 
 partner in his firm, was interested in the whole debt. It 
 seems to me there is no difiiculty whatever in this. The con- 
 tract of insurance does not relate to the payment of the debt, 
 but to the continuance of the life insured ; and aU that is nec- 
 essary to make the contract a valid one is, that the party pro- 
 curing it should have some interest in the continuance of such 
 life (Euse v. Mutual Benefit Insurance Co., 23 N. Y. Reports, 
 516). 
 
 I do not see upon what principle the previous declarations 
 of Fish, in respect to his habits, could have been admitted as 
 evidence upon the trial. It was not his contract, and he had 
 no authority to bind the plaintiff by any statement he might 
 make m regard to himself, whether true or false ; it would 
 have been mere hearsay, and was properly rejected. His 
 declarations, as between these parties, were incompetent to 
 prove either the fact of his previous intemperate habits, or the 
 fact of the suppression of the information. The question to 
 the witness Moore, as to whether he would regard a persor 
 who was in the habitual use of intoxicating drinks to excess 
 an insurable subject, was, I think, pr6perly overruled. The 
 witness, however eminent as a physician, might have very 
 Little knowledge as to what kind of persons insurance com- 
 panies might properly venture to insure. Even if he had been 
 
30 LAW OF SUICIDE AND INTEMPEEANCE 
 
 in the business ' and practice of insuring lives, the evidence 
 would have been incompetent, as it would have been, in effect, 
 but an opinion as to what insurers of lives ought to do in cer- 
 tain cases. Jefferson Insurance Company v. Cotheal, 7 Wend., 
 72, 78 and 79 ; Campbell v. Eickards, 5 Barn, and Adolphus, 
 840 ; 27 Eng. C. L. Eeports, 207. 
 
 The evidence in answer to the question put to the witness 
 Holmes, as to whether in his opinion Fish did, at the time, 
 indulge in any practices or habits which had impaired, or 
 which would impair his constitution and general health ; and 
 also, that in answer to the question put to the witness Ship- 
 man, as to whether he believed his answers to questions in 
 the papers correct at the time, can only be sustained on the 
 ground that the defendant, in its answer, had directly alleged 
 that these persons in answering the questions in the papers 
 upon which the poKcy was issued, had in these respects made 
 statements contrary to their opinions and to what they 
 believed to be true. As the defendant had in its answer 
 made that issue, I think it was competent for the plaintiff to 
 meet it by his evidence. The questions put to the witness Ship- 
 man, and also to the witness Dean, as to what their opinions 
 would have been in respect to Fish's health and the character 
 of the risk, if they had known his habits and practices to be 
 as alleged by the defendant, were of the same character as 
 the question to the witness Dr. Moore, and were properly 
 overruled for the same reason. I think the statements of 
 Dean and Holmes were properly received in evidence as part 
 of the papers on which the policy was issued. 
 
 The judge charged, that inasmuch as Marsh was referred 
 to as an acquaintance and friend of Fish, the plaintiff would 
 be responsible for the good faith, and for the truth and hon- 
 esty of such statements, and if they were untrue in point of 
 fact, it would avoid the policy, whether such untruth origi- 
 nated in fraud, or mere negligence or want of recollection. 
 This, it seems to me, was going quite far enough ; I think the 
 judge was right also, in charging the jury that if Fish 
 answered truly all the questions put to him, without evasion 
 or concealment, it was sufficient, and that it was not necessary 
 
IN LIFE INSURANCE. 37 
 
 for him to make any statement in respect to any particular 
 habit, not called for by any general or specific question put 
 to him ; and that the omission, under such circumstances, to 
 make any statement in respect to such habit, would not be 
 such a concealment as to avoid the policy. As to the condi- 
 tion of his health he did answer fully, and, as the jury have 
 found, truly, aU the questions propounded. But in respect to 
 his habits of eating or drinking, no questions were put to 
 him, and he had the right to suppose that no information was 
 desired by them upon that subject, and the omission to give 
 it in such case is no concealment ; no Court would, I think, 
 require a party to make a statement as to his habits and prac- 
 tices, some of which might possibly operate prejudicially upon 
 his health, where nothing of the kind is called for by the 
 questions propounded. The presumption is, that the insurers 
 questioned the party upon aU subjects which they deemed 
 material, and all which were within the contemplation of the 
 parties at the time, and beyond that clearly a party is not 
 bound to disclose. There was, therefore, no error, either in the 
 rulings on the trial or in the charge, and a new trial must be 
 denied 
 
 The above leading cases clearly estabUsh the following 
 points : 
 
 First. The EngKsh decisions strictly construe the words 
 " die by his own hands or the hands of justice," or the words 
 " commit suicide," as extending to aU voluntary acts, whether 
 the party committing such acts were sane or insane. 
 
 Second. The American cases, with few exceptions, construe 
 the same words as meaning only criminal acts of self-destruc- 
 tion, and do not extend to acts not under the control of the will. 
 
 Third. That it is the business of the insurers to obtain, by 
 general or specific questions, a full statement of the habits 
 and constitution of the insured, and when these have been 
 answered in good faith by the insured, the poUcy will be held 
 good. 
 
THE INFLUENCE OF METHOMANIA 
 
 UPON 
 
 Business and Criminal Responsibility. 
 
 By STEPHEN ROaERS, M.D., of New York* 
 
 Fkom the earliest Iranian records down to our own day, 
 effects of alcohol upon the body and upon the mind of man 
 have constituted an important item in his history. Physiolo- 
 gists, pathologists, physicians, lawyers, jiidges, and diviaes 
 have each and all taken prominent parts in the discussion and 
 in the management of this great subject. It is a most intimi- 
 dating circumstance to any change of the views hitherto enter- 
 tained by the courts of the enlightened nations, that this 
 society may chance to advocate, that they have with soHd 
 uniformity, been careful about admitting alcoholic mental 
 affections as causes for legal interference with the liberty of 
 the individual, or with his responsibOity for crime. No hope 
 need be entertained of effecting a reconsid'^ration of these 
 time-honored rulings, unless it can be shown in a most con- 
 vincing manner that there exists siich a disease, both of body 
 and of intellect, as may be termed alcoholic. 
 
 We will, therefore, first review this branch of the subject. 
 
 While it is undisputed, that any substance which has the 
 power of producing disease of the stomach, liver, and other 
 organs connected with the digestive system, will indirectly 
 
 * Read before the Society, December 8, 1868. 
 

 -^^^:^Ui^ ^^-t'^y^^t^L^ 
 
BUSINESS AND CRIMINAL BESPONSIBILITT. 39 
 
 affect more or less gravely the brain, it is sufficient for the pur- 
 poses of our discussion that tlie kndwn effect of alcohol upon 
 the braia and nerve substance directly, be examined. We will, 
 to that end, start with the proposition that the affinity of water 
 for alcohol is greater than it is for any of the tissues of the body. 
 While this is a proposition directly demonstrable upon dead 
 tissues only, in which the removal of their watery constituents 
 by saturation in alcohol, may be shown to be nearly fifty per 
 cent., physiological effects present all rational proofs that even 
 the tissues endowed with vitality are liable to the operations of 
 the same chemical law. In the dead tissue, a more or less 
 rapid shrinking of its substance takes place when immersed in 
 alcohol, the results of the escape of its contained water, and 
 the substitution of alcohol. That this process also takes 
 place where Uving membranes fiUed with capillary vessels are 
 covered with alcohol, is satisfactorily shown by dropping this 
 fluid upon the web of the frog's foot or the bat's wing. Under 
 these circumstances, the movement of the blood in the vessels 
 soon stops, the corpuscles congregate and contract, the cahber 
 of the vessels diminishes, tUl at last aU movement and perhaps 
 vitality ceases in the part, and it remains a shrunken, leathery, 
 insensible structure, very liable to slough and disappear. This 
 effect is more or less marked, according as the fluid is more 
 or less purely alcohohc. 
 
 That a similar residt may take place — does indeed take 
 place — ^when more or less concentrated alcohol is introduced 
 into the cavities of the living body, may be reasonably inferred 
 from the well-known fact that thirst folio - ■^he use of alco- 
 holic drink, at the same time that increased • discharge 
 occurs; the alcohol displacing a more or le, nsiderable 
 amount of water from the tissues of the body, th. . .v^ing it into 
 the circulating blood, whence it passes off by the kidneys ; 
 facts which were unknown to the good mother, who -.^It sure 
 her sons did not drink at night for they were always very 
 thirsty in the morning. 
 
 It, therefore, appears satisfactorily shown, that both in the 
 dead and living tissues of the animal body, the affinity 
 between alcohol and water is actively manifest. This fact in 
 
40 iroXUENCE OF METHOMANIA UPON 
 
 animal chemistry finds its appKcation to the subject we are 
 investigating in the next proposition we shall make, viz. : the 
 greater amount of water any animal tissue may contain, the 
 more marked wiU be the action of alcohol upon it. Now, of 
 all the structures of the human body, the brain is that which 
 contains the largest percentage of water, and, therefore, under 
 similar circumstances, it will be the organ most markedly 
 affected by alcohol. 
 
 More than thirty years ago. Dr. Percy, of England, performed 
 a series of experiments, with the object of determining the 
 presence of alcohol in the substance of the brain and its ven- 
 tricles, in animals poisoned by alcohol ; in the course of which 
 he found that alcohol, after a Uttle time, was found in greater 
 per cent, in the brain-substance than in the blood of the 
 animal, and that it was found in the brain-substance in marked 
 quantity, when scarcely a trace of it appeared in the blood. 
 
 In remarking upon this interesting fact, Dr. Carpenter, in 
 his essay on the uses and abuses of alcohol, says : 
 
 " This fact is one of fundamental importance, as showing us 
 how directly and immediately the whole nutrition and vital 
 activity of the nervous system must be affected by the presence 
 of alcohol in the blood, the alcohol being thus specially drawn 
 out of the circulating current by the nervous matter, and incor- 
 porated with its substance in such a manner as even to change 
 — when in sufficient amount — ^its physical as well as its chemi- 
 cal properties." 
 
 From the remarks heretofore made, and the natural presump- 
 tipn that alcohol, taken into the circtdation from the stomach, 
 must be more or less largely diluted before reaching the brain 
 by its admixture with the blood, marked permanent chemico- 
 vital effects upon the tissues of that organ need not be looked 
 for, under the ordinary circumstances of a fit of intoxication. 
 But should these be often repeated, it is not difficult to com- 
 prehend how a permanent alteration of nerve-stmcture may 
 be the result. Dr. Carpenter adds the following obviously 
 very reasonable remarks upon the effect of even small amounts 
 of alcohol in the blood, upon the brain-structure, with which 
 it has so great an affinity. 
 
BUSINESS AND CKIMINAL EESPONSIBILITY. 41 
 
 " It is important to observe that this affinity is such as ml] 
 occasion the continual presence of alcohol in the blood, even 
 in very minute proportion, to modify the nutrition of the 
 nervous substance more than that of any other tissue ; for the 
 alcohol will seek out — -as it were — the nervous matter, and will 
 fasten itself upon it." ' 
 
 Though it is in all probabUity true that alcohol, in the con- 
 centrated form, does act upon living tissues ia a destructive 
 manner when they are exposed to it with no protection, yet 
 in the degree of dilution it is usually imbibed by humanity, 
 its effects are, except remotely, transitory. Its' demonstratable 
 effect upon the capillary circulation however, enable us to 
 form some idea, approximating the truth, perhaps, of the com- 
 motion set up during a fit of intoxication, between the alcohol 
 in the blood circulating through the vessels of the brain, and 
 the watery portion of the brain-substance surrounding those 
 vessels, which watery portion constitutes about eighty per 
 cent, of the mass of the brain. 
 
 Most persons have witnessed the intellectual and nervous 
 phenomena this commotion gives rise to, varying from the 
 slightest exhilaration or torpor, to the wildest frenzy or deepest 
 coma, from the most moderate effect upon thought and powers 
 of motion, to the total abohtion of both. To be intoxicated, 
 would, therefore, appear to theoretically involve the wonder- 
 fully intricate structure of the brain in no triffing risk of more 
 or less permanent injury. Practically, however, it is among 
 the \\'onders of the restorative powers of the economy, that 
 such risks are not manifested till many repetitions of the act. 
 Sooner or later the results begin to appear. Permanent 
 derangements of the intellectual faculties, or of the motive 
 power, or both, become apparent. 
 
 Dr. Carpenter remarks, very justly, that " There are, in fact, 
 scarcely any diseases of the brain, which are not so much more 
 frequent among the habitually intemperate, than among the 
 habitually sober, as to justify us in regarding the excessive 
 use of alcoholic liquors as among the most efficacious of the 
 conditions of their production." 
 
 To be thoroughly impressed with a proper idea of the dis- 
 
42 mFLUENCE OF METHOMAOTA UPON 
 
 turbing disorganizing tendency of these alcoholic shocks upon 
 the intimate delicate brain-structures, I know of no better 
 means than a careful study of them with the aid of the micro- 
 scope. As we have already stated, the diseased conditions 
 resulting from these shocks manifest themselves in both the 
 motor and mental departments of the brain-system. Though 
 our inquiries carry us into the mental manifestations of those 
 diseased conditions, the intimate relations of the two classes 
 make it essential that we know and recognize the motor indica- 
 tion of alcoholic disease also. Twenty years ago. Dr. Car- 
 penter, after concluding a graphic description of delirium tre- 
 mens, wrote : 
 
 " That a slighter form of tliis disorder, marked by tremors of 
 the hand and feet, deficiency of nervous power, and occasional 
 illusions, wiU sometimes appear as a consequence of habitual 
 tippling, even without intoxication having been once produced. 
 And a stiU sHghter manifestation of the want of control over 
 muscular apparatus — such as the trembhng of the hands in 
 the execution of a voluntary movement — ^is famihar to every 
 one, as extremely frequent among the habitually intemperate. 
 We thus see that the disease is at least as much dependant 
 upon the disordered state of nutrition, consequent upon the 
 habitual presence of alcohol in the blood, as it is upon the 
 violence of the excitement, which is the more immediate effect 
 of the stimulus." 
 
 Although he does not so distinctly express it, Dr. Carpenter 
 aUudes to the nutrition of the brain exclusively in his 
 remarks. These symptoms of functional motor disturbance, 
 the result of chronic alcoholic poisoning, Dr. Marcet states, in 
 his work on Chronic Alcoholic Intoxication, "may last for 
 weeks, months, or years, even after the habit of excessive 
 drinking has been given up ; " the truth of which remarks the 
 experience of most observers confirms. " The sharp features, 
 or, if he be fat, the injected cheeks and nose, and their violet 
 appearance, the trembling of the Umbs, often of the whole 
 body, or a want of steadiness and co-ordination in the move- 
 ments, not very unHk'e incipient chorea, are aU symptoms 
 which we should not fail to observe." This treniulousness is 
 
BUSINESS AND CBIMINAL RESPONSIBILITY. 43 
 
 more or less marked, especially by day, and when the person 
 is sitting ; sometimes it is confined to a part of the body, as 
 of the tongue, or one extremity ; some only tremble when 
 they rise in the morning, giving them difficulty in dressing. 
 In other cases, where trembling is not present, an awkwardness 
 of gait, or of other Tolimtary movement is observable, giving 
 even young persons the carriage and behavior of old age. 
 Their hands cannot be relied upon to perform the mandates of 
 the will, and a constant effort is requisite to avoid stumbling. 
 
 " It is remarkable," says Dr. Marcet, " how long this condi- 
 tion may last," as evidence of functional and no doubt organic 
 brain-disease, " and how rapidly it disappears under proper 
 treatment." Dr. Marcet relates a case in which this clumsiaess 
 of the lower extremities was so great that the person could 
 hardly walk, even with the assistance of a stick. A feehng of 
 weakness and heaviness from the hips downwards, I have 
 many times seen complained of in these cases ; and they are 
 generally made worse for several days by a fit of intoxication. 
 
 Symptoms of threatening paralysis often present themselves 
 imder the circumstances. With these facts before us relating 
 to the effects of alcohol upon the motor system of nerves, 
 facts which, imfortunately, we too often see proven ia the per- 
 sons of those we meet daily, we will now extend our inquiries 
 to its effects upon the intellectual and moral portions of this 
 wonderful apparatus. Dr. Carpenter remarks, with a great 
 deal of reason, that alcohol seems to single out the encephahc 
 or brain portion of the nervous system, almost to the exclusion 
 of the spinal or motor system ; just as strychnine singles out 
 the spinal or motor system, almost to the exclusion of the 
 brain. Whatever ravages, therefore, may be committed upon 
 the motor system by the continued excessive ingestion of alco- 
 hol, we have undoubted reason to expect that the intellectual 
 system will be a stiU greater sufferer. 
 
 Practically, we find it to be a fact, that of aU the cases of 
 insanity admitted to the asylums in various parts of the world, 
 a per cent, varying from fifteen to fifty and sixty is put 
 down to the effect of the intemperate use of alcohol on the 
 individual or ancestors. Dr. Carpenter thought that twenty- 
 
44 mPLUENCE OF METHOMANIA UPON 
 
 five per cent, woxild be quite small enough an estimate for the 
 asylums of Great Britain. There is no reason for supposing 
 our own country's number would be found to be less, if we 
 may judge from the fact that in a single asylum, the cases of 
 mania-a-potu, in 1867, amounted to about eleven per cent. It 
 is stated in the petition to the legislature of the State of New 
 York, for the establishment of the Inebriate Asylum in 1857, 
 "that fifty-five per cent, of aU of our insanity, and sixty- 
 eight per cent, of all our idiocy, springs directly or indirectly 
 from inebriety alone." The action of alcohol, then, as a mere 
 physical agent in the production of disease of the brain sub- 
 stance, is abundantly shown, and that means disease of mind 
 also, for, as a distinguished author truly remarks, it is ridicu- 
 lous to suppose that insanity is a disease of the mind and not 
 of the body. 
 
 3Iens Sana in ccrrpore sano is imdoubtedly a very good and 
 true general proposition, but it finds its special appUcation in 
 relation to the brain. 
 
 Now, diseases of the brain, when produced by alcohol as 
 well as by other causes, have their various degrees of severity. 
 It is sufiicient for the purposes of omx inquiry that we have 
 shown the ability of alcohol to produce extreme brain disease, 
 so we will now review the various grades of brain unsound- 
 ness it is recognized as producing, and thereby show the 
 phases of mental unsoundness it gives rise to. Passing over 
 the inebriating influences, and the various phenomena pri- 
 marily produced by alcohol, transitory effects which leave no 
 appreciable results after more or less time, we will mention 
 insomnolence, a well known result of cerebral derangement, 
 from a great variety of causes, and a very constant symptom 
 in the positively insane. These periods of insomnia follow 
 fits of intoxication for a long time in some cases, before they 
 give place to declared delirium. They are not infrequently 
 attended with hallucinations of a generally disagreeable char- 
 acter, the objects often appearing double or greatly magnified, 
 or performing some movements which the person interprets as 
 of evil omen. A gentleman of my acquaintance, while under 
 the effect of an over-indulgence in alcoholic drinks, supposed 
 
BUSINESS AND CKIMINAL RESPONSIBILITY. 45 
 
 he saw two doves start up from the road, along which he was 
 driving, and, after fluttering along for a moment over his 
 horses, soar away to a considerable distance, and suddenly 
 plunge into a new-made excavation in the earth. So real did 
 it appear to him that he became at first quite out of patience 
 with a friend who was riding with him, because he did not see 
 the doves also. He, however, became convinced that he had 
 seen nothing but a ghost, foretelling some calamity which he 
 suspects but does not express. I have, imfortimately, only 
 partially succeeded in convincing him that it was alcohoHc, 
 and I have ia consequence had but bad success ia improving 
 his habits. This person has never had delirium. Dr. Marcet re- 
 lates the case of a cabman suffering from alcoholic disease, who 
 frequently pulled up his horse ia the street suddenly to avoid 
 running against an obstacle he distinctly saw, but which he 
 foimd, upon examuiation, not tangible. On another occasion 
 this same patient saw things midtiplied as many as ten times, 
 so that he could not tell which of the ten to drive clear of, 
 and he was in consequence obhged to give up driving for the 
 time. Similar hallucinations of the hearing, of the taste, and 
 of the smell are known to occur, the patients believing that 
 they are drinking or smelling brandy instead of water, or that 
 they hear voices and sounds that do not exist. These mostly 
 occur during the long sleepless nights, but occasionally during 
 the intervening days. They often immediately precede delir- 
 ium, but may, as already stated, be the only manifestations 
 of unsoundness of brain for a long period. This affection of 
 the brain is as a rule promptly recovered from, if the cause is 
 not repeated. Unfortunately however, this measure is too 
 frequently disregarded, on account of the existence of a disease 
 already more or less considerably advanced, viz., morbid 
 desire for intoxication, which is in fact only an expression 
 meaning a positive disease of brain-structure, as much as any 
 of the hallucinations above referred to. 
 
 What are the reasons for the belief that this desire is an 
 expression of brain-disease ? The first reason we may men- 
 tion, is found in the fact that it is known to be occasionally 
 produced by accidents which seriously disorder the dynamical 
 
46 INFLUENCE OF METHOMAMA UPON 
 
 properties, and probably the relations of the intimate con- 
 stituents of the brain-stractnre ; such as severe blows and 
 injuries of the head, resulting in concussion, fracture of the 
 skuU, and laceration of the brain-substance, especially con- 
 cussion : by severe loss of blood, as that often attending 
 child-birth ; by the reflex disturbances of the brain and pas- 
 sions during pregnancy, and by the constitutional disturbances 
 which are not unfrequently witnessed in women at the critical 
 period of hfe, and at the menstrual periods. Dr. Carpenter 
 quotes Dr. Hutcheson, an author of a lunatic-asylum report, 
 as having witnessed its occurrence during convaJesence from 
 severe fevers ; as produced by excessive venereal indulgence ; 
 as having witnessed it in some forms of dyspepsia ; and in 
 men whose brains were over-worked, without, in any of those 
 cases, having been able to detect any other cause for it. 
 
 Dr. John E. Cuyler, the experienced and very intelligent 
 Superintendent of the McLean Asylum, in his annual report, 
 for the year 1866, speaks of these unfortunate cases in the 
 following language : 
 
 " It sometimes happens that after a fever, or other severe 
 illness, or after a fall, or blow upon the head, or after a severe 
 domestic affliction or bereavement, or a sudden loss of prop- 
 erty, a person always temperate is seized with, and yields to, 
 an impetuous desire to drink ardent spirits. This is lamented 
 by the individual as much as by his friends, but by successive 
 indulgences which he cannot refrain from, and from which he 
 is not prevented by others, he reaches the sad mental and 
 moral condition of the inebriate. * * * * Such," he adds, 
 " deserve, but do not have sympathy, inasmuch as mental dis- 
 order preceded and causes the excess." 
 
 Now, as these are all causes recognized as productive of 
 more or less permanent and grave lesions of either intellect 
 or motor power, or both, we are irresistibly drawn to the con- 
 clusion, that when they produce methomania, they do so by 
 the production of positive braia-disease, manifested by mor- 
 bid appetite or desire. 
 
 An obvious corollary would then be, that aU cases of metho- 
 mania are produced by positive brain-disease, whether such 
 
BUSINESS AND CRIMINAL EESPONSIBILITY, 47 
 
 disease be produced by tlie causes just enumerated, or the 
 habitual and excessive introduction of alcohol or other similar 
 agents into the substance of that organ, or be inherited. This 
 desire for stimulants seems to arise from a depressed or 
 impaired vitality, an instinctive consciousness of which creates 
 a longing for the means of improving or relieving it by stimu- 
 lation. The second reason for beUeving that it arises from 
 brain-disease we may advance is, that this disease is heredi- 
 tary, in the same manner that insanity, epilepsy, syphilis, con- 
 sumption, and other well-known diseases are hereditary. 
 This fact, estabhshed as it is by an enormous amount of mis- 
 erable example, presents the most frightful aspect of this 
 whole subject. 
 
 Hereditary inebriety has been an admitted fact for many 
 centuries. Thus Aristotle is reported as declaring that 
 " drunken women bring forth children hke imto themselves ; " 
 and Plutarch says that " one drunkard begets another." Dr. 
 Carpenter states that all evidence upon the subject not only 
 goes to show that the intemperate use of alcohol aggravates 
 the operation of other causes of insanity, but that it has in 
 itself a " special tendency to produce idiocy, insanity, or men- 
 tal debUity in the offspring." He further remarks : "Looking 
 to the decided tendency to hereditary pre-disposition in the 
 ordinary forms of insanity ; looking also to the fact that any 
 perverted or imperfect conditions of the nutritive functions 
 established in the parents are also liable to manifest them- 
 selves in the offspring (as in the case of gout or tubercular 
 disease), we should expect to find that the offspring of habitual 
 drunkards would share with those of lunatics in the pre-dis- 
 position to insanity, and that they would, moreover, be espe- 
 cially prone to intemperate habits. That such is the case, is 
 within the knowledge of aU who have enjoyed extensive 
 opportunities of observation." The same author quotes from 
 a report of the physician of a lunatic asylum the following 
 statement : " The drunkard not only injures and enfeebles his 
 own nervous system, but entails mental disease upon his 
 family. At present I have two patients who appear to inherit 
 a tendency to imhealthy action of the brain from mothers 
 
48 INFLUENCE OF METHOMANIA UPON 
 
 addicted to drinking ; and, another, an idiot, whose father was 
 a drunkard." It is believed by some authors that parents 
 give to their children only those quahties or powers and ten- 
 dencies to diseases and propensities which may be most con- 
 spicuous id them at the time the creature is begotten. I have 
 yet to see the first case in support of the doctrine that a child 
 begotten during an accidental fit of intoxication by a parent 
 of sober habits, as a rule, is Mable to ioherit either idiocy or 
 methomania. But that the permanent alteration and diseased 
 constitution of the braiu, as an organ, should transmit its 
 peculiarities to the progeny in some form, there is too much 
 evidence to dispute. 
 
 Says Dr. Maudsley, in his learned work on the Physiology 
 and Pathology of the Mind, p. 228 : " The influence of alco- 
 hol upon the mental function furnishes the simplest instance 
 in illustration of the action of a foreign matter introduced 
 into the blood from without; here, where each phase of an 
 artificially produced insanity is successively passed through in 
 a brief space of time, we have the abstract and brief chronicle 
 of the history of insanity, because the action of the poison 
 upon the nutrition of the nervous centers is quick and transi- 
 tory ; but we have only to spread the poisonous action over 
 years, as the drunkard does, and we may get a chronic and 
 enduriug insanity, in which the insane phases of drunkenness 
 are more slowly acted, but if death puts a stop to the full 
 development of this tragedy in his life, we may still not be 
 disappointed at seeing it played out in the Hves of Ms de- 
 scendants ; for the drunkenness of the parents sometimes 
 observedly becomes the insanity of the offspring." 
 
 How long it will take the more or less constant presence of 
 alcohol in the substance of the brain to beget a transmissible 
 disease of that organ, is a most interesting but difficult query 
 to answer. A very curious but significant account of an 
 instance, touching this inquiry, is related by Dr. Turner, in 
 one of his reports of the Inebriate Asylum. " Three children 
 were bom to habitually inebriate parents, and were all three 
 idiots. By some means, not stated, these parents reformed 
 and lived temperately several years, during which period oi 
 
BUSINESS AND CBIMINAL RESPONSIBILITY. 49 
 
 temperance, two more children were born, and were active 
 and intelligent. Finally, tlie parents again fell into inebriety, 
 and bad two more children, both idiots." 
 
 Whether the mental disease thus transmitted be especially 
 manifest in the motor or intellectual system, the additional 
 disposition to take stimulants is more or less strongly marked 
 in a very large percentage of the cases. The investigations 
 of Dr. S. B. Howe, reported to the Massachusetts Legislature 
 twenty years ago, upon this subject, have been fully supported 
 by aU later observers. Out of 574 idiots, whose condition and 
 ancestral history Dr. Howe carefully inquired into, he found 
 it possible to get reliable information of the habits of the 
 parents of only 300 of them. Out of these, the parents of 
 145, or nearly 50 per cent., were found to have been notori- 
 ously habitual drunkards. The degrees of mental disease, or 
 absence of miad, varied in these 145 children, from that of 
 simple feebleness to the most utter idiocy. But amid this 
 wreck of mind and body, a craving for aleohohc stimulants 
 was almost luiiformly present among these pitiable progeny 
 of inebriety. Dr. Howe remarks of them, that they were 
 " deficient in bodily and vital energy, and predisposed, by their 
 very organization, to have cravings for alcohoKc stimulants." 
 A very intelligent reviewer of Dr. Howe's report, makes the 
 following remarks upon the subject of this propensity to stim- 
 tdata in the children of the intemperate : 
 
 " Many of these children are feeble, and hve irregularly. 
 Having a lower vitality, they feel the want of some stimulation. 
 
 " If they pursue the course of their father, which they have 
 more temptation to foUow and less power to avoid than the 
 children of the temperate, they add to their hereditary weak- 
 ness, and increase the tendency to idiocy in their constitutions, 
 and this they leave to their children after them." Dr. Anstie 
 says, in his article on Alcoholism, " Keynolds' System of Medi- 
 cine," "The suiferers from this disease are, I beheve, usually 
 descended of famihes in which insanity, and often insanity of 
 the same type, is hereditary." 
 
 I need not accumulate more evidence of this character, 
 which it would be easy to do. The fact is, beyond a doubt. 
 
50 INFLUENCE OF METHOMANIA UPON 
 
 established, that a diseased brain and body, as the results of 
 alcoholic poisoning, manifest by methomania, transmit their 
 acquired or inherited habits and propensities to the offspring. 
 And the fact is striking, that the organ which has suffered 
 most in the parent is, with few exceptions, the one most 
 affected in the child. The child has, in fact, inherited the 
 brain-disease of the father or mother, or both. It is not an 
 inheritance of an accidental condition, such conditions are not 
 transmitted. The parent who has accidentally lost a leg, or 
 the mobility of a knee, or has lost an eye, or a tooth, does 
 not beget one-legged, stiff-jointed, one-eyed, or toothless chil- 
 dren. Positive alterations of the vital organization of the 
 economy are alone transmitted as acquired or inherited dis- 
 ease. Methomania is so transmitted, therefore, it is the 
 expression of a positive disease. We can no longer doubt 
 the truth of this doctrine. It has been doubted too long 
 already. It is clearly the duty of every physician in the land 
 to know it, to acknowledge it, and to promulgate it. 
 
 No more truthful or important sentiments were ever uttered 
 than are those which foUow, written by Dr. Howe, a score of 
 years ago : " If ever," says he, " the race is to be relieved of 
 one tithe of the bodily iUs which it is now heir to, it must be 
 by a clear understanding of, and a willing obedience to, the 
 law wliich makes parents the blessing or the curse of the chil- 
 dren ; the givers of strength, and vigor, and beauty ; or the 
 dispensers of debOity, and disease, and deformity." We have 
 seen with how much truth and propriety he might have added 
 — and hands down to them a disposition to sobriety and 
 virtue, or blasts them for time and eternity with a propensity 
 to intemperance and vice. 
 
 As the last reason we shaU adduce for the beUef that alcohol 
 produces a positive brain-disease, we wiU mention the fact 
 that many of the symptoms recognized as produced by alco- 
 hohc poisoning upon the brain, are controlled or cured by the 
 same medicinal agents as are known to be effective in various 
 brain diseases, such as epilepsy, chorea, etc. Such agents are 
 digitalis and the oxide of zinc: the former a weU-known rem- 
 edy in epilepsy, as well as much vaunted in delirium tremens, 
 
BUSINESS AND CRIMINAL RESPONSIBILITY. 51 
 
 and the latter lias long enjoyed a liigh reputation in e])ilepsy 
 and other diseases of the brain, while Dr. Marcet, of London, 
 has lately written a book about its virtues in what he terms 
 Chronic Alcohohc Intoxication. In justice to my own convic- 
 tions, however, I must be permitted to remark, that this thera- 
 peutical evidence of a similarity between epilepsy and alco- 
 holic disease is not, in my estimation, of the most convincing 
 character. As others entertain a higher estimate of the value 
 of the curative effects of both digitalis and oxide of zinc in the 
 diseases mentioned than I do, I present the reason for any 
 weight it may carry. Dr. Anstie, in his article on Alcoholism, 
 subscribes to the efficacy of the oxide of zinc in this disease. 
 But it would appear, that with all the reasons heretofore 
 advanced, no additional ones would be required to establish 
 the truth of the proposition, that methomania is a manifesta- 
 tion of brain-disease. 
 
 While the line of argument I have followed has been in 
 some respects unusual among writers upon this subject, the 
 conclusions arrived at are not different from theirs. Metho- 
 mania has been regarded by the highest medical authorities 
 for many years as just as much a mental aberration resulting 
 from diseased brain as suicidal or homicidal monomania. In 
 support of this statement, I feel that no excuse will be required 
 for quoting the following authorities : Dr. Hutcheson, in his 
 report of the Glasgow Lunatic Asylum, published more than 
 a quarter of a century ago, treats of it as a form of mania, as 
 a brain and mental unsoundness, which renders the victim of 
 it irresponsible for his acts during its paroxysms. Dr. Car- 
 penter, in his essay on Alcohol, written a few years later, 
 speaks of it as " one form of insanity," and as generally hav- 
 ing a sufficiently peculiar relation to alcohol to demand a 
 notice of it in such a paper. Forty years ago, or more. Dr. 
 Woodward, Superintendent of the Lunatic Asylum at Worces- 
 ter, Mass., wrote a pamphlet upon this subject, urging the 
 establishment of an asylum for the care of these persons, on 
 the ground that they were the victims of a disease over which 
 they had no control, and which rendered them irresponsible 
 for their acts, and dangerous if left at large. About the same 
 
52 INFLUENCE OF METHOMANIA UPON 
 
 date, Dr. Roisch, a French writer, published a paper upon the 
 effect of the excessive use of alcoholic drinks, and is credited 
 by some authors with having iirst called the attention of the 
 profession to methomania as a disease. Dr. T. E. Turner, 
 the distinguished founder of our State Inebriate Asylum, in 
 his report to the Legislature, in 1864, speaks of this disease 
 in the following language : 
 
 " Every case of inebriety is a suicidal case of insanity which 
 needs the control and medical treatment of an asylum more 
 than any other class of insane." 
 
 It must not be forgotten, while studying these effects of 
 alcohol, that there are many other substances which, if em- 
 ployed in the same manner, and for equal time, produce per- 
 manent derangement of the brain cell-work. Of those may 
 be mentioned opium, belladonna, stramonium, Indian hemp, 
 and tobacco. The disturbing influence of these substances 
 upon the nervous centers, each one differing more or less from 
 the other, is too well understood to require mention here. 
 These differences, however, indicating what is known or 
 termed elective affinities, a peculiarity before referred to, as 
 marked in alcohol and strychnine, promise to furnish us more 
 definite knowledge as to the diseased condition of the tissue 
 elected, than we have hitherto been able to obtain. I allude 
 to the elective affinity, if it may be so called, which produces 
 the diseases of the optic nerve in those addicted to the more 
 or less excessive use of tobacco. Tobacco-blindness, or amau- 
 rosis, is attracting much attention, Snd bids fair to open new 
 fields of pathological study. "While atrophy of the optic 
 nerves, resulting from suspended nutrition, and slow disap- 
 pearance of its capillary blood-vessels, is demonstrated by 
 both the ophthalmoscope and the microscope to be the condi- 
 tion here, may not the same condition of the brain follow 
 the use of alcohol, or the narcotics mentioned? 
 
 Dr. Tyler, whom we have before quoted, and whose opinions 
 we regard as possessing the greatest weight, speaks of this 
 affection as follows : " Pathological investigations show that 
 the brain is changed from a healthy to a diseased state by the 
 action of alcohol. Healthy thoughts and healthy moral senti- 
 
BUSINESS AND CRIMINAL EESPONSIBILITY. 53 
 
 ments are not evolved by a diseased brain. To its possessor 
 we attach no moral responsibility. An inebriate has a dis- 
 eased brain. No wiU or agency of his can bring forth there- 
 from other than diseased mental and moral products. A per- 
 son who is governed by an uncontrollable appetite, or by any 
 uncontrollable influence, is not a responsible being, and should 
 be so treated." 
 
 Dr. Ray, the present Superintendent of the New York State 
 Inebriate Asylum, and late Superintendent of the Washing- 
 tonian Home, Boston, in his report for 1867, says : " The 
 extent to which the morbid craving for stimulants, and the 
 infirmity of will in resistance, which combined constitute the 
 disease, having its source and sustenance in the impaired 
 functional activity of the various organs of the body, can only 
 be appreciated by one who has carefully observed it in a large 
 number and variety of cases. As a disease, its character is 
 most complex and obscure, involving as it does abnormal con- 
 ditions of both body and mind, and varying in every case with 
 individual temperament and characteristics." 
 
 A commission appointed by the State of Massachusetts 
 some four years since, to report upon the condition of the 
 asylums of that State, in speaking of this form of insanity, 
 classes it as a disease under whose paroxysms or influence 
 the victim should be cleared from criminal responsibihty. 
 Under the conviction that the methomaniac is a victim of an 
 uncontrollable desire, and therefore dangerous both to himself 
 and those about him, and hence a fit subject for the interfer- 
 ence of the State, more than fifteen hundred medical men of 
 this State signed a petition to the Legislature in 1857, in 
 favor of the estabhshment of an asylum for that purpose. In 
 that petition we find the following paragraph : 
 
 '" Without such an institution, the physician has been com- 
 pelled to turn from his patients discouraged, disheartened, and 
 defeated, and the victim of this painful malady has found a 
 drunkard's death and a drunkard's grave. With this institu- 
 tion we can save hundreds who are now crowding our insane 
 asylums, inundating our courts, dying in our prisons, and per- 
 ishing in our streets." Dr. Anstie, inhis article on AlcohoHsm. 
 
54 raPLUENCE OF METHOMANIA UPON 
 
 " Reynolds' System of Medicine," says of metlioniania : " It 
 is, in truth, rather a variety of constitutional insanity than of 
 a,lcoholic disease, but as the outbreaks owe many of their 
 characteristic symptoms to the influence of drink, the disease 
 requires notice in a treatise on alcohoHsm." If, after a review 
 of the facts we have here laid before it, there shall still be 
 found a mind so conservative as not to admit them as evidence 
 of the existence of such a disease as methomania, which more 
 or less seriously impairs the responsibility of its victim, then 
 I have little hope of its conviction unless in some evil hour it 
 become a subject of the disease. 
 
 I confidently believe, however, tbat but few such wiU be 
 found, and I therefore wiU proceed, upon the ground that it is 
 admitted, to speak of some of the more prominent symptoms 
 of the disease. The essential and diagnostic sign of this dis- 
 ease is an irresistible desire to take alcohol tiU intoxication is 
 produced, and to continue that effect for a variable time. A 
 glass once or twice, daily, or, indeed, any moderate use of 
 stimulants, will not satisfy this desire. Short of positive, deep, 
 and prolonged inebriety, there is no relief of this diseased de- 
 sire. It is not a pleasure of taste, as numerous very ludicrous 
 instances of drinking whole glasses of fluid, before detecting 
 the fact that it was not the hquor supposed, sufficiently at- 
 test. 
 
 No person can be more wretched than the victims of this 
 desire appear to be, until they have fuUy gratified this insane 
 impulse, and no arguments that can be presented to them, not 
 even their own thorough convictions of the evil and the danger 
 of so doing, have the slightest effect in staying their onward 
 course to destruction. This desire may manifest itself rather 
 suddenly and present a most vehement character, the unhappy 
 victim being continually most miserable unless kept con- 
 tinually drunk. 
 
 This is the form usually known as acute methomania, and is 
 comparatively rare. Being the product of some accident or 
 severe disease, it is generally promptly reheved by treating 
 the diseased state of body which produces it, and the rehef 
 is usually permanent. But a far more common form is that 
 
BUSINESS AND CBIMINAL EESPONSIBILITY. 55 
 
 in whicli the person is seized at more or less long intervals. 
 This is called the periodic methomania. I have never seen a 
 good description of it except the one given by Dr. Hutcheson, 
 and quoted by Dr. Carpenter, and feel that I can give do better 
 idea of it than is given in that description. " The individual," 
 says Dr. Hutcheson, "thus affected abstains for weeks or 
 months from all stimulants, and frequently loathes them for 
 the whole period. By degrees he becomes uneasy, hstless, 
 and depressed, feels iacapable of application, and restless, 
 abandons business, and begins to driak and continues to till 
 he is intoxicated. This he continues till sleep ensues, which 
 he awakes from only to seek again the intoxicating dose, and 
 so he continues on for a week or more. Then a feeling of 
 disgust and positive loathing for his iutoxicating drinks comes 
 on, attended generally by anorexia and vomiting, a feehng of 
 apathy and depression follows, he is the prey of remorse, 
 regrets bitterly his infirmity, often contemplates, and even 
 commits suicide to terminate his misery." 
 
 " His vigor, however, returns, he goes with renewed dili- 
 gence to busiuess, and freshly determines never again to yield 
 to his malady. But, alas, sooner or later the paroxysm recurs, 
 and the same scene is re-enacted, tiU, ultimately, unless the 
 disease be checked, he falls a victim to the physical effects of 
 intemperance, becomes maniacal or imbecile, or the intervals 
 becoming shorter and shorter tUl none takes place between 
 them, and he falls into the deplorable state of chronic or con- 
 tinual methomania, a state in which the patient is incessantly 
 under the most overwhelming desire for stimulants." 
 
 No exhibitions of the maniac can be more indicative of 
 insanity than are the ungovernable impulses to intoxication 
 that move these persons. In aU the forms of the disease, the 
 patient is totally incapable of self-control. There is no 
 motive of business that has any weight against it ; there is no 
 consideration of family, or tie of friendship, that in the least 
 influences him to resist ; and even physical mutilation and the 
 vilest personal debasement are at times gladly submitted to 
 for the purpose of getting the means to appease this devour- 
 ing impulse. An account illustrative of the strength and 
 
56 INFLUENCE OF METHOMANIA UPON 
 
 danger of this diseased impulse, is given by Dr. Mussy, of a 
 methomaniac of the chronic variety, who was put into an 
 almshouse. After making many unsuccessful efforts to pro- 
 cure rum, he at length hit upon the following device, which 
 was successful : 
 
 He went into the wood-yard, seized an axe, and, placing his 
 hand upon a block, cut it from the arm at a single blow. With 
 the bleediag stump raised, he ran into the house, crying, " My 
 hand is off ! Get some rum ! get some rum ! " 
 
 In the confusion of the moment, a bowl of rum was brought, 
 and plunging the bleeding member of his body into the fluid, 
 he raised the bowl to his mouth, drank freely, and then exult- 
 ingly exclaimed, " Now, I am satisfied ! " 
 
 What maniac could be more regardless of physical pain ? 
 Truly did Dr. Hutcheson say that such a person " is dangerous 
 to himself and others, and, however responsible he may have 
 been for bringing the disease upon himself, his responsibihty 
 ceases as spon as he comes under its influence." Another 
 peeuharity of this disease is that it seeks solitary gratification, 
 and in this respect it resembles some forms of recognized 
 mental derangements. Dr. Anstie says, in his article on Alco- 
 holism, "Reynolds' System of Medicine," that acute mel- 
 ancholy is seen in this disease presenting the usual form of 
 this mental affection, " but it is marked by a special tendency 
 to suicidal acts." Dr. Hutcheson alludes to this change in 
 social character and sentiment, saying, that the patient 
 derives no pleasure from society, for he generally avoids it. 
 
 The motive for the secret gratification of this impulse has 
 appeared to me to be a desire to keep the fact hidden from 
 the world. The positiveness and the persistence with which 
 these victims will often deny having taken any stimulants, and, 
 much more, having been intoxicated, are as strong an evidence 
 of their moral, if not general insanity, as can be presented. 
 Their cunning and ingenuity in explaining their symptoms, 
 taking care to make no allusion to the true cause, have no 
 counterpart except in the cunning and deceit often found in 
 the truly insane. Dr. Tyler very truly remarks upon the 
 deadening influence of this disease upon the moral sensi- 
 
BUSINESS AND CBIMINAL BESPONSIBILITY. 57 
 
 bilities of large numbers of its victims, that, " they turn to 
 whatever breeze is blowing, and change their position with 
 the utmost facility to accommodate aU persons and circum- 
 stances, whenever this is necessary to carry out a selfish plan 
 or purpose, with no regard for truth." 
 
 This statement is eminently truthful in respect to all 
 attempts to conceal their disease. I have noted that the 
 secrecy observed by these patients in the paroxysms of the 
 disease, keeps pace with their intellectual powers ; as that fails, 
 they become more and more indifferent to observation, and 
 finally perfectly shameless. 
 
 An intimate acquaintance of mine left home and hid himseH 
 away in some obscure street whenever he felt the paroxysm 
 approaching, and was not generally found before his attack 
 passed off, when he would return to his house. He at length 
 died in the garret of a miserable grog-shop, his name upon 
 some articles of his clothing giving the only clew the inmates 
 of the place had to his residence and family. There was evi- 
 dence in his case that death ensued from opium taken for 
 suicidal purposes, at about the termination of the paroxysm. 
 A common practice among these persons is to shut themselves 
 up during the attack, and give orders as to the statement of 
 the character of their ailment to be given to these who may 
 call to see them. 
 
 !So far as my observation enables me to form an opinion, I 
 think this habit of concealed drinking may be regarded as a 
 diagnostic sign of methomania. I have not been able to find 
 any other reason for it. In course of time, this concealed 
 drinking becomes more pubhc, but as a rule it is still solitary 
 indulgence. It is not to be confounded with convivial drunk- 
 enness, and it is greatly doubted by some whether the occa- 
 sional intoxication at the festive board ever leads to metho- 
 mania, in persons who do not inherit, or accidentally possessj 
 a decided predisposition to the disease. There can be no 
 doubt that we constantly meet with persons who consiime 
 more alcohol annually than many methomaniacs, but who are 
 never intoxicated, and who can stop the use of it at any 
 moment without much, if any, inconvenience. While some 
 
58 INFLUENCE OF METHOMANIA UPON 
 
 become intoxicated at every dinner-party, they eat their din- 
 ner quite as well without wine. This, it is easily seen, is an 
 entkely different condition from methomania. The habits 
 which I regard as iadicating methomania are : 1. Periodic 
 secret drinking to intoxication, attended by studied secrecy 
 regarding it, and persistent denial of the act. 2. Periodic 
 soKtary drinking to drunkenness, though not in secret, attended 
 by the same determined denial of the act. 3. Gulping down 
 alcoholic hquors on all possible occasions to drunkenness 
 without regard to taste or quahty. 
 
 It would be an error to suppose that all cases of metho- 
 mania refuse to confess their affliction. Most of them sooner 
 or later have confidants to whom they unbosom their afflic- 
 tions, but as to general confession the rule here stated is true. 
 During the paroxysms the patient abandons the most urgent 
 business, and, to get the means of gratifying liis craving 
 desire, disposes of clothing and jewelry, and even pledges 
 estates and beggars his family. I have often noticed that 
 the very fact of having extraordinary or unusually important 
 or difflcult business to transact, seemed to overwhelm the wiU 
 and courage of these persons, and to bring on prematurely an 
 attack. So common is this, that the unreliability of the metho- 
 maniac for any urgent and important work is proverbial, they 
 always being nearly sure to disappoint when most needed. 
 This is, no doubt, to be accounted for by the fact that the 
 mental as well as physical vigor is more or less greatly im- 
 paired by the disease, so that the patient is really unequal to 
 the apphcation required for him, and feels himseK so. 
 
 Dr. Carpenter alludes to this subject by saying that, " besides 
 the positive diseases, a premature exhaustion of nervous power, 
 manifest in the decKne of mental vigor, and of nervo-muscular 
 energy, are ranked by common consent among the conse- 
 quences of habitual excess ia the use of alcoholic liquors." 
 The finding of a man drunk, and absent from business that he 
 knows to be important, I, therefore, should at once regard as 
 evidence of the existence of methomania in his case. 
 
 I have purposely deferred to the close of these remarks, 
 the consideration of the personal danger which the family ox 
 
BUSINESS AND CRIMINAL EESPONSIBILITY. 59 
 
 associates of tlie methomaniac are exposed to during different 
 periods of his paroxysms. Impelled by some insane hallu- 
 cination, or by the frenzy of tormenting desire, during the 
 maniacal excitement of intoxication, or the terrors of delirium 
 which succeed it, the inebriate who would dismember his own 
 body would just as soon destroy the life of his dearest friend 
 or relative. Of aU the diseases of humanity, none is so dread- 
 ful as the insanity of the methomaniac. 
 
 Says Dr. Turner, in his graphic description of the yictim of 
 this disease : " Extreme poverty, hideous deformity, mutilation 
 of Hmbs, deafness, blindness, all those, sad as they are, leave 
 alive the human affections, and admit the consolation of sym- 
 pathy and love ; " but this malady " so entirely changes the 
 heart that no affection can grow upon it, and the unhappy vic- 
 tim sinks and dies, or is so excited as to crush the hfe out of the 
 mother who bore him, as coolly as he would trample upon a 
 serpent," Then the doctor relates that most awful case which 
 occurred in Madison county, in this State, a few years ago, to 
 illustrate his statement. A young man, during the delirium of a 
 paroxysm of methomania, murdered both his father and mother, 
 and cut out their hearts, which he roasted and ate. He was 
 brought into court for trial, but Judge Gray declined to try 
 the case, on the ground that his court 'had no jurisdiction in 
 the case of a crime for the commission of which there coidd 
 be no motive in the human heart. It was, indeed, an unequiv- 
 ocal admission, by high judicial authority, that methomaniacs 
 may be irresponsible for their acts. These morbid perversions 
 of feelings and desires, so frequently seen in the insane from 
 any cause, are peculiarly Uable to appear in the methomaniac, 
 and liable to impel the victim to acts of an appalling char- 
 acter. 
 
 "With these facts before us, and the presence of the symp- 
 toms of methomania which we have just described, in any 
 given case, considering the total loss of seK-control during the 
 paroxysm, the disregard of aU business and domestic obliga- 
 tions, and the prospective ruin of family, it becomes, beyond 
 a doubt, a proper question for serious attention, whether it is 
 not only merciful to the patient and his family, as well as a 
 
60 INFLUENCE OP METHOMANIA. 
 
 matter of safety to tliem and to the public, that he should be 
 prevented from committing crimes and from squandering 
 property by placing him under restraint, rather than allow- 
 ing hinn to incur the risks of trial for crime, and his family 
 that of reduction to penury, by permitting him the liberty 
 ■which his disease irresistibly impels him to abuse. The appli- 
 cation of the principles and facts which I have endeavored to 
 estabhsh, to acts of profligacy, to acts of bad faith and forfeit- 
 ure, such as of accident or hf e insurance, to acts of social and 
 family outrage, and to acts of crime, I leave to members of the 
 legal profession, in full confidence that they will do the subject 
 the justice it deserves. 
 
METHOMAISIIA. 
 
 BY JAMES J. O'DEA, M. D., N. Y. City.* 
 
 " Madam," said Dr. Samuel Jolinsoii, to a lady -with, whom 
 he was once conversing on the subject of intemperance, " I 
 can be abstinent but I cannot be moderate." Such is an 
 admirably terse statement of the case of many Kving men and 
 women, who, though strongly tempted to indulge their pro- 
 pensity for ardent spirits, are fortunate in possessing a self- 
 control as rigid and uncompromising as that of the illustrious 
 man above quoted. But there are others not so happily 
 endowed. As a matter of every-day experience we meet with 
 many shades of distinction among mankind, in regard to the 
 appetite for alcohohc drinks, from the few who positively dis- 
 like them, or the very large number who use them in moder- 
 ation, to the many whose lives are little else than a repetition 
 of drunken debauches, and who have only too much reason to 
 exclaim with the great dramatist : 
 
 " Oh ! thou invisible spirit of wine, if thou hast no name to 
 be known by, let us call thee devil ! " 
 
 From among the latter we may single out a class having a 
 peculiar character and physiognomy of its own. It has prob- 
 ably happened to every one of us to know people — acquaint- 
 ances, friends, relatives — who are, to all appearances, hopeless 
 drunkards. They are either constantly intoxicated, or they 
 abstain only when there is no temptation to drink ; but let 
 them indulge ever so httle and their propensity assails them 
 with a force which no consideration is able to restrain. Such 
 people are the despair of their friends, the torment or ruin of 
 
 *Kead before the New York Medico-Legal Society, 1868. 
 
62 METHOMANIA. 
 
 their families, the scandal of their community. Seventy times 
 seven they fall and are lovingly raised up. They express con- 
 trition, they make firm promises of amendment, and, for a 
 httle while, seem to have mastered their propensity, but, 
 sooner or later, it renews its assaults, and obtains an easy 
 victory over them. What is the meaning of this phenomenon ? 
 Is it simply an indication of moral obliquity, or does it point 
 to something radically wrong in the physical organization of 
 the individual, to a diseased or disordered state of his nervous 
 system obedient to the well-knoAvn laws of aU the neuroses, 
 heredite, periodicity, and interchangeability ? In a word, can 
 we pronounce it to be a form of insanity ? Such is the question 
 submitted to our consideration ; but before entering upon it, 
 I think it wiU be advisable to take a rapid survey of the recent 
 progress of opinion respecting the action of alcohol on the 
 human system. 
 
 Speaking in a general way, it may be declared that the total 
 abstainer is a healthier man than the tippler, and, further, that 
 the difference between the consumer of a very little alcohol, 
 and the consumer of a good deal, is mainly one of degree. 
 The steady use of alcoholic drinks, for even a comparatively 
 short time, lessens the vigor and elasticity of the body, im- 
 peding both its nutrition and the play of its faculties. As 
 a consequence of its depressing effect on the lungs, skin, and 
 kidneys, less carbonic acid, water, and urea are eliminated, 
 and the system becomes charged with an accumulation of 
 imperfectly oxidized substances, such as uric and oxalic 
 acids. The effect of alcohol in inducing chirrosis of the Hver 
 is long familiar to the profession, and, recently. Dr. Fox has 
 drawn attention to an analagous change in the stomachs of 
 inebriates, marked by chronic inflammation of the mucous 
 membrane and its consequents, hypertrophy of interglandular 
 connective tissue and obliteration of glandular structure. 
 Owing to this irritative action on the structures of the 
 stomach, and also to the obstruction of healthy tissue meta- 
 morphosis occasioned by the same agent, there is a diminish- 
 ing appetite for food, and a gradual decline in the enduring 
 powers of the body. An employer in Scotland tested this 
 
METHOMANIA. O'l 
 
 latter fact in the case of a workman wlio abstained from alco- 
 holic beverages for eigbt weeks. On subsequently referring 
 to the wages-book, it was seen that duriag this time he had 
 earned about sixty-eight dollars, gold, as against fifty-three 
 doUars gold, which was all he had made in the eight preceding 
 weeJiS during which he indulged. As a "teetotaler" he earned 
 fifteen doUars more than as a moderate drinker.* 
 
 If we understood the physiological purpose which alcohol 
 serves when taken into the system, we might learn the secret 
 of that craving for the stimulant, which is, and always has 
 been, so universal. It would be difficult to find a nation igno- 
 rant of the use of spirituous beverages in some form or other. 
 Prom the arrack of the Hindoo, to the vodki of the Eussian, 
 the intermediate list is a long one, and includes every variety 
 of spirits distilled or otherwise produced from the various 
 cereals, rice, cocoa, agave, maize, and potatoes. 
 
 Not to occupy too much time with the various attempts that 
 have been made to account for a fact so universal as the 
 prevalence of this desire for stimulants, I may briefly ran 
 over the most important of those which have engaged the 
 attention of scientific men during late days. 
 
 Liebig, inferring from the chemical composition of alcohol 
 what its use in the body should be, propounded the theory of 
 its function as a heat-producer by union of its carbon with 
 oxygen to form carbonic acid. More recent observations throw 
 some doubt upon this explanation. Thus it is objected that 
 persons to whom alcohol has been given expire less carbonic 
 acid than usual, and that the temperature of their bodies, as 
 tested by the thermometer, is lowered instead of raised, as 
 should be the case were this agent a heat-producer. But 
 the conclusions of the celebrated Paris Commission of 1860, 
 were the chief agents in discrediting Liebig' s theory. They 
 are as foUows : 
 
 1. Alcohol is not food. 
 
 2. In a feeble dose it excites, in a large dose it stupefies. 
 
 3. It is never transformed in the organism. 
 
 4. It accumulates in the brain and liver. 
 
 * Frazer's Magazine, September, 1868. 
 
64: METHOSIANIA. 
 
 5. It is ejected entire and pure by the lungs, by the skin, 
 and especially by the kidneys. 
 
 6. It is a pathogenic, causing functional disturbance and 
 organic alterations in the brain, Hver, and kidneys. 
 
 Lastly, these inferences of the commission are in their 
 turn disputed by M. Edmond Baudot, in the Union Medicale 
 for September and November, 1863. In regard to No. 3, he 
 remarks that, though there is no direct proof of the transfor- 
 mation of alcohol in the system, there is strong presumption 
 that some is really there transformed. He has convinced 
 himself by experiments that very httle alcohol is ehminated 
 by the kidneys, and only enough by the lungs to give a faint 
 reaction with the bichromate of potash test. He holds that 
 only the portion of which the organism is intolerant, as being 
 more than it can safely bear, is ehminated as alcohol, and that 
 the rest remaius in the body, and undergoes transformation 
 into aldehyde, acetic, and oxahc acids. 
 
 The last year or two has witnessed a renewed interest in 
 this important question. All the more recent authorities agree 
 that alcohol has no histogenetic properties whatever, but there 
 is still a decided difference of opinion as to whether it is a force 
 producer. Dr. Anstie seems to favor the theory propounded 
 by Liebig. He holds that it is oxidized in the organism, and 
 tmdergoes a change into carbonic acid and water ; that, in so 
 being acted upon, it contributes useful force to the body, and, 
 consequently, that it has an absolute dietetic value. Dr. 
 Parks, on the other hand, while admitting the destruction of 
 alcohol as above indicated, refuses to see in this fact alone 
 any reliable proof of its dietetic value. To pursue this inter- 
 esting controversy any further would lead us too far away 
 from our present purpose. Whatever may be the ultimate 
 decision of scientific men, to Dr. Anstie belongs the great 
 merit of having contributed one positive truth to what knowl- 
 edge we possess upon the subject, — ^the important fact that 
 the healthy human frame can safely dispose of one ounce and 
 a half of alcohol in the twenty-four hours, which is the Umit 
 of healthy indulgence; all indulgence beyond that amount 
 being not only excessive, but disease-producing. 
 
METHOMANIA. 65 
 
 Now, with regard to one of the consequences of excess, 
 statistics and pathological observations both go to prove that 
 the habit of frequent iadulgence in alcohol is a reaUy potent 
 cause of many diseased conditions of the nervous system 
 highly favorable to insanity. 
 
 First, of statistics. Most systematic writers on insanity 
 give a proximate estimate of the percentage of cases of men- 
 tal alienation attributable to the abuse of ardent spirits. 
 BuckniU and Tiike tell us ia their work on Psychological 
 Medicine that the report of the commission in lunacy, for 1844, 
 gave eighteen out of every hundred as the number of insane 
 from this cause, and add that " in America the proportion is 
 stated to be very much higher among the patients admitted 
 into State asylums. But, we beheve, that aU these figures fall 
 far short of presenting a true picture of the complex influences 
 of intemperance in inducing, directly or indirectly, derange- 
 ment of the mental faculties." Dr. Nichols, in some recent 
 remarks on the Government Hospital for the Insane, says : 
 " The reports of the institutions for the insane, both of this 
 country and of Europe, show that intemperance is a common 
 cause of insanity ia its ordinary forms. The authorities also 
 almost unanimously agree that inebriety sometimes becomes 
 an insanity . . . characterized by a total abandonment 
 to extreme indulgence, regardless of the most sacred claims 
 and pledges, and by more or less impairment of the moral 
 and intellectual powers of the individual."* 
 
 " Of the physical causes of insanity," says Dr. Maudsley, 
 " intemperance occupies the first place ; acting not only as a 
 direct cause, but indirectly through the emotional agitations 
 incident to an irregular life of dissipation and excess." And 
 Dr. Hood t places alcoholic excesses next after old age, as 
 the most potent physical cause of insanity. 
 
 Secondly, of pathological observations. The experiments 
 of Percy and others have estabhshed the great rapidity of the 
 absorption of alcohol from the stomach, and its strong affinity 
 for the nervous centers. Now, alcohol irritates these centers, 
 
 * American Journal of Medioal Sciences, January, 1869. 
 f Quoted in Aitkin's "Practice of Medicine." 
 
66 METHOMANIA. 
 
 and induces changes in their nutrition, wMcli prove both 
 structurally and functionally disastrous to them. And further- 
 more, the series of morbid alterations due to its repeated action 
 as an irritant bears a striking general resemblance to those 
 witnessed among many of the insane from other causes. If the 
 brain of an unreclaimed drunkard be compared with that of a 
 man who has died insane, both will often exhibit the same 
 hardness, the same shriveled nerve-ceUs, and the same devel- 
 opment in the intercellular spaces of fibrous tissue of a low 
 grade of vitality. 
 
 It would, therefore, seem a well-attested fact that organic 
 changes, similar to those experienced among the insane, are 
 developed in the nervous centers of the drunkard during his 
 career of indulgence, and that by his own act he puts himself 
 on the very verge of madness. Some trivial circumstance, 
 like the feather that broke the camel's back, may at any 
 moment transform him into a lunatic. 
 
 Methomaniacs have been variously classified. For exam- 
 ple, they have been arranged as (1) those in whom the disease 
 is connate ; (2) those in whom it is adventitious and devel- 
 oped either by prolonged excessive indulgence alone, or by 
 this and the supervention of some other agent depressing to 
 the nervous system ; (3) and finally, those characterized by a 
 periodic and uncontrollable craving for drink, suddenly ap- 
 pearing after a total abstinence of long or short duration. 
 However, as a more simple arrangement will best accord with 
 the object of this paper, I shall divide methomaniacs into two 
 classes : (1) Methomaniacs in consequence of a long series of 
 debauches ; (2) methomaniacs by inheritance. 
 
 (1.) How long a course of immoderate tippling may be con- 
 tiuued before the development of methomania it woidd be 
 impossible to say. In endeavoring to form an opinion on the 
 subject at aU approximating to correctness, a variety of cir- 
 cumstances would have to be taken into account. Doubtless 
 in some abnormally-constituted individuals, with a hereditary 
 tendency to nervous disease, a very limited number of de- 
 bauches might be sufficient to develop it; while other persons 
 with robust constitutions, and no special tendency to any 
 
METHOMANU. 67 
 
 form of neurosis, might indulge to excess for a lifetime without 
 manifestiag a single sign of insanity. This is alll feel justi- 
 fied ia sajdng at present on methomania as a disease devel- 
 oped in consequence of frequent excessive indulgence in alco- 
 hohc stimulants. 
 
 (2.) The hereditary transmission of a propensity to drunken- 
 ness (hereditary methomania) is a subject of considerable social 
 and medico-legal importance. Few allied questions are more 
 fully supported by evidence than the transmissibUity, not 
 merely of the drunkard's degenerate constitution, but even of 
 his appetite for intoxicating drioks. The weU-known instance 
 recorded by GaU of a drunken Eussian family whose son, only 
 five years of age, was already on the high road to inebriety, 
 is but one of the many examples of a Kke nature which might 
 be cited. I must not, however, omit the striking picture given 
 by Morel of the afflictions of four generations of a family in 
 consequence of alcohoHc abuses in the first, for nothing 
 more startling and conclusive can be found anywhere upon the 
 subject. " The great grandfather of the family was a dipso- 
 maniac, and so complete was the transmission of the disease, 
 that the race became totally extinct under the well-marked 
 phenomena of alcohohc poisoning and degeneracy. The 
 effects entailed were : in the first generation, alcohoHc ex- 
 cesses, immorality, depravity, brutish disposition ; in the 
 second generation, hereditary drunkenness, attacks of mania, 
 general paralysis ; in the third generation, sobriety prevailed, 
 but hypochondriasis, lypemania, persistent ideas of persecu- 
 tion, homicidal tendencies, were expressed ; in the fourth gen- 
 eration, intelligence was but feeble, mania became developed 
 at sixteen years of age, stupidity, running on to idiocy, and to 
 a condition involving extinction of the race." * 
 
 Very few, I think, will venture to deny our right to classify 
 methomania among the forms of insanity. This being ad- 
 mitted, the query arises, whether the progenitors of the 
 generation in which it is manifested must necessarily have 
 been drunkards. This question involves a consideration of 
 
 * Morel ; quoted in Aitkin's "Practice of Medicine," vol. i., pp. 145, 146. 
 
68 METHOKANIA. 
 
 the hereditary transmission of disease, a subject which, though 
 demanding some of our attention, is much too large and recon- 
 dite to be satisfactorily treated at present. Those who may 
 wish to pursue the topic further will find it Tery fairly dis- 
 cussed in the American Journal of Medical Science for April, 
 1868, in a review of Dr. Griesinger's " Mental Pathology and 
 Therapeutics." Here, however, we are obKged to confine our- 
 selves to the few following observations. 
 
 By some authorities no case of disease is considered heredi- 
 tary unless it has already appeared fully developed in a 
 parent or grandparent. By others a case is deemed to be also 
 hereditary if the disease has shown itself in an uncle, aunt, 
 or cousin. In other words, the latter concede that the trans- 
 mission may be along the collateral as w-eU as the direct line. 
 Again, in regard to the form in which the hereditary taint is 
 transmitted there are differences of opinion, some maintaining 
 that the fuU-blown ailment of the parent is inherited, while 
 others hold that most commonly the offspring receives only a 
 morbid condition of organism having a strong tendency to 
 repeat the parental variation from health. For my own part, 
 I beheve that what the offspring most commonly inherits is a 
 certain condition of organism very prone to take the shape of 
 the parental disease. Thus, the consumptive or epileptic 
 parent more frequently transmits the tubercular or nervous 
 diathesis than the concrete diseases — consumption and epi- 
 lepsy. In this view the insane man does not bequeath to his 
 descendants any particular form of insanity so frequently as a 
 general morbid nervous condition very prone to develop into 
 some definite form of madness. Coinciding with this law, and 
 confirming it, is the fact, amply attested by experience, that 
 diseases of the nervous system though radically one, are 
 manifested differently in different persons, or in one person at 
 various times.* Now, the one factor of prime importance 
 
 * The following remarks from Dr. Gull's address on " Clinical Observa- 
 tion in Kelation to Medicine in Modern Times," delivered at the meeting of 
 the British Medical Association, held last year in Oxford, are pertinent to 
 the above question : " If we trace the history of morbid brain-force through 
 [he various members of a family, we shall often recognize a great variety of 
 
METHOMAOTA. 69' 
 
 which serves to distinguish the methomaniac from the sane 
 drunkard is this taint of hereditary disease. A man of sound 
 mind may become a drunkard by force of evU associations 
 and temptation, as under similar influences he may learn to 
 be a gambler or a hbertine. But the methomaniac may be a 
 model man in every respect save the one of his propensity to 
 drink, and this he owes, not to the exercise of his free wiU, 
 but to a pitiable flaw in his nervous organization which 
 deprives him of the power of resisting his special temptation, 
 and thus, negatively, forces him to give it unrestrained license 
 whenever it arises. "Were such a person to marry and beget 
 children, there would be little risk in predicting that one or 
 more of them would, in the course of life, become metho- 
 maniacal. 
 
 You may infer from what I have now been saying, that 
 methomaniacs are not always steady, hard drinkers. In fact, 
 the impression seems to be, that those who inherit the disease 
 are commonly given to periodic drinking. At aU events, the 
 periodic form of the malady is that best suited for study, both 
 in consequence of its saliency and simplicity. In the course 
 of our experience we meet every now and again with a person 
 whose case answers to the following description : TJhe inheritor 
 of a nervous organization whose tendency may have culmin- 
 ated in some one or other of the neuroses — epilepsy, chorea, 
 neuralgia — for a while sober, and attentive to business, be- 
 comes restless, moody, and thoughtful. His disposition, in 
 fact, changes, he loses his relish for society, and his accus- 
 tomed appetite for food. After this state has lasted a Httle 
 while, he suddenly abandons aU his duties, and addicts him- 
 
 related phenomena, which, in nosological classification, are separated and 
 considered as distinct. The intellectual disturbance in one may appear as 
 epilepsy in a second ; as mere dyspepsia and so-called acidity in a third ; in 
 a fourth as some peculiar neuralgia ; in a, fifth, if a. female, in many varie- 
 ties of capillary disturbances, such as amenorrhoea, vicarious menstruation, 
 hoematemesis, or even hoemoptysis ; in a sixth, some part of the intestinal 
 tract, the colon chiefly, may appear to be the recipient of the morbid nerve- 
 process, and the patient be tortured with fears of a tumor, which, though a 
 mere phantom, is yet calculated to mislead the unwary." 
 
70 METHOMANIA. 
 
 self to drink. His whole nature, as I haye just remarked, 
 undergoes a most surprising change. There is scarcely an 
 action, however improper, or a subterfuge, however cunning, 
 of which he will not be guilty in his all-absorbing desire to 
 gratify his craving for drink. At times he may make a pubKo 
 exhibition of his weakness, but more commonly he retires 
 into sohtude, that he may enjoy his propensity to its fullest 
 extent. It may be that, as he drinks, all power of self-control 
 wanes, and his emotions obtain complete sway over him. If, 
 now, he is possessed by some hallucination or illusion he may 
 commit acts of violence, even to bloodshed. After indulg- 
 ing for a length of time, variable according to the violence 
 of his disease, or the strength of his constitution, the attack 
 subsides, leaving him in a state of extreme physical and men- 
 tal prostration. 
 
 In this " Anatomy of Drunkenness," Dr. Macnish has re- 
 corded a striking example of the unrelenting temptation which 
 assails the methomaniac. One of this unfortunate class 
 makes the following reply to the urgent remonstrances of his 
 friends : 
 
 " Your remarks are just ; they are, indeed, too true, but I 
 can no longer resist temptation. If a bottle of brandy stood 
 at one hand and the pit of hell yawned at the other, and I 
 were convinced that I would be pushed in as sure as I took a 
 glass, I could not refrain. You are very kind, good friends, 
 but you may spare yourselves the trouble of trying to reform 
 me ; the thing is out of the question." 
 
 Obviously this is the language of despair, but it is also the 
 language of a man who has struggled many a time against his 
 besetting sin, and who only throws down his arms when, at 
 last, he finds how utterly hopeless the 'combat is, and how 
 completely he is worsted every time he engages with his un- 
 seen antagonist. Not that such a man's condition is really 
 hopeless. Our inebriate asylums demonstrate quite conclu- 
 sively how much temporary, nay, sometimes permanent benefit 
 may be conferred on this unfortunate class by seclusion and 
 medical care. 
 
 The disease under which the methomaniac labors deprives 
 
METHOMANIA-. 71 
 
 him, therefore, of his power of self-control. On this point Dr. 
 Hutchison has well remarked that " those afflicted with the 
 disease cannot abstain, however convinced they may be of 
 the impropriety of yieldiag to their propensity, or however 
 desirous they may be to subdue it." "With the methomaniac 
 there is no premeditated drinking ; on the contrary, he 
 deplores his propensity, he even warns his friends of the 
 approach of the craving, and may entreat their help to escape 
 it. This fact is of primary importance in the diagnosis of 
 methomania, and assists materially in distinguishing between 
 it and the ordinary forms of inebriety. 
 
 Another feature met with among people prone to outbreaks 
 of this disease is the great mental excitement they sometimes 
 experience after taking only a small quantity of ardent spirits. 
 The sane toper drinks and grows merry and bright, or stupid 
 and sentimental, according to his temperament ; but persons 
 prone to methomania get often wild and uncontrollable after 
 a glass or two. Last Christmas night, for example, one of this 
 class took two " glasses " of whiskey in a saloon, and returned 
 home in a state of such wild excitement that it required the 
 united strength of six men to hold him. Being offered a thick 
 porcelain cup with water to drink, he drove his teeth quite 
 through it, and bit out a piece as large as his mouth could 
 hold. 
 
 The disease which we have thus been considering is a tran- 
 sitory form of mania. It has its periods of access, of exacer- 
 bation, and of decHne. Its subject often feels it coming on, 
 and the physician may trace its stealthy approach in the 
 changed manner, the altered feelings, the loss of appetite and 
 rest of his patient. Its decHne is marked by a general pros- 
 tration of the vital powers, by satiety, disgust, nausea, and the 
 return of the moral sense. The interval of sobriety and 
 good conduct varies much in different individuals, but in the 
 same individual it is pretty constant. I have known three 
 methomaniacs pretty intimately ; two were men of consider- 
 able force of intellect, one was a woman past middle life, 
 exceedingly small in stature, and of a very emotional, sympa- 
 thetic temperament. In one of the former the attacks used 
 
72 METHOMANIA. 
 
 to come on about every six months, in the other about everj 
 three months ; in the latter about every three months also. 
 
 The storm over, the methomaniac rises up like the prodigal 
 son, and returns repentant to his duties. But frequent 
 debauches at last blunt his moral sense, and he ultimately 
 loses even the feeling of shame which used to arise in him 
 when he contrasted his feeble purpose and frequent lapses 
 with the firm will and rational conduct of the good among his 
 acquaintances. 
 
 The radical defect in the nature of the methomaniac is not 
 a want of inteUigence, nor yet of moral feehng, but of wiU, or 
 rather I should say of a wUl strong enough to resist arid 
 subdue the rebellious impulses of the flesh. You Imow how 
 intimately the organic feehngs are related to the mind. You 
 are aware that the passions have their main roots in the 
 abdominal viscera, and the organs connected therewith. Here 
 we have the physiological basis of the inevitable struggle 
 which every one experiences between the two opposing forces 
 of the organism — on the one hand, the passions as they pro- 
 ceed from the lower, and, on the other, conscience, or the sum 
 of the faculties of the higher nature. St. Paul expressed the 
 whole idea in his words to the Galatians : " For the flesh 
 lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh ; and 
 they are contrary the one to the other ; so that ye cannot do 
 the things that ye would." Now the methomaniac is pre-emi- 
 nently in this unfortunate position. Owing either to an inher- 
 ent feebleness of will, or to the extraordinary force of his one 
 passion it refuses to be governed ; periodically it gets the bit 
 between its teeth, and carries him where it will. This state 
 of the case fits exactly into our idea of moral insanity, and 
 we are consequently led to the evident conclusion that metho- 
 maniacs are insane. We see now where our subject touches 
 the question of legal responsibility. This point, however, 
 would require a separate treatise to do it justice ; for the 
 present, I must limit myself to one or two observations. 
 
 It will be remembered that our courts of law do not allow 
 intoxication to be pleaded as an excuse for crime. Some 
 other defence must, therefore, be substituted, and that of 
 
METHOMANIA. 73 
 
 insanity (methomania) is as likely to be introduced as any 
 other. As this is a plea open to great abuse, it is all the 
 more necessary that the medical expert should furnish himself 
 with tests for discriminating between the genuine methomaniac 
 and him who. is asserted to be such on mere grounds of 
 expediency. It has often occurred to me of late that the 
 reckless use now so commonly made of the defense of insan- 
 ity in criminal cases is very much calculated in the long run 
 to diminish its truly great importance, at least with the pub- 
 He, and to engender a suspicion of its genuineness even when 
 urged in good faith and on strong evidence. Even for this 
 reason alone we should attentively study the essential points 
 of difference between the methomaniac and the drunkard. I 
 need hardly apologize, therefore, if I direct your attention to 
 the following points which seem of great service for the pur- 
 pose of this distinction : 
 
 1. An inherited or acquired tendency to insanity. 
 
 2. An irresistible desire to drink. 
 
 The former can exist without the latter, because, as we have 
 already seen, the tendency to insanity may find a vent in 
 various ways ; but I cannot doubt that the individual who has 
 the irresistible desire for drink is insane. He is none the less 
 so, be it observed, that ofttimes it is the result of his own mis- 
 conduct. "Whether the desire to drink is irresistible in any 
 given individual, that is to say, whether it predominates in 
 him in such a degree as to govern his conduct despite the 
 promptings of conscience and the dictates of seK-interest, will 
 often be a very difficult point to determine, owing to the im- 
 possibiHty of reading the secrets of men's hearts ; yet, when 
 cautiously examined and intelligently apphed, it will furnish a 
 very valuable test for separating the real from the feigned 
 disease. 
 
HEEEDITAEY DISEASES 
 
 OF THE 
 
 NERVOUS SYSTEM 
 
 UNATTENDED BT MENTAL ABERRATION. 
 
 By STEPHEN ROGERS, M.D., of New Tork* 
 
 In order to intelligently apply the laws governing physical 
 inheritance generally to inherited diseases of the nervous sys- 
 tem, we must first fuUy understand and admit the fact that 
 the brain and nerves hold the same relations to each other 
 that the bones, muscles, and other structures composing our 
 bodies hold, the one to the other — ^both the former and the 
 latter are integral portions of single systems — and that even 
 the two systems often suifer a common and universal disease. 
 While manifestations of inherited disease of the nervous sys- 
 tem are peculiarly Hable to limit themselves to that system, 
 they obey the laws of inherited diseases generally, in that any 
 organic derangement of one of its departments may be, and 
 frequently is transmitted to progeny in a very different form. 
 Eor example, the parent may transmit a syphilis, which is 
 affecting him in the form of syphihtic disease of the bone and 
 its covering membrane, to the offspring, in the form of cutane- 
 ous eruptions or excoriating sores of the mucous membranes 
 
 » Read before the Society, 1869. 
 
THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 75 
 
 of the openings of the body, or both. Again, the tubercular 
 parent may transmit his consumption of the lungs to the child 
 in the form of tabes, or of tubercular brain-disease, or scrofu- 
 lous affections of various kinds. So the man who becomes the 
 victim of insanity is by no means certain to transmit that pre- 
 cise form of nervous- system disease to his children, if indeed 
 he transmit any disease ; but it may appear in quite another 
 region of the system. Thus insanity in the parents may 
 appear in the offspring as a disease of the motor portion, giv- 
 ing rise to chorea or to epilepsy ; and, on the other hand, the 
 epilepsy, catalepsy, or chorea in the parent may appear as 
 insanity or imbecility in the child (" Maudsley on the Mind," 
 P-213)- 
 
 It wiU. be perceived that inheritance by variation, as is so 
 so often seen in the transmission of individual peculiarities of 
 form, etc., has its counterpart in this variation in the form of 
 the disease of the nejrvous sj^stem transmitted to offspring. 
 The same law that in other forms of diseases commands 
 mothers to especially transmit to the daughters, and fathers 
 to the sons, is especially observed in the diseases of the ner- 
 vous system; and as to the general HabOity.to inheritance, 
 one of the most intelligent observers of this country, as relates 
 to this class of diseases, sends me the following statement : 
 " My experience is certainly to the effect that nervous diseases 
 are more decidedly hereditary than any other, not even ex- 
 cepting the tuberculous." * Arguing from the apparent fact, 
 that the nervous system is the foundation upon which aU later 
 structural developments of the being take place, it seems 
 rational, that if any disease or peculiar physical conformation 
 be transmitted, its first and most marked impress should be 
 upon the nervous system. 
 
 Since writing these lines, the following remarks of Dr. 
 Nathan Allen have come under notice, and I have transcribed 
 them, as not only adding interest, but authority to this inter- 
 esting point. 
 
 "As the braia and the nervous system hold the fosemost 
 
 * Letter of Dr. William A. Hammond. 
 
76 HEBEDITAET DISEASES 
 
 rank in the physical organization, in point of sensitiveness and 
 vitaUty, they are the first to suffer by any derangements of a 
 perfectly healthy, normal state of the system." 
 
 "According to a great mass of facts collected on this subject, 
 the functions of the brain seem to be affected far more than 
 those of any other organ " (Inherited Diseases from Intermar- 
 riage of Eelatives, Quar. Journ. Psychological Medicine, April, 
 1869, p. 249). 
 
 " If," says Dr. Maudsley, " instead of limiting attention to 
 the individual, we scan the organic evolution and decay of a 
 family, then it is made sufficiently evident how close are the 
 fundamental relations of nervous diseases, and how artificial 
 any division between them sometimes appear. Epilepsy in 
 the parent may become insanity in the offspring, or insanity 
 in the parent may become epilepsy in the child ; and chorea 
 or convulsions in the child may be the consequence of great 
 nervous excitabihty, natural or accidental, in the mother. In 
 families in which there is a strong predisposition to insanity, 
 it is not uncommon to find one member afflicted with one form 
 of nervous disease, and another with another; one suffers 
 perhaps from epilepsy, another from neuralgia or hysteria, 
 a third may commit suicide, and a fourth may become ma- 
 niacal." 
 
 Dr. EadcHffe, in his article for " Reynolds' System of Medi- 
 cine " on chorea, says : " In many cases there is a distinct flaw 
 in the family history, especially in the direction of disorders of 
 the nervous system. Thus, out of forty-eight cases in which 
 I have inquired into the family history, I find twenty-seven 
 cases in which father, or mother, or brother, or sister had 
 been, or was, the subject of one or other of those disorders, 
 viz., paralysis, epilepsy, apoplexy, hysteria, or insanity " (vol. 
 ii., p. 125). 
 
 Again, Dr. Reynolds says in his article on epilepsy, that he 
 has found that hereditary taint existed in about one-third of 
 the cases of the disease which fell under his observation. 
 He then explains the meaning of tliis statement in the follow- 
 ing language : " It is not intended by this statement to affirm 
 that true epilepsy has existed in the parents of one-third of 
 
OF THE NEBVOUS SYSTEM. 77 
 
 fcke cases, but that some disease of the nervous system, more 
 or less closely allied to that under consideration, has been 
 present in either the parents, the grandparents, the axmts or 
 uncles, brothers or sisters ; that there has been a family pro- 
 cUvity to nervous disorders, in one case showing itself by 
 idiocy, in another by mania, in a third by convulsions, and so 
 forth." 
 
 And so we might go on indefinitely quoting authority in 
 support of the fact that diseases of the nervous system are 
 continually transmitted by variations, in the same manner 
 that other diseases and individual peculiarities are, but fur- 
 ther proof would appear unnecessary. Morel, however, relates 
 the history of a family in which the variation of the form of 
 transmitted disorder of the nervous system involves some 
 points of so much interest to the subject this society has been 
 discussing, that we cannot properly omit it. 
 
 In the first generation were observed immorality, alcoholic 
 excess, and brutal degradation. 
 
 In the second generation, or children of the first, hereditary 
 drunkenness, maniacal attacks, and general paralysis. 
 
 In the third generation, sobriety, hypochondria, lypemania, 
 systematic mania with homicidal tendencies. 
 
 In the fourth generation, feeble intelligence, stupidity, at- 
 tacks of mania as early as sixteen, transition to complete 
 idiocy, with a probable extinction of the family (Maudsley, 
 p. 215). 
 
 The point I wish to call the attention of the Society to more 
 particularly, is the prominent position given to hereditary 
 drunkenness in this history of intellectual and physical degen- 
 eration. It is a grave and most interesting fact, not iu this 
 instance only, unfortunately, that the parent who destroys the 
 organization of his nervous system by alcoholic excesses, is 
 exceedingly Hable to transmit to his oifspring disordered ner- 
 vous systems, which become manifest in almost any form these 
 diseases take. Thus he may be subject to maniacal attacks, 
 to an early decay of the whole brain and nerve structure, re- 
 sulting in general paralysis ; to a disorder«id and uncoutrolla- 
 ,ble passion or desire to take stimulants ; to the various con- 
 
78 HEREDITARY DISEASES 
 
 vulsive diseases ; or, sadder still, he may from the first, or 
 sooner or later, faU, into hopeless imbecility. 
 
 There are, ia fact, no more striking or melancholy examples 
 of degenerate brain organization transmitted to offspring than 
 that produced by alcoholic excesses. This is not only a degen- 
 eration of the nervous system, but general decay, as the re- 
 marks just quoted suggest. 
 
 A hundred years ago, the great naturalist, physician and 
 poet, Darwin, remarked, " that aU. the diseases from drinking 
 spirituous or fermented liquors are liable to become heredi- 
 tary, even to the third generation, gradually increasing, if the 
 cause be continued, till the family becomes extinct." 
 
 Unlike some other forms of hereditary disease^ the degen- 
 eracy of alcohohc inheritance appears to tend rather rapidly 
 to the aboUtion of procreative powers, the result of a highly 
 appropriate provision of the all-wise Buler of mankind. 
 Added to the statement of Dr. Darwin upon this point, we have 
 a very modem one from a physician who has devoted much 
 of his life to the investigation of this subject, and is to the fol- 
 lowiag effect : " We do not hesitate to proclaim, as a law of 
 almost universal apphcation, that three successive generations 
 of inebriates will leave no issue. The third generation may 
 have children, but not one of these wiU be reared to manhood " 
 (Turner, Second Annual Report of the State Inebriate Asylum, 
 1864, p. 11). 
 
 This same author dwells at some length upon the subject of 
 inherited susceptibility to alcohol ; and, while we are not pre- 
 pared to adopt without reserve all of his views, we do not pos- 
 sess the data to enable us to controvert them. All, however, 
 should be acquainted with them, for, if they are unfounded, 
 the aggregate experience of the profession will correct them ; 
 but, if true, the more, generally they are known the better for 
 us aU. . He says : " There has been much speculation, in and 
 out of the profession, as regards the cause of the fearful 
 increase of delirium tremens and mania a potu within the last 
 few years. Fifty years ago, delirium tremens was seldom 
 seen, and when met with was found to occur after a number 
 of years of excess in the use of stimulants. Since that period 
 
OF THE NEBYOTJS SYSTEM. 79 
 
 ■ — ^wMch was -when every man, woman, and child indulged in 
 alcoholic drinks, in accordance with the customs of the day — 
 this peculiar type of the disease has been on the increase, and 
 now delirium tremens is produced by a few months' excess in 
 alcohohc drinks ; and in some constitutions we have seen it 
 developed after a debauch of twenty-four hours. So far as 
 our investigations have extended, they convince us that the 
 true cause of this augmented susceptibihty to the influence of 
 alcohol, and of this increase of mania a potu, is to be found, 
 not in a supposed adulterated quahty of hquor used, but in a 
 peculiar constitutional tendency inherited by the victims of 
 the malady. The morbid conditions predisposing to dehrium 
 tremens are in these cases transmitted from parent to child." 
 
 It seems to us a question whether this augmented suscepti- 
 bihty to the impression of alcohol may not be due to the 
 acknowledged preponderance of the nervous element in human 
 constitutions, developed during the present century, quite as 
 much as, if not more than to the cause this author supposes. 
 From an extensive series of observations, he has estabUshed, 
 in his own mind, the following curious, and, if true, wonder- 
 fully exact and interesting deductions, as regards the law gov- 
 erning this class of inherited conditions of the nervous system : 
 "Out of 1,406 cases of dehrium tremens which have come 
 under my observation, 980 had an inebriate parent, or grand- 
 parent, or both. We beUeve, if the history of each patient's 
 ancestors were known, we should find that eight out of ten of 
 them were free users of alcohohc drinks. It has appeared to 
 me that the child has the same condition of constitution as 
 that possessed by the parent at the time of procreation ; that, 
 as respects his susceptibihty to the impressions of alcohol, he 
 commences just where the parent was at the time of concep- 
 tion of the child ; so that the child that is begotten at the 
 tenth year of its parent's excesses — which excess, if continued, 
 would produce delirium tremens in the eleventh year — ^wiU 
 require but one year of excess to bring on delirium tremens." 
 
 He then adduces the following additional historic evidence 
 upon the subject of susceptibihty to alcohohc influence, which, 
 we suspect, the ungenerous will receive cum grano salis : " One 
 
80 HEKEDITAEY DISEASES 
 
 of the most remarkable cases was a man of sober habits, whose 
 daily occupation for sis years had exposed him to the absorp- 
 tion of the vapors of alcohol. I saw him ia an attack of well- 
 marked dehrium tremens which lasted twelve hours." He 
 further quotes several authorities who have recorded similar 
 cases. It is very unfortunate for the interests of science, that 
 the ancestral history of these cases is not given. 
 
 Among the diseases of the nervous system universally ac- 
 knowledged to be transmitted to children, in the same form, 
 for the most part, that they took in the parent, may be men- 
 tioned chorea or St. Vitus's dance. Dr. Eeeves, ia his work 
 on chorea and tetanus, furnishes a long list of authorities in 
 support of the hereditary character of this disease, and relates 
 liis own experience as decidedly in support of the idea. 
 
 While Dr. Badcliffe does not speak of this affection, in his 
 paper ah-eady quoted, as remarkable for transmitting itseK to 
 progeny as chorea, he remarks that " the predisposing and 
 exciting causes of chorea would seem to be those which are 
 common to other disease of the nervous system" (Eeynolds, 
 vol. ii., p. 125). 
 
 Most observing practitioners, however, have met with cases 
 of chorea whose predisposing cause was unquestionably an 
 inherited taint. But the tendency of a constitution which 
 inherits chorea, to develop other forms of nervous-system dis- 
 ease, is unquestionably very strong. Dr. Badcliffe remarks 
 upon this point as foUows : " How far the occurrence of chorea 
 implies a tendency to other disorders of the nervous system, 
 especially to epilepsy, is a question which has not yet been 
 folly entertained, and I cannot supply an answer from actual 
 statistics. But this I may say, that I have frequently met 
 with epileptic patients who were choreic at one period of their 
 Hfe, and that the impression left on my mind from what I 
 have seen is, that the chances of chorea being followed, sooner 
 or later, by some other disorder of the nervous system are too 
 much made Ught of." 
 
 Epilepsy is another of the nervous-system diseases remarka- 
 ble for its tendency to transmit its habit to offspring. Dr. 
 Eeynolds, whom I have before quoted in the point of its rela- 
 
OP THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 81 
 
 tion to insanity, remarks that " hereditary taint has been found 
 in rather less than one-third of the cases he saw." But as that 
 estimate iucluded all the cases of epilepsy which presented any 
 kind of disorder of the nervous system ia the ancestry, it wiU bo 
 proper to here state what he concludes as to strictly epileptic 
 transmission. " I have found," says he, " only twelve per cent, 
 of epileptics giving a distinct history of epilepsy in other mem- 
 bers of their families ; a number which is very near to that 
 stated by Dr. Sieveking, and not far from that given by M. Dela- 
 siauve." " There is no doubt," says Dr. "Watson, " that a ten- 
 dency to epileptic disease is frequently hereditary. It may be 
 derived from parent to child ; or it may skip over a generation 
 or two, and appear in the grandchild or great-grandchUd ; or it 
 maybe traceable only in the collateral branches of the ancestors. 
 This is just what takes place in other hereditary maladies." 
 
 In connection with those facts as to the transmissibihty 
 of epilepsy — ^preserving this form of the disease — it is impor- 
 tant for us to remember that epileptiform paroxysms are very 
 common in the course of an attack of delirium tremens. The 
 most frightful epileptic attack we ever witnessed, was one 
 which ushered in the delirium of this disease. Dislocation 
 of one of the shoulder-joiuts was produced by muscular con- 
 traction alone. In another case, epileptic paroxysms were 
 more or less continuous throughout the disease. These are 
 cases of what may properly be termed alcohohc epilepsy, and 
 are, so far as our observation has gone, very uniformly pro- 
 duced by equal appHcation of the cause, as respects time and 
 quantity. Now, as epilepsy is unquestionably hereditary when 
 not produced by alcohol, is there any even plausible reason 
 that there should exist an exception to this law ia the case of 
 alcoholic epilepsy ? 
 
 As relates to the withering effect upon the intellectual facul- 
 ties produced by alcohohc epilepsy, it certainly is not second 
 to any other form ; and we are therefore justified in regarding 
 the disorganiziag process going on as quite as active, as pro- 
 found, and as thoroughly transmissible, as that in any other 
 form of epilepsy. This is indeed one of the most marked 
 forms of inheritable alcoholic disease. 
 
82 HEBEDITAEY DISEASES 
 
 Catalepsy is still another most cmious disease of the nerv- 
 ous system, which may re-appear in the descendants of ita 
 victims. It is characterized by periodic attacks of sudden 
 suspension, more or less complete, of sensation and voluntary 
 power. It is not a convulsive disease, like epilepsy, but the 
 rigidity of the whole muscular system is so great that, like a 
 plastic statue, the extremities remain for a time in the posi- 
 tion they may be forcibly made to take, returning slowly and 
 almost imperceptibly, by their own gravity, to their natural 
 place. So far as our researches have gone, they have led us 
 to the conclusion, that as catalepsy, the disease is not often 
 inherited ; but, by variation, it is very generally inherited in 
 the form of epilepsy, hysteria, insanity, chorea, etc. A very 
 illustrative case of the hereditary character of the cataleptic 
 form of the disease, running through several generations, has 
 been furnished us by Dr. Wm. A. Hammond, Professor of 
 Diseases of the Mind and Nervous Sj'stem, at BeUevue Hos- 
 pital Medical College. Under date of February 24, 1869, he 
 writes : 
 
 " I have now under my care a very interesting case of a 
 young lady who is cataleptic, and whose mother, grandmother, 
 and great-grandmother, were likewise affected with the dis- 
 ease." 
 
 The disease known as wasting palsy is also of the Hst of 
 affections of the nervous system recognized as transmissible 
 to offspring. A short description of the more salient symp- 
 toms of this remarkable affection cannot fail to interest the 
 non-medical members of our Society. We cannot give this 
 better than it is given in the language of Dr. Wm. Eoberts, 
 of London, in his " Essay on Wasting Palsy" (1858, and Eey- 
 nold's " System of Medicine," vol. ii., pp. 166, 169). 
 
 He defines it as a " chronic disease, consisting in a progres- 
 sive atrophy of the voluntary muscles, independent of any 
 antecedent motor or sensory paralysis. Its invasion is grad- 
 ual, and has usually been in progress some weeks or months 
 before the patient discovers its existence. The first symptom 
 perceived is a certain weakness in the affected member : the 
 tailor finds he cannot hold his needle ; the shoemaker cannot 
 
OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM, 83 
 
 thrust his awl; the mason fails to wield his hammer; the 
 gentleman experiences an awkwardness in handling his pen, 
 in pulling out his pocket-handkerchief, or in putting on his 
 hat. Some such incident calls attention to the affected limb, 
 which is then usually discovered to be more or less wasted 
 and shrunken." 
 
 The disease is confined to the spinal cord and nerves, and 
 to the muscles supplied by these diseased nerves. The author 
 just quoted repeatedly speaks of the hereditary tendency to 
 this disease, and mentions ten families in which not only this 
 character of the disease was manifest, but even in hereditary 
 cases, the marked preponderance of the numbers in men. 
 For example, these ten families included twenty-niue persons 
 affected with wasting palsy, of which only four were females. 
 Diseases or habits which depress the vital forces of the parent 
 are regarded as predisposing the offspring to this affection, 
 such as syphilis, gout, infectious fevers, venereal, and alcoholic 
 excesses. 
 
 Paralysis agitans, or the shaking palsy, though a disease 
 mostly of advanced age, is often witnessed running through 
 famihes from generation to generation. This affection, stiU 
 more than wasting palsy, is a disease very largely predomi- 
 nant in the male, especially if general ; its local manifestation 
 is the head and neck of the female, being the almost exclusive 
 form seen in them. This statement, however, cannot be ap- 
 plied to the form of the disease produced by toxic agents, 
 such as the vapor or other forms of mercury, opium, tobacco, 
 alcohol, etc., for the female is not exempt from the effects 
 these substances produce upon the human economy. Whether 
 produced by the use of those agents, or by other causes, no 
 distinction is known to exist as relates to the transmission of 
 this disease to posterity. 
 
 Another singular and rather imcommon disease, known 
 among physicians by the name of locomotor ataxy, must be 
 added to the inheritable nervous-system diseases. Without 
 tiring the Society with an enumeration of aU the minutiae of 
 the symptoms attending this affection, I feel that a sketch of 
 its chief features wiU subserve the interests of the discussion 
 
84 HEBEDITAET DISEASES 
 
 now occupying it. The patient walks with " a peculiar gait, 
 arising from want of co-ordinating motor power in the lower 
 extremities, a gait precipitate and staggering, the legs start- 
 ing hither and thither in a very disorderly manner, and the 
 heels coming down with a stamp at each step." These Umbs 
 are the seat of more or less neuralgic pains, more or less numb- 
 ness, tingHng, and occasionally convulsive or spasmodic phe- 
 nomena. (Radcliffe, Eeynold's "System of Medicine," vol. 
 ii., p. 348.) 
 
 A case presenting such an array of symptoms might, with- 
 out going further into the examination, be very safely declared 
 to be one of locomotor, ataxy. 
 
 As relates to the hereditary character of this disease, Dr, 
 Badcliffe, one of the most elaborate essayists upon it, remarks 
 that "what predisposes to other diseases of the nervous sys- 
 tem, predisposes to this, family predisposition especially. 
 With regard to family predisposition some curious instances 
 might be given. I know of one case in which one brother of 
 the patient is epileptic, another brother hypochondriac, and 
 two sisters are suffering from different forms of paralysis." 
 It is much to be regretted that this author has not furnished 
 us with a statement of the physical condition of the parents of 
 this miserable family of cripples and invalids. He further 
 quotes Dr. Carre as the historian of "a family in which 
 eighteen members have become ataxic in turn, namely, the 
 grandmother, the mother, eight relations of the latter, seven 
 children, and one cousin." (Eeynold's " System of Medicine," 
 vol. ii., p. 350.) 
 
 Yenereal and vinous excesses are regarded as among the 
 most active causes of the constitutional degeneracy which 
 begets this calamitous inheritance. To these affections of the 
 nervous system may be added, hereditary deafness, hereditary 
 night-blindness, and other affections of the visual organs, and 
 hereditary idiosyncrasies of taste and smell. 
 
 As a fitting conclusion to this resume of the more conspicu- 
 ous hereditary diseases of the nervous system, we may now 
 speak of that disease known by the name of alcoholism, oi 
 chronic alcoholic intoxication. This affection of the nervous 
 
OF THE NEEVOUS SYSTEM. 83 
 
 system has attracted much attention during the last quarter 
 of a century. Many essays have been written upon it, much 
 of the best medical talents of the civilized nations has been at 
 work investigating it, and, as a consequence, one of the most 
 remarkable advances in modern medicine has been the estab- 
 lishing of hospitals for the treatment of alcohohsm, better 
 known by the name of inebriate asylums. The earlier symp- 
 toms of this disease are usually manifest through the motor- 
 nervous system. Of a very large number of cases recorded by 
 Dr. Anstie, " muscular inquietude, which might or might not 
 amount to actual tremor, was the first disagreeable symptom 
 which they noticed." This, he says, amounted in some cases 
 to " no more than an inabihty to keep the limbs of the body 
 stiU without a special effort of attention." There are also 
 annoying nocturnal restlessness and inabihty to sleep, which 
 are supposed, and indeed stated by the patient, to depend on 
 the restless state of the motor system. " Bepeatedly," says 
 Dr. Anstie, " I have been assured by persons suffering the 
 sHghter degrees of alcohohsm, that they go to bed with a 
 sense of at least average drowsiness, but an invincible disposi- 
 tion to turn restlessly from side to side in the bed entirely 
 prevents them from getting any sleep." Dr. Marcet, in his 
 "Essay on Alcohohsm," makes the following description of this 
 alcohohc disease of the motor system : " In the daytime the 
 patient is seized with trembling, especially when in the sitting 
 posture ; some hardly tremble at all when walking," though 
 in another paragraph he speaks of a peculiar gait that always 
 characterizes these victims, and that there is much awkward- 
 ness in the performance of voluntary motion, " even when the 
 body is not subject to a conspicuous trembhng ; thus, in the 
 act of drinking, the hquid will be spilt from the glass, or a 
 Hght will be put out instead of being snuffed." This muscular 
 tremor is usually first detected in the hands and upper extrem- 
 ities, though it appears probable that this is so, simply because 
 it is easier to make observations upon the hands than upon 
 the feet, and that disturbances of their muscles would be 
 earher detected. A pecuHarity of this tremor is, that for 
 more or less time after its appearance, the patient can, by an 
 
8fi HEBEDITAEY DISEASES 
 
 effort of the -will, temporarily restrain the movements of the 
 limbs, but the moment the effort ceases, the tremulousness is 
 renewed with increased vigor. If we have, added to these 
 signs, the fact that this tremulousness is worse in the morn- 
 ing, and that food or wine or ale relieves it, there need be no 
 hesitation in declaring it to be a case of alcohoKc tremor, even 
 though the patient deny having used strong drinks, as they 
 sometimes wiU. Added to this morning tremor, is very often 
 morning sickness of the stomach, and, when present, is an 
 important sign, resulting probably from precedent alcoholic 
 narcosis, in the same manner that the opiates induce sickness 
 as sequelsB of their narcotic action. Now, besides aU of these 
 symptoms, and indeed sometimes long before many of them 
 have appeared, certain cerebral or brain symptoms become 
 manifest, such as ringing of the ears and other abnormal 
 sounds ; disturbed vision, clouds, specks, and shapeless objects 
 passing before the eyes, and, sooner or later, flashes of hght. 
 A dull general headache is usually present, and insomnia and 
 alarming dreams. The next stage of the progress of this 
 degenerative and unquestionably transmissible disease of the 
 nervous system, is well described in the following paragraph 
 of Dr. Anstie's paper : 
 
 " The mental condition is now such as to distress the patient 
 and to impress the medical observer. The chief feature is the 
 uncertainty of purpose which the sufferer displays. There is 
 a mental inquietude which makes it impossible for him to set- 
 tle to any ordinary occupation, or to complete the tasks which 
 he begins. To this may be added, in bad cases, an unfounded 
 dread or delusion as to some enemy, or a nightmarelike sen- 
 sation of faUing, even when walking on firm ground in broad 
 daylight, which latter symptom seems to be connected with a 
 progressive impairment of muscular co-ordination," another 
 name for threatening progressive alcoholic locomotor ataxy. 
 " This sensation," says Dr. Anstie, " as described to me, is not 
 hke that of ordinary vertigo, or of fainting, but like that of a 
 disagreeable nightmare, or the hideous feeling which some 
 persons suffer under a large dose of Indian hemp." 
 
 If the causes be continued, this train of symptoms gradually, 
 
A 
 
 OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 81 
 
 and more or less promptly, runs into delirium, mania, and 
 hopeless brain-disease, which cannot be treated of in a paper 
 of this title. But should the cause fortunately be removed, 
 should strict abstinence from alcoholic drinks be observed, 
 recovery from this stage of diseased action may confidently be 
 promised in time, but it must not be expected that complete 
 restoration will be suddenly, if ever, realized. Dr. Marcet 
 very truly remarks of this condition, that it " may last for 
 weeks, months, or years, even after the habit of excessive 
 drioMng has been given up." It is a subject upon which very 
 grave doubts are entertained by the best instructed in it, 
 whether perfect recovery in fact does take place, whether an 
 organic feebleness is not always left behind, rendering such a 
 braia unnaturally sensitive to alcohol ever after ; liable, upon 
 the practice of even the slightest excesses, to experience the 
 most serious symptoms. Such a brain can hardly beget sound 
 ones ; on the contrary, there is every possible reason, short 
 of mathematical demonstration, for believing that such brains 
 transmit their acquired feebleness and idiosyncrasy, as respects 
 alcohol and motor-system diseases, to offspring, as was set 
 forth in the quotation from Dr. Turner. I need only refer the 
 Society to the evidence already thrown before it by the initial 
 paper to this discussion, and by the later ones, as to the inher- 
 ited feebleness of constitution and of wiU, which prompts the 
 possessor to stimulate, and renders him powerless to resist 
 such promptings. When this evidence shall have been thor- 
 oughly digested, I confidently expect that this Society will be 
 ready to decide by a very large vote that there is such a dis- 
 ease as alcoholism ; that one of its forms is methomania ; that it 
 is an hereditary, disease, and of course a transmissible disease ; 
 that in aU its forms it is a disease requiring treatment, and 
 that its proper treatment holds forth the brightest promises 
 of good; that ignoring its existence promises nothing but 
 hopeless evil to the individual, to the posterity, and to soci- 
 ety. Upon the subject of its treatment this Society can- 
 not afford to be without the opinion of one who holds a high 
 position in one of the hospitals for the insane, where numer- 
 ous methomaniacs are annually treated. 
 
88 HEEEDITAEY DISEASES 
 
 " The most marked event in the past year, 1866 and 1867, 
 was the admission of an unusual number of dipsomaniacs 
 (methomaniaes), of persons whose intemperate use of alco- 
 holic stimulants had, in the judgment of competent medi- 
 cal men, become an insanity, evinced both by the extent of 
 the indulgence and by other more or less prominent morbid 
 mental manifestations. It is because we so often see, in dip- 
 somaniacs, the sacrifice of the extraordinary capacities and 
 opportunities for usefulness to other fellow men, which are 
 afforded by liberal education, wealth, and social influence, that 
 these cases excite our deepest interest. It has now been a 
 quarter of a century since the project of treating inebriates 
 with the view of reforming their habits, in institutions exclu- 
 sively devoted to their care, began to be talked of by some of 
 the earnest and benevolent minds of the country. No such 
 project was actually undertaken, however, tOl within the last 
 half-a-dozen years ; and the two or three existing establish- 
 ments of the kind appear to have achieved only a very moder- 
 ate measure of success in curing inebriety. They have, without 
 doubt, been of considerable service to families in caring for 
 inebriates for short periods, and relieving them fi-om the im- 
 mediate effects of a debauch. The radical defect in the 
 system of treating this class of persons, now and hitherto pur- 
 sued, is the absence of a legal coercive detention, and an abso- 
 lute abstinence from drink for a sufficient length of time to 
 restore the impaired moral and intellectual powers, and to 
 effect those physiological changes which are believed to attend 
 the loss of the morbid, and the restoration of the natural 
 appetite. The detention not having been legally coercive in 
 such institutions, it has generally been of short duration, and 
 not been even attended with abstinence from liquor while it 
 lasted. In relation to the treatment of confirmed inebriates, 
 we beUeve the desideratum at this time is a pubhc judgment 
 distuictly expressed in the State constitutions and laws, and 
 expounded and enforced by the courts, that they are danger- 
 ous to themselves and to others, and may and should be 
 legally subjected to prolonged restraint, both for the protec- 
 tion of society and for their own protection and reformation. 
 
OF THE NEBVOUS SYSTEM. 89 
 
 The discipline of an. inebriate hospital shonld be coercive, and 
 so understood ; but, as its inmates are not convicts, however 
 culpable they may be ia the eye of the moral law, the coercion 
 may, and should be, disguised in every way that does not 
 impair its essential efficiency. 
 
 " Time will probably show that it is the practical error of 
 the system at present adopted, that it is too voluntary — a fault 
 not whoUy of the managers, but due to the want of a more 
 efficient system of reformatory restraint, authorized by laws 
 that have hitherto been enacted by one State only, and 
 which even in that State have, by one of its courts, been 
 decided to be unconstitutional. The reports of the institu- 
 tions for the iasane, both of this country and of Europe, 
 show that intemperance is a common cause of insanity in its 
 ordinary forms. Authorities almost unanimously agree that 
 inebriety sometimes becomes an insanity — a settled men- 
 tal alienation, arising from a morbid condition of the brain 
 and nervous system, and characterized by a total abandon- 
 ment to extreme indulgence, regardless of the most sacred 
 claims and pledges, and by more or less impairment of the 
 moral and intellectual powers of the iadividual. Inebriety as 
 a concomitant, if not the cause of insanity, should be treated 
 in an institution for the iasane. Such is the increasing prac- 
 tice in American institutions, and it accords with the proposi- 
 tion adopted by the Association of Medical Superintendents 
 of American Institutions for the Insane, in 1866. "What we 
 have said in relation to the continuance of the detention, and 
 to the certain and entire abstinence of the inmates of an in- 
 ebriate institution, appKes equally to the treatment of dipso- 
 maniacs in any institution for the insane ; and it is upon these 
 two points, so essential to the success of any effort to reclaim 
 inebriates or cure dipsomaniacs, that the public needs to be 
 better instructed, and the most prevalent doctrines of the 
 courts reformed. In a few weeks — sometimes in a few days — 
 after the dipsomaniac is placed under restraint and proper 
 treatment, the immediate eifects of drinking pass off, and to a 
 casual observer, he appears to be entirely sane ; and, if a 
 court of competent jurisdiction can then be reached, a writ of 
 
90 HEREDITARY DISEASES 
 
 habeas corpus will probably set the person at liberty. He is 
 not yet sane, however. His moral and intellectual powers are 
 weak and deeply perverted; his nervous system is irritable 
 and depressed; every fibre of his being seems to demand 
 stimulants, and his thirst for them is intense; and the mo- 
 ment he is discharged, he resorts to their use with the unrea- 
 soning directness with which the brutes obey their instincts. 
 In permitting him to renew his self-destruction — a self-de- 
 struction that carries so much misery along with it — society 
 rejects the guidance of science, fails to discharge its obliga- 
 tions to the individual and to itself, and reaps a harvest of iUs 
 which, in their severity and extent, are second to none that 
 afJlict humanity. We know of no more distressing embarrass- 
 ment than that which the families of inebriates often experi- 
 ence, who find themselves the anxious but passive victims of 
 a terribly destructive evil which they have no power either to 
 avert or remedy. The question may be asked whether re- 
 straint, prolonged for a year or two, will cure dipsomania? 
 The answer of science is, we believe, that this form of insanity 
 appears in this respect to follow the law of other forms of 
 mental disease. It should be remembered that the cure is 
 not undertaken in dipsomania tiU the disease has become 
 chronic and deeply seated ; but, if there be no constitutional 
 tendency to this or any other form of insanity, and the treat- 
 ment be continued till the susceptibiUties and strength, both 
 of the body and the mind, become entirely normal, the cure is 
 Hkely to prove permanent." * We have italicized some parts 
 of this quotation, to mark what appear to us as its strongest 
 and most important points. For example, coercive detention 
 is indispensable, for some months, at least, if we think of 
 eifecting a curative result. Such a result depends entirely 
 upon the activity of the restorative powers of the injured 
 brain during a more or less prolonged abstinence from the use 
 of alcohol. The evidence of restoration, as this author very 
 forcibly states, is found in the loss of the morbid, and the 
 
 * Report of the Qovernment Hospital for the Insane, for 1866 and 1867. 
 By Dr. Nichols, Superintendent. 
 
OF THE NEEVODS SYSTEM. 91 
 
 restoration of tlie natural appetite. As this result, therefore, 
 is subject to such variable contingencies, a fixed time for the 
 restorative detention of the methomaniac cannot be estab- 
 lished. It may, however, be stated as the result of experience, 
 that few are permanently restored with an abstinence of less 
 duration than one year. And as to the methomaniac' s liability 
 to endanger his own life, as well as the lives of those about 
 him, the long Hst of suicides and homicides furnishes the most 
 conclusive evidence. 
 
 We are glad to see that the public are becoming "better 
 instructed" in this matter of the proper management of metho- 
 maniacs, as radicated by the recent enactment of the Illinois 
 Legislature, providing that, in that State, they shall be treated 
 as insane persons, and that their property shall be put in 
 charge of trustees. We have not seen a copy of that law, but 
 we trust that it wOl be able to sustain itself against the habeas 
 corpus privilege, so far as to maintain a coercive detention of 
 the person long enough to effect a restoration of body and 
 brain, which wiU enable the victim to voluntarily resist his 
 morbid promptings to the use of intoxicating agents, whether 
 alcohol, opium, or others. Unless it do, the good it was in- 
 tended to accomplish will be vastly diminished, and the inter- 
 ests of society, and of individuals, including the victims of 
 methomania themselves, will be sacrificed by the very power 
 and privilege which was intended to secure them. 
 
THEODEIE EOMEYN BECK, M.D., LL.D. 
 
 There is no name on the American continent to whom the 
 science of medical jurisprudence is more indebted than that of 
 Dr. T. Eomeyn Beck. He, more than any other man of the 
 previous generation, brought forensic medicine to the notice 
 not only of the two professions of law and medicine, but to the 
 general recognition of the country. 
 
 Beck's " Medical Jurisprudence," originally published in 
 1823, which has passed through many American, English, and 
 German editions, was universally acknowledged in its day to be 
 a leading work on the science, and was as often found upon the 
 shelves of the lawyer's library as that of the medical man. 
 
 Dr. Beck was born at Schenectady, August 11, 1791, and 
 died, ^November 19, 1855. He graduated from Union College, 
 Schenectady, at the age of sixteen years, and took his degree at 
 the New York College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1811. 
 The degree of LL.D. was conferred upon him by the Mercers- 
 burg College, Pennsylvania, and by Eutgers College, New 
 Jersey. 
 
 In 1815 he was appointed Lecturer on Medical Jurisprudence 
 in the College of Physicians and Surgeons for the Western 
 District, then established at Fairfield, N. Y., and in 1826 
 was made Professor of Medical Jurisprudence at that college, 
 which chair he held until 1840. 
 
 When the New York State Lunatic Asylum at Utica was 
 founded he was named as one of the Board of Managers, which 
 position he held until his death ; and on the death of Mr. Mun- 
 son, in 1854, was unanimously elected president of that board. 
 
 He was a contributor to the American Journal of Insanity 
 while Dr. Brigham was the editor, and on the death of that 
 

 ^ 
 
 
 V.-A ^^ 
 
 '^< 
 
 £r7-H:.M^BTi'le 
 
THEODEIE EOMEYN BECK, M.D., LL.D. 
 
 gentleman, in 1850, was chosen its editor, -which position he 
 filled until the year before his death. 
 
 We quote from his remarks on the proposed establishment 
 of a university, made in the capitol at Albany, March 30, 1853, 
 before the Legislature, the following : 
 
 "We require the appointment under public authority of a 
 Professor sMj? of Medical Jurisprudence or Forensic Medi- 
 cine. It is not possible to do full justice to this subject in 
 medical colleges. We teach there what is known ; we want a 
 person or persons who shall ascertain, if possible, the unknown ; 
 and great as have been the discoveries of late years in this 
 science, still the cunning of the murderer has frequently outrun 
 them. 
 
 " Why should not men duly qualified be appointed to such 
 an office, who, by their researches, would be far in advance of 
 those who by secret, and in some cases almost unknown means, 
 prevent detection in the commission of crime ? 
 
 " There is a person now living (Orfila), the certainty of whose 
 knowledge on the power of poisons is such that he is not only 
 called to examine cases in every part of France, but not long 
 since was summoned to Belgium in one, which at the time 
 attracted the attention of all Europe. I hold that there should 
 be two or tliree persons of this character appointed and paid by 
 the Government to perform this important duty." 
 
 It seems proper, when we are almost at the close of the gen- 
 eration which has passed since death terminated the labors of 
 this early American student and teacher of forensic medicine, 
 whose name has been so intimately associated with the growth 
 and progress of medico-legal science in the last years of our 
 century, that we should present his portrait to the readers of 
 this volume devoted to a science of which he was so lustrous an 
 exponent and ornament. 
 
 We are indebted to Professor Frank Hastings Hamilton, ex- 
 President and Honorary Member of the Medico-Legal Society, 
 for the leading facts as to the life and death of Dr. Beck, and 
 to his surviving daughter for the engraving which embellishes 
 this volume. C. B. 
 
LAWS EELATING 
 
 I]SrEBIlIA.TE ASYLUMS 
 
 HABITUAL DEUXKAEDS.* 
 
 By WILLIAM SHRADY, A.M., LL.B. 
 
 AN ACT 
 
 To Establish an Asylum foe Inebeiates in the City of 
 New Yoek. Passed Apetl 8, 1864. 
 
 The people of the State of New York, represented in Senate 
 and Assembly, do enact as follows : 
 
 Seciton 1. The Commissioners of Public Charities and Cor- 
 rection are hereby authorized and empowered to erect, estab- 
 lish, and furnish, upon the land belonging to the city of New 
 York, now under the control of said commissioners, a building 
 or buildings to be known as the Asylum for Inebriates, and to 
 buUd and construct all such appurtenances thereto as in the 
 judgment of said commissioners may be necessary and proper. 
 The said commissioners are also authorized and empowered 
 to appoint and employ all such physicians, surgeons, officers, 
 and attendants as may be necessary and proper for the man- 
 agement and direction of said asylum, and the care of the 
 inmates thereof, and to fix thfe compensation of such employees 
 in the same manner and with the same power as in respect to 
 
 * Bead before the Medico-Legal Society, New York, March 35, 1869. 
 
INEBRIATE ASYLUMS AND HABITUAL DEUNKABDS. 93 
 
 the persons employed in the institution heretofore placed 
 tinder the control of said commissioners. 
 
 Sec. 2. The necessary expenses of erecting and construct- 
 ing such asylum and its appurtenances, and of maintaining the 
 same, shall be provided for in the same manner as the ex- 
 penses of the other institutions heretofore placed under the 
 control of the said commissioners, and said commissioners are 
 hereby authorized and directed to apply to the support of said 
 asylum aU the proceeds of the tax or excise upon intoxicating 
 liquors which shall be received by them, except the ten per 
 cent, heretofore directed to be paid to the managers of the 
 State Inebriate Asylum at Binghamton. 
 
 Sec. 3. The said commissioners shall make all needful rules 
 and regulations for the government of said asylum, and shall 
 provide for the proper support and maintenance of the inmates 
 thereof, and especially for such medical treatment as will be 
 effectual for, or tend to, the curing of such inmates of the 
 habits of inebriety and diseases induced thereby, and they shall 
 have full power and authority to regulate and control the 
 inmates of said asylum, and to estabhsh such provisions for 
 moral and sanitary discipline as they may deem expedient. 
 
 Sec. 4. The justices of the Supreme Court, in the exercise 
 of their jurisdiction within the city of New York, the justices 
 of the Superior Court of said city, and the judges of the Court 
 of Common Pleas in and for the county of New York, shall 
 have power to commit to the said inebriate asylum, for a term 
 not to exceed two years, aU persons who, being actual inhabi- 
 tants of the said city, shall be incapable or unfit for properly 
 conducting their own affairs, in consequence of habitual 
 drunkenness. 
 
 Sec. 5. Such commitment shall be made by any of said jus- 
 tices or judges in any case where the facts referred to in the 
 last preceding section of this act shall be made to appear by 
 petition or complaint, duly verified and presented by any rela- 
 tive of such habitual drunkard, or by the Commissioners of 
 Pubhc Charities and Oorrection, or any officer of the metro- 
 pohtan pohce doing duty within said city, and upon return of 
 a commission issued upon such petition or complaint. 
 
94 LAWS EELATING TO 
 
 Sec. 6. Upon the presentation of sucli petition or com- 
 plaint, the justice or judge to whom the same shall be pre- 
 sented shall proceed thereupon in the same manner as is 
 directed in title two of chapter five of part two of the Eevised 
 Statutes of the State of New York, in relation to the care and 
 custody of the persons and estates of idiots, lunatics, persons 
 of unsound mind, and drunkards, and according to the rules 
 and practice of the Supreme Court iu such cases. 
 
 Sec. 7. Upon becoming satisfied by return of a commission 
 as heretofore provided, that any person is an habitual drunk- 
 ard, and incapable, in consequence thereof, of conducting his 
 or her own affairs, said justice or judge shall have power, in 
 his discretion, to issue his warrant committiag the person so 
 found to be an habitual drunkard to the custody of the said 
 Commissioners of PubUc Charities and Correction, to be de- 
 taiaed ia the said asylum for such period, not exceeding two 
 years, as the said justice or judge may deem proper, and such 
 warrant shall be executed by any member of the metropolitan 
 police, upon the request of said commissioners or one of them. 
 Any such warrant duly issued shall be fuU and sufficient jus- 
 tification for all acts done by any properly authorized officer, 
 under and in accordance therewith. 
 
 Sec. 8. Any justice or judge before whom proceedings may 
 be pending under the provisions of this act may, after filing 
 of any complaint, and when in his judgment the circumstances 
 of the case render it proper so to do, commit the person 
 charged with being an habitual drunkard to the said asylum, 
 if, on return of a commission, it shall be determined that they 
 are not proper persons to be detained. 
 
 Sec. 9. The estate of any person committed to such asy- 
 lum, and the person committed, shall be liable for the support 
 of such person therein, and the committee of every such per- 
 son shall pay out of his estate such reasonable and proper 
 sum as shall be fixed by the justice or judge ordering the 
 commitment. The said Commissioners of Public Charities and 
 Correction shall have authority to bring and maintain actions 
 in any court of competent jurisdiction, against the committee 
 or guardians of the estate of any person committed to said-asy- 
 
INEBRIATE ASYLUMS AND HABITUAL DEUNKAEDS. Of) 
 
 lum as aforesaid, or against any person so committed, for the 
 support and maintenance of such person whUe in said asylum. 
 Such actions may be brought by said commissioners in the 
 name of the " Board of Commissioners of Pubhc Charities and 
 Correction," but all recoveries had in such actions shall inure 
 to the city of Nev; York, and all amounts collected thereon 
 shall be received by said commissioners and accounted for in 
 the same manner as all other moneys which they are by law 
 authorized to receive. 
 
 Sec. 10. It shall be lawful for the said Commissioners of 
 Charities and Correction to transfer from the almshouse and 
 workhouse under their control, to said inebriate asylum, any 
 persons committed to the almshouse or workhouse, who, in the 
 judgment of said commissioners, shall be fit and proper sub- 
 jects for the said asylum, and in their discretion to return such 
 persons to the almshouse or workhouse ; provided, however, 
 that no person shall by reason of such transfer be restrained 
 of his hberty for a longer term than required by his original 
 sentence or commitment. 
 
 Sec. 11. Any person committed to the said asylum, by 
 order of any justice or judge as heretofore provided, may be 
 discharged therefrom at any time before the expiration of the 
 time for which such person was committed, upon the order of 
 any justice or judge having jurisdiction as herein provided, 
 upon such justice or judge being satisfied that such person is 
 cured and fit to be released. Apphcation for such discharge 
 may be made by any person, provided, however, that previous 
 notice of such apphcation shall be given in writing to the said 
 Commissioners of Public Charities and Correction. Upon any 
 such apphcation being made, the justice or judge receiving the 
 same, shall proceed in the same manner as upon writs of 
 habeas corpus. 
 
 Sec. 12. The said commissioners shall have authority at 
 any time to discharge from said asylum any person committed 
 thereto, for the following causes, viz. : 
 
 First. That such person is cured. 
 
 Second. That such person is incurable, and incapable of 
 
9G LAWS RELATING TO 
 
 being permanently benefited by the treatment and discipline 
 of said asylum. 
 
 Third. That such person has failed to pay for his support 
 therein, or has been guilty of Yicious conduct prejudicial to 
 the good order and discipline of the institution. 
 
 This act shall take effect immediately. 
 
 AN ACT 
 
 To Amend an Act entitled " As Act to establish an Asy- 
 lum FOK Inebriates in the city or New York, and pro- 
 vide FOR the Government thereof. Passed April 20, 
 1867.— (Chapter 470. Laws, 1867, vol. i.) 
 
 Section 1. Section second of the act entitled " An Act to 
 Establish an Asylum for Inebriates in the city of New York, 
 and Provide for the Government thereof," passed April 8, 
 1804, is hereby amended, so to read as follows : " The neces- 
 sary expense of erecting and constructing such asylum and its 
 appurtenances, and of maintaiaing the same, shall be provided 
 for in the same manner as the expenses of the other institu- 
 tions heretofore placed under the control of the said commis- 
 sioners, and said commissioners are hereby authorized to 
 receive from the Board of Excise, from time to time, twelve 
 per cent, of the aggregate amount of moneys received in each 
 and every year by said Board of Excise, from and after April 
 first, eighteen hundred and sixty-seven, for license fees re- 
 ceived for hcenses granted in the city and county of New 
 York, and said board upon apphcation of the said commis- 
 sioners, are hereby authorized and directed to pay over, from 
 time to time, to said commissioners such per centage, which 
 moneys shall be strictly applied by said commissioners to the 
 builduig, maintenance, and support of said asylum, and duly 
 accounted for in their annual report. But nothing in this act 
 contained shall be construed to divert from the State Inebriate 
 Asylum, or interfere with the proportion of said license fees 
 set apart for said institution by existing laws. The commis- 
 
INEBRIATE ASYLUMS AND HABITUAL DBUNKAEDS. 97 
 
 sioners are authorized to demand and receive all fines imposed 
 by intoxication or disorderly conduct in tlie city of New York, 
 wMch fines, without any deduction, shall be paid over monthly 
 by the magistrate, clerk, or other person who receives the 
 same, to the said commissioners, and shall be by them 
 applied and accounted for as other moneys received by virtue 
 of this act." 
 
 AN ACT 
 
 To Incorporate the Inebriates' Home for Kings County. 
 Passed May 9, 1867.— (Chap. 843, Laws of 1867, vol. ii.) 
 
 Section 1. George Hall, John Dikeman, Samuel D. Morris, 
 John M. Hicks, John McNamee, Abraham Beal, John Marsh, 
 James H. Prentice, George I. Bennett, WiUiam I. Allen, and 
 their associates are hereby created a body corporate, by the 
 name of the Inebriates' Home for Kings county. The corpo- 
 ration hereby created shall have aU the powers, and be sub- 
 ject to aU the restrictions conferred and provided by the act 
 entitled " An Act for the Incorporation of Benevolent, Chari- 
 table, Scientific, and Missionary Societies," passed April 12, 
 1848, and the several acts amendatory thereof, except so far 
 as the same are modified by this act. 
 
 Sec. 2. The said corporation shaU. have power to receive 
 and retain all inebriates who enter said home, either volun- 
 tarily or by order of the trustees, as hereinafter provided, for 
 such period as said trustees may deem for the benefit of such 
 inebriates, not exceeding six months. 
 
 Sec. 3. It shall have power to establish and carry on such 
 branches of industry as the trustees thereof may deem neces- 
 sary to carry out the reformatory objects for which it is estab- 
 lished, and may take, purchase, hold, and dispose of such 
 personal property as may be necessary for that purpose and 
 no other. In its corporate name, to take, purchase, and hold 
 real estate in the county of Kings, and erect thereon such 
 building or bmldings as the said trustees may deem proper 
 and necessary to carry out the objects of said incorporation 
 t 
 
98 LAWS RELATING TO 
 
 and for no other object. Said corporation shall have power 
 to sue and be sued, to make and use a common seal, and alter 
 the same at pleasure ; to take and hold any grant or devise of 
 lands, or any donation or bequest of money or other personal 
 property to be applied to the founding and maintenance of 
 said institution. 
 
 Sec. 4. The treasurer of the Board of Excise, in and for the 
 metropolitan police district of the State of New York, shall 
 pay to the treasurer of the said Inebriates' Home of Kings 
 county, or his order, twelve per cent, of all the moneys here- 
 after received by said Board of Excise for licenses granted 
 under said excise law to persons residing in the county of 
 Kings, after all legal deductions therefrom, a,nd deducting 
 therefrom the proper proportion of the expenses of said 
 board, and such sums as now or may hereafter be appropri- 
 ated by law to other purposes. And all fines hereafter received 
 by said board for violations of said excise law, committed in 
 said county of Kings, shall in like manner be paid to the 
 treasurer of said Inebriates' Home of Kings County. The 
 money herein directed to the treasurer of said Inebriates' 
 Home shall be so paid by the treasurer of said Excise 
 Board, within thirty days after the receipt thereof by such 
 board; which money shall be applied to the founding and 
 maintenance of such Inebriates' Home, and for no other pur- 
 pose. 
 
 Sec. 5. The said trustees shall have power to visit the per- 
 sons confined in the jaU or penitentiary of Kings County, for 
 intoxication or habitual drunkenness, as often and at such times 
 as they may deem advisable ; and may determine from time 
 to time who of the persons so confined in said institutions are 
 fit and proper subjects to be transferred to said " Inebriates' 
 Home." "Whenever said trustees shall determine, pursuant to 
 their by-laws, that any such person is a fit and proper subject 
 to be so transferred, the president of said " Inebriates' Home " 
 shall make out and sign a certificate stating the fact that said 
 trustees have determined that such person is a fit and proper 
 person to be so transferred, and directing the keeper of said 
 jail or penitentiary to deliver such person to the keeper of 
 
INEBRIATE ASYLUMS AND HABITUAL DEUNKAEDS. 99 
 
 said home, wMch certificate shall be filed with such keeper. 
 Upon receiving such certificate, the keeper shall forthwith 
 transfer such person to said home, there to be detained pur- 
 suant to the first section of this act. 
 
 Sec. 6. For the purpose of carrying out the object of said 
 "Inebriates' Home," the magistrates in Kings County shall 
 hereafter commit persons convicted for intoxication, or as hab- 
 itual drunkards, to the jail or penitentiary for a period not ex- 
 ceeding six months ; in case of the commitment of such per- 
 sons, and the persons so committed for intoxication, unless 
 transferred as hereinbefore provided, shall be discharged by 
 the keeper of the jail or penitentiary, at the expiration of ten 
 days from their commitment ; and the persons so committed 
 as habitual drunkards, unless so transferred, shall be so dis- 
 charged at the expiration of thirty days from their commitment. 
 
 Sec. 7. AH inebriates confined in said home shall be allowed 
 a reasonable compensation for all services they may render 
 while so confined. 
 
 Sec. 8. This act shall take effect immediately. 
 
 AN ACT 
 
 To Amend an Act entitled " An Act to Incorpoeate the In- 
 EBEUTEs' Home foe Kings County," passed May 9, 1867. 
 Passed April 30, 1868.— (iams, 1868, vol. ii.) 
 
 Sec. 1 relates to the amending of section 4. 
 
 Sec. 4 is hereby amended so as to read as follows : The 
 Treasurer of the Board of Excise, in and for the Metropoli- 
 tan Pohce District of the State of New York, shaU pay to the 
 (said) treasurer of the said " Inebriates' Home," the sum of 
 $200,000 of the first moneys hereafter received by said Board 
 of Excise, for licenses granted under said excise law to 
 persons carrying on business in the county of Kings, which 
 amount is hereby appropriated to said " Home," to be applied 
 to the erection and furnishing of suitable buildings for the 
 same, -and improving the grounds belonging thereto, and no 
 other purpose. After the payment to said "Home" of the 
 
'109 LAWS BELATING TO 
 
 said sum of $200,000 the treasurer of said Board of Excise 
 shall pay annually thereafter to the treasurer of said " Home " 
 the sum of $10,000, out of the excise money as aforesaid, to be 
 appUed to the maintenance of the same, and for no other pur- 
 pose. AH fines hereafter collected for violations of said excise 
 law, iu the county of Kings shall be paid to the treasurer of 
 said "Home" in the manner hereinafter stated. The justices 
 of the peace of the city of Brooklyn, and police justices and 
 justices in the towns in Kings County are hereby required to ' 
 pay to the treasurer of said "Home" quarter-yearly, ah 
 moneys received by them for violations of any of the provis- 
 ions of this act. Such payment shall be accompanied by a 
 detailed statement, showing the separate amounts received by 
 them, from whom received, the date when received, and the 
 residence of the party so far as the same can be ascertained 
 by his examination, and that of the officer making the arrest, 
 which statement shall be verified by the oath of the justice. 
 Any person failing to comply with the provisions of this act, 
 shall be guilty of a misdemeanor. 
 
 Sec. 2. Section seven of said act is hereby repealed. 
 
 Sec. 3. Section three of said act is hereby amended by add- 
 ing thereto as follows : The justices of the Supreme Court in 
 the exercise of their jurisdiction within the county of Kings, 
 shall have power to commit to said "Inebriate Home" for a 
 term not to exceed one year, aU persons who, being actual 
 inhabitants of the said county, shall be incapable or unfit for 
 properly conducting their own affairs, in consequence of ha- 
 bitual drunkenness. 
 
 Sec. 4. Such commitment shaU be made by any of said jus- 
 tices in any case where the facts referred to in the last pre- 
 ceding section of this act shaE be made to appear by petition 
 or complaint duly verified and presented by any relative of 
 such habitual drunkard, or by any officer of said " Home," or 
 any officer of the MetropoHtan Police doing duty within said 
 county, and upon return of a commission issued upon such 
 petition or complaint. 
 
 Sec. 5. Upon the presentation of such petition or complaint, 
 the justice to whom the same shall be presented, shall proceed 
 
INEBRIATE ASYLUMS AND HABITUAL DRUNKARDS. 101 
 
 thereupon in the same manner as is directed in title 2 of chap. 
 5 of part 2 of the Eevised Statutes of the State of New York 
 in relation to the care and custody of the persons and estates 
 of idiots, lunatics, persons of unsound mind and drunkards, 
 and according to the rules and practice of the Supreme Court 
 in such cases. 
 
 Sec. 6. Upon becoming satisfied by return of a commission, 
 as heretofore provided, that any person is an habitual drunk- 
 ard, and incapable in consequence thereof, of conducting his 
 or her own affairs, said justice shaU have power, in his discre- 
 tion, to issue his warrant committing the person so found to 
 be an habitual drunkard, to the custody of the said " Home," 
 to be detained in the said "Home" for such period not ex- 
 ceeding one year, as the said justice may deem proper, and 
 such warrant shall be executed by any member of the Metro- 
 pohtan Pohce. Any such warrant, duly issued, shall be full 
 and sufficient justification for all acts done by any properly 
 authofized officer, under and in accordance therewith. Such 
 order of commitment may at any time be vacated or modified 
 by any justice of the Supreme Court, on cause shown. 
 
 Sec. 7. Any justice before whom proceedings may be pend- 
 ing, under the provisions of this act, may after filing of any 
 complaint, and when in his judgment the circumstances of the 
 case render it proper to do so, commit the person charged 
 with being an habitual drunkard to the said "Home" while, 
 proceedings on such complaint are pending, and aU persons 
 so temporarily committed shall be discharged from said 
 "Home" if on return of a commission, it shall be deter- 
 mined that they are not proper persons to be detained. 
 
 Sec. 8. The estate of any person committed to such "Home," 
 and the person committed, shall be liable for the support of 
 such person therein, and the committee of every such person 
 shall pay out of his estate such reasonable and proper sum as 
 shall be fixed by the justice ordering the commitment. 
 
 Sec. 9. In the erection of the buildings provided for in the 
 first section of this act, suitable and proper provisions shall 
 be made for keeping those who may enter said " Home" vol- 
 untarily separate and apart from those who may be transferred 
 
102 LAWS EELATING TO 
 
 to said " Home " from the jail or penitentiary. Suitable pro- 
 vision shall also be made for keeping the sexes separate and 
 apart. There shall be provided, also, a suitable chapel for 
 religious services, which shall be equally free to all rehgious 
 denominations. 
 
 Sec. 10. The money appropriated by the first section of this 
 act to be apphed to the erection and furnishing of suitable 
 buildings for said " Home," and improving the grounds be- 
 longing thereto, shall not be expended unless sanctioned by 
 the Mayor and City Judge of the city of Brooklyn, and the 
 County Judge of the county of Kings, in conjunction with the 
 Executive Committee of said " Home," who shall approve of 
 aU plans, specifications, and contracts relating to the erection 
 and fui-nishing said buildings and improving said groimds. 
 And the officers herein named, are hereby declared to be 
 members and trustees of said corporation by virtue of their 
 offices, and invested with all the powers of the original incor- 
 porators. 
 
 Sec. 11. The president of said " Home " shall in the month 
 of January, in each year, report to the Legislature the doings 
 of said "Home" for the preceding year, which report shall 
 state the amount of money received and on hand, the som-ces 
 from whence received, the , amount expended, the number re- 
 ceived into and discharged therefrom, together with such other 
 information as may be deemed of general interest. 
 
 Sec. 12. James S. T. Stranahan is hereby made one of the in- 
 corporators and trustees of the said Inebriates' Home in the 
 place of George HaU deceased. 
 
 Sec. 13. This act shall take effect immediately. 
 
 AN ACT 
 
 Foe the Eelief op the New Yoek State Inebriate Asylum 
 Passed April 15, 1859.— (Chap. 381, p. 902.) 
 
 Section 1. The treasurer of each and every county of thia 
 State shall pay to the treasurer of the New York State Inebri- 
 
mEBEIATE ASYLUMS AND HABITUAL DRUNKAEDS. 103 
 
 ate Asylum, or his order, on tlie first Monday of July of each 
 year, ten per cent, of all the moneys received by said county 
 treasurer from the Board of Commissioners of Excise in and 
 for said county. 
 
 Sec. 2. The land situated in Binghamton, in the county of 
 Broome, selected by the trustees of said asylum for the site 
 thereof, and the acts of the trustees in selecting and fixing 
 said site are hereby confirmed. 
 
 Sec. 3. The trustees of said asylum shall expend the said 
 moneys in completing the asylum buUding commenced on said 
 land, and such other buildings and improvements as shall be 
 required for the comfort and convenience of the patients. 
 
 Sec. 4. The treasurer of said asylum shall not receive any 
 of said moneys until after he shall have given a bond, with at 
 least two sufficient sureties, to the New Tfork State Inebriate 
 Asylum, in such penalty and upon such condition as the board 
 of trustees, at a monthly meeting thereof, shall fix by resolu- 
 tion, and the sufficiency of such sureties shall be approved of 
 by the president or vice-president of said board. 
 
 Sec. 5. Eeuben H. "Walworth, John W. Francis, Wilham T. 
 McCoun, James Boorman, James S. Wadsworth, Daniel S. 
 Dickinson, Washington Hunt, Charles H. Buggies, Charles 
 Cook, Josiah B. Williams, Hamilton Murray, Edward A. Lam- 
 bert, William E. Dodge, Jonathan H. Ransom, Jacob S. MiUer, 
 Thomas C. Brinsmade, Thomas W. Olcott, Jacob F. Rathbone, 
 Bansom Balcom, Sherman D. Phelps, Vincent Whitney, Allan 
 Munroe, H. P. Alexander, Joseph Mullen, C. P. Wood, Noah 
 WorraU, Franklin Johnson, George Folsom, Charles Butler, 
 Lorenzo Draper, Edward F. Shonnard, Gerrit Smith, John 
 Conklin, Frederick Juliand, Tracy Beadle, Peter S. Danforth, 
 George W. Tifft, Henry A. Brewster, Charles Doolittle, and 
 L Edward Turner, shall constitute the Board of Trustees of this 
 institution. Any vacancy that may hereafter occur in the 
 Board of Trustees of said institution shall be filled by the re- 
 maining trustees, at any meeting duly called for that purpose. 
 
 Sec. 6. The Senate, upon recommendation of the governor, 
 for cause to be specified, may remove any trustee of said 
 asylum. 
 
104 LAWS BELATING TO 
 
 Sec. 7. AH acts and parts of acts inconsistent with, this act 
 are hereby repealed. 
 Sec. 8. This act shall take effect immediately. 
 
 AN ACT 
 
 For the Belief of the New Yoek State Inebeute Asylxtm. 
 Passed March 21, 1861.— (Chapter 65, page 120.) 
 
 Section 1. The trustees of the New York State Inebriate 
 Asylum shall have power to issue bonds to the amount of 
 sixty thousand dollars. The payment of said bonds shall be 
 secured by a pledge of aU the lands and buildings belonging 
 to said New York State Inebriate Asylum. The said bonds 
 shall be issued for the period of ten years, and said bonds 
 shall draw seven per cent, interest, payable semi-annually in 
 the city of New York. Each bond shall be signed by the 
 president, or vice-president, and treasurer of said asylum. No 
 bond shall be issued for a less sum than one hundred dollars, 
 or for a greater sum than five thousand dollars. No bond 
 shall be sold by the said asylum for less than par value. All 
 moneys which shall arise from the sale of said bonds, shall be 
 expended in the building of said asylum. 
 
 Sec. 2. If the said inebriate asylum shall fail to pay the 
 interest on said bonds semi-annually, or neglect to pay the 
 said bonds at maturity, then any owner or owners of said 
 bonds may, by action in the Supreme Court, foreclose the same 
 in the same manner as in the case of foreclosures of mort- 
 gages upon real estate, by the sale of said lands and build- 
 ings. 
 
 Sec. 3. Duplicates of aU bonds issued in pursuance of the 
 foregoing section, shall be filed with the clerk of the county in 
 which said asylum is located, and when thus filed shall be a 
 mortgage Men upon the corporate property of said asylum. 
 No bond owner shall have any priority over any other bond 
 ov, ner, but shall share ahke in all the property of said asy- 
 
INEBRIATE ASYLUMS AND HABITUAL DEUNKABDS. 105 
 
 luin, provided the said asylum shall fail to pay interest on said 
 bonds or principal when due. 
 
 Sec. 4. The election of the trustees of the New York State 
 Inebriate Asylum shall be held on the first Wednesday in 
 June of each year, at the office of the institution at ten o'clock 
 A.M. The said trustees shall be elected by ballot, by pluraUty 
 of subscribers present, or represented by proxy, each and 
 every subscription of ten dollars paid one vote. Three fit and 
 disinterested persons shall be appointed by the Board of Trus- 
 tees, three weeks previous to each election of trustees of said 
 asylum, inspectors of the next election. The said Board of 
 Trustees annually, from their own body, shall elect by ballot a 
 president and treasurer of said asylum, on the first Wednes- 
 day of June in each year, at eleven o'clock A.M. The annual 
 meeting of the Board of Trustees of said asylum shall be held 
 on the first Wednesday of June in each year, at the office of 
 the institution, at eleven o'clock A.M. 
 
 Sec. 5. Any person who shall donate, or leave by legacy, 
 the sum of five thousand dollars to the New York State Ine- 
 briate Asylum, shall establish forever a free bed in said asy- 
 lum. Two thousand five hundred dollars shall provide a free 
 bed in said asyhim for six months in each year. Twelve hun- 
 dred and fifty dollars shall provide a free bed in said asylum 
 for three months in each year. The donor or legator shall 
 name the patient who shall occupy the said free bed, but in 
 case the donor or legator shall fail to name a patient to occupy 
 the free bed which said donor or legator shall have endowed, 
 then the trustees of said asylum shall fill the said free bed 
 with a poor patient. The said patients in said free beds shall 
 be provided with medical treatment and board free of charge, 
 and said patients shall be subject to the rules and regulations 
 of said asylum. 
 
 Sec. 6. All acts or parts of acts inconsistent with this act 
 are hereby repealed. 
 
 Sec. 7. This act shall take effect immediately. 
 
106 LAWS RELATING TO 
 
 AN ACT 
 
 ♦ 
 
 Foe the Better Eegulation and Discipline oe the Ne\^ 
 York State Inebriate Asylum. Passed April 15, 1864— 
 {Laivs 'of 1864, chapter 196.) 
 
 Section 1. No person shall sell any strong or spirituous 
 liquors, or wines or fermented liquors, within the distance of 
 one half mile from the outward bounds of the lands and prem- 
 ises of the New York State Inebriate Asylum, situate in the 
 towns of Binghamton and Kirkwood in Broome County. 
 
 Sec. 2. Whoever shall sell any strong or spirituous Hquors 
 or wines or fermented hquors, within the distance of one half 
 mile from the outward bounds of the said lands and premises, 
 shall forfeit fifty dollars for each offence, and shaU also be 
 guilty of a misdemeanor. 
 
 Sec. 3. No person shall enter in any manner, or pass upon 
 the said lands and premises of the New York State Inebriate 
 Asylum, other than the officers of said asylum, officers of jus- 
 tice, and those having business with said asylum, without a 
 written or printed permit or pass, to be issued by the officer 
 or officers of said asylum, designated in conformity with such 
 by-laws as said asylum may pass ; and any person violating 
 the provisions of this section shall forfeit the sum of ten dol- 
 lars, and shall be guilty of a misdemeanor. 
 
 Sec. i. All penalties imposed by this act shall be sued for 
 and recovered in the name of the president of the New York 
 State Inebriate Asylum, and shall be paid to the treasurer of 
 the county of Broome, for the support of the poor of said 
 county. 
 
 Sec. 5. Any justice of the Supreme Court, or the County 
 Judge of the county in which any inebriate may reside, shall 
 have power to commit such inebriate to the New York State 
 Inebriate Asylum, upon the production and fihng of an affi- 
 davit or affidavits by two respectable practicing physicians 
 and two respectable citizens, freeholders of such county, to 
 the effect that such inebriate is lost to self-control, unable 
 from such inebriation to attend to business, or dangerous to 
 
INEBRIATE ASYLUMS AND HABITUAL DEUNKAEDS. 107 
 
 remain at large. But such commitment shall be only until the 
 examination now provided by law, shall have been held, and 
 in no case for a longer period than three months. 
 Sec. 6. This act shall take effect immediately. 
 
 AN ACT 
 
 Foe the Better Eegulation and Discipline op the New 
 Tore State Inebriate Asylum. Passed March 31, 1865. — 
 (Chap. 266. Laws of 1865.) 
 
 Section 1. No person shall sell or- give away any strong or 
 spirituous liquors or wines, or fermented Uquors, or opium, or 
 tobacco to any patient belonging to the New York State In- 
 ebriate Asylum. 
 
 Sec. 2. Whoever shall sell or give away any strong or spiri- 
 tuous hquors, or wines, or fermented hquors, or opium, or 
 tobacco to any patient belonging to the New York State In- 
 ebriate Asylum, shall forfeit fifty dollars for each offence, and 
 shall also be guilty of a misdemeanor. 
 
 Sec. 3. All penalties imposed by this act shall be sued for 
 and recovered in the name of the president of the New York 
 State Inebriate Asylum, and shall be paid into the State 
 treasury. 
 
 Sec. 4. Any justice of the Supreme Court, or the County 
 Judge of the county in which any inebriate may reside, shall 
 have power to commit such inebriate to the New York State 
 Inebriate Asylum upon the production and filing of an affi- 
 davit or affidavits by two respectable practicing physicians 
 and two respectable citizens, freeholders of such county, to the 
 effect that such inebriate is lost to self-control, unable, from 
 such inebriation, to attend to business, or is thereby danger- 
 ous to remain at large. But such commitment shall be only 
 until the examination now provided by law shall have been 
 held, and in no case for a longer period than one year. 
 
 Sec. 5. This act shall take effect immediately. 
 
108 LAWS BELATING TO 
 
 OF THE CAEE OF HABITUAL DEUNKAEDS. 
 
 Sec. 1. Whenever the overseers of the poor of any city ot 
 town shall discover any person to be an habitual drunkard, 
 they may by writing under their hands designate and describe 
 such drunkard, and by written notice signed by them, require 
 every merchant, distiller, shop-keeper, grocer, tavern-keeper 
 or other dealer in spirituous liquors, and every other person 
 residing within the city or town where such drunkard shall 
 reside, or in any other city or town near to or adjoining such 
 city or town, not to give or sell under any pretence, any spir- 
 ituous liquors to such drunkard. 
 
 Sec. 2. If, after the personal service of such notice, any 
 such person shall knowingly give or sell in any manner what- 
 ever, spirituous liquors to any such drunkard, except by the 
 personal direction or on the written certificate of some physi- 
 cian, regularly licensed to practice, according to the laws of 
 this State, stating that such liquor is necessary for the pres- 
 ervation or recovery of the health of such drunkard, he shall 
 forfeit for every offence the sum of ten dollars, for the use of 
 the poor of the town where such dnmkard resides. 
 
 Sec. 3. Any person so designated by the overseers of the 
 poor as an habitual drunkard, may apply to any justice of the 
 peace of the city or town in which the person so designated 
 resides, for process to summon a jury to try and determine 
 such fact of drunkenness. 
 
 Sec. 4. On such appHcation, the justice shall immediately 
 give notice thereof in writing to the overseers of the poor, 
 specifying the time and place where the parties shall meet for 
 the trial of such fact, and shall issue a venire to any constable 
 to summon a jury of twelve persons, competent to serve on 
 juries, to appear at the said time and place for the purpose of 
 trying the said fact. 
 
 Sec. 5. Such jury shall be summoned, returned, and six of 
 them shall be balloted for by such justice, and shall be sworn 
 well and truly to try the fact of the alleged drunkenness, in 
 the same manner as for the trial of issues in suits brought 
 before a justice of the peace ; and witnesses shaU be sum- 
 
INEBEIATE ASYLUMS AND HABITUAL PEUSTKAEDS. 109 
 
 moned, and their attendance and testimony enforced, and they 
 shall be sworn and examined before the said jury in like 
 manner. 
 
 Sec. 6. The said jury shall hear the allegations and proofs 
 offered on both sides, and shall proceed in aU respects as in 
 trials at law, to render their yerdict ; which verdict shall be 
 entered by such justice in a book provided by him for the 
 purpose. 
 
 Sec. 7. The said verdict, or an attested copy thereof under 
 the hand of such justice, shall be received and deemed to be 
 presumptive evidence of the fact thereby found, in any action 
 between the overseers of the poor and any person prosecuted 
 by them for the penalty hereinbefore imposed. 
 
 Sec. 8. If by the verdict of the jury it shall be found that 
 the person demanding such trial is an habitual drunkard, the 
 justice shall enter judgment against such person, and award 
 execution for the costs of the overseers of the poor in attend- 
 ing such trial, in the same manner as in suits between indi- 
 viduals, which justices of the peace are authorized to try and 
 determine. 
 
 Sec. 9. If it be found that such person is not an habitual 
 drunkard, such justice shall in like manner enter judgment 
 and award execution for the costs of such person against the 
 said overseers, unless it shall appear to such justice that the 
 said overseers acted in good faith, and had reasonable cause 
 to beKeve such person an habitual drunkard ; in which case 
 no costs shall be awarded against them. 
 
 Sec. 10. The accounts of the overseers of the poor for the 
 expense of defending against any such apphcation shall be 
 audited and allowed in the same manner as the other expenses 
 of such city or town. 
 
 Sec. 11. If at anytime the overseers of the poor shall be 
 satisfied that such drunkard has reformed and become tem- 
 perate, they may revoke and annul any such notice given by 
 them or any of their predecessors in office. 
 
 Sec. 12. Every person upon whom the notice mentioned in 
 section first, title four, chapter twenty, first part of the Re- 
 vised Statutes has been served, shall be liable to the forfeiture 
 
110 LAWS RELATING TO 
 
 prescribed in the second section of the same title, whenever 
 any clerk, agent, or member of the family of such person shall 
 knowingly gire or sell in any manner whatever spirituous 
 liquors to any person designated as an habitual drunkard in 
 the manner mentioned in said first section; except by the 
 personal direction, or on the written certificate of some physi- 
 cian, stating that such liquor is necessary for the preservation 
 or recovery of the health of such dnmkard, as prescribed in 
 such section (1840, chap. 229, sec. 1). 
 
 Sec. 13. Where the parents or guardian of a minor under 
 sixteen years of age, or the master of an apprentice or ser- 
 vant, have been designated by the overseers of the poor as 
 habitual drunkards, no tavern-keeper, grocer, or other person 
 licensed to sell any strong or spirituous liquors or wines, shall 
 sell any such liquors or wines to any such minor, or appren- 
 tice, or servant, without the consent of the overseers of the 
 poor of the city or town where such minor or apprentice or 
 servant shall reside, and whoever shall offend against the pro- 
 visions of this section, shall forfeit the penalty prescribed by 
 section seventeen of title nine of chapter twenty of the first 
 part of the Kevised Statutes, to be recovered by such over- 
 seers of the poor (1840, chap. 229, sec. 2). Whoever shall sell 
 any strong or spirituous liquors, or any wines in any quantity 
 less than five gallons at a time, without having a license there- 
 for granted as herein directed, shall forfeit twenty-five dollars. 
 
 Sec. 14. Whenever the overseers of the poor of any city or 
 town shall discover any person to be an habitual drunkard, 
 they shall by writing, under their hands, designate and de- 
 scribe such drunkard, and perform all the services and duties 
 mentioned and specified in section first of title four of chapter 
 twenty of the first part of the Revised Statutes. 
 
 Inquisitions of lunacy and of habitual drunkenness are 
 analogous to a proceeding in rem. They are pubhc and noto- 
 rious, and are conclusively presumed to be known to those 
 who subsequently deal with the subjects of them. Accord- 
 ingly, where the indorser of a biU of exchange, who had, prior 
 to its maturity, been found an habitual drunkard, by a written 
 instrument made after such finding, and before the appoint- 
 
INEBEIATE ASYLUMS AND HABITUAL DEUNKAEDS. Ill 
 
 ment of a committee, and while sober waived notice of protest, 
 in consequence of which the holder omitted to have notice 
 served. Held that the waiver was void. 
 
 Sales of lands. — The court has no power to order a sale of 
 the drunkard's real estate, unless necessary to raise funds for 
 the support of himself and family. 
 
 All gifts and contracts made by an idiot, lunatic, or habitual 
 drunkard, after the actual finding of an inquisition, are utterly 
 void (4 Coke, 126, book 127 ; 4 Mass., 147 ; Chancery, 1831 ; 
 L'Amoureux v. Crosby, 2 Paige, 422). 
 
 After one has, by inquisition, been found an habitual drunk- 
 ard, the trust of the committee continues without interruption, 
 untU it is vacated or superseded. The drunkard cannot, even 
 in his sober intervals, make contracts to bind himself or his 
 property (2 Paige, 427 ; 14 Pickering, 283 ; Court of Appeals, 
 1853 ; Wadsworth v. Sharpsteen, 8 N. Y. ; 4 Selden, 388). 
 
 Majority. — In relation to every legal question arising in the 
 execution of the commission, a majority of the commissioners 
 must decide. 
 
 Foreclosure. — The committee of an habitual drunkard who 
 holds a mortgage against the estate, cannot, without the sanc- 
 tion of the court, enforce it by proceedings of foreclosm-e 
 under the statute (Chancery, 1832 ; Matter of Carter, 3 Paige, 
 146). 
 
 Accounting. — ^If the committee of an habitual drunkard 
 neglect to file an inventory or account regularly, iu the settle- 
 ment of his accounts, every presumption will be taken most 
 strongly against him. 
 
 Interference hy Strangers. — ^Where a person has wilfully har- 
 bored the drunkard against the wishes of the committee, the 
 proper course is to serve an ex parte order upon such person 
 to deliver him up to the committee, or to cease from harbor- 
 ing him, and from interference with the committee (Chancery, 
 1835, Matter of Lynch, 5 Paige, 120). 
 
112 LAWS RELATING TO 
 
 Superseding. — The court will not discliarge the committee 
 of an habitual drunkard and restore his estate to him, upon 
 mere proof that he is capable at present of managing his 
 affairs. There must be a permanent reformation ; and in gen- 
 eral at least one year's voluntary and total abstinence from 
 intoxicating liquors must be shown (Chancery, 1838, Matter 
 of Hoag, 7 Paige, 312). 
 
 Dealing with the Drunkard. — One having actual notice of 
 pending proceedings on a commission of inquiry against an 
 habitual drunkard, purchased real property of him. Held, a 
 fraud upon the court, and that the conveyance should be set 
 aside (Supreme Court, 1851, Griswold v. Miller, 15 Barb., 520). 
 
 Suit against Committee. — A creditor of an habitual drunkard 
 cannot bring an ordinary action against his committee, to 
 recover a debt or demand against the drunkard. The pro- 
 ceeding by petition, as formerly in a court of equity, is the 
 proper course, unless it is shown that a trial is necessary to 
 settle some disputed question or right ; in which case an order 
 upon cause shown should be obtained, authorizing the bring- 
 ing of an action in the nature of a suit in equity (Supreme 
 Court, Sp. T., 1853, HaU v. Taylor, 8 How. Prac, 428). 
 
 Selling Liquor. — ^If any person is furnishing an habitual 
 drunkard with means of intoxication, the committee should 
 apply to the court for an order restraining aU persons from 
 furnishing the drunkard with ardent spirits or the means of 
 obtaining it, without the sanction of the committee ; and a 
 violation of the order, after notice, will be punished as a con- 
 tempt (Chancery, 1832, Matter of Heller, 3 Paige, 199 ; 1838, 
 Matter of Hoag, 7 Id., 312). 
 
 On violation of such order, the committee shoiild proceed 
 for the contempt (Chan., 1838, Matter of Hoag, 7 Paige, 312). 
 
 What Court to proceed. Proceedings instituted in the Court 
 of Chancery for the appointment of a committee of the per- 
 sons and estates of an habitual drunkard, and pending at the 
 
INEBEIATE ASYLUMS AND HABITUAL DRUNKAEDS. 113 
 
 time the constitution of 1846 went into effect, by force of that 
 constitution became vested in the Supreme Court, and not in 
 the County Court (Supreme Court, 1865, Scribner v. Qual- 
 trough, 44 Barb., 431). 
 
 Hence, iu such a case, an order made by a County Court 
 removing from his office a committee who had been appointed 
 by the Court of Chancery, and appointing another person as 
 such committee, and directing him to sell a portion of the drunk- 
 ard's real estate, and all subsequent proceedings, including a 
 deed from the new committee to the purchaser, are void (lb.). 
 
 Pending Suits. — ^Where, pending a suit brought by a cred- 
 itor to reach the assets of his debtor, the latter is, by pro- 
 ceedings previously commenced in another court, adjudged to 
 be an habitual drunkard, and a committee is appointed of his 
 estate, the plaintiff's proceedings should be stayed ; and if a 
 receiver has been appointed, he should be discharged on pay- 
 ing the moneys in his hands into court (N. Y. Superior Court, 
 Special Term, 1863, Mblo v. Harrison, 9 Bosworth, 668). 
 8 
 
DR. ALFEED SWAINE TAYLOE. 
 
 Dr. Alfeed Swainb Tatloe was born in 1806, and qualified 
 as a medical man in 1828, after studying at Guy's Hospital and 
 in the pi-incipal medical schools of the continent of Europe. 
 In 1831 or 1832 he was appointed Lectui-er on Medical Juris- 
 prudence at Guy's Hospital, an appointment which he held 
 till his resignation in 1878. During this period of forty-six 
 years, Swaine Taylor acquired a great reputation as a medical 
 jurist, ranking with those of Caspar and Tardien. He was 
 connected with most of the great English medico-legal cases 
 for a period of thirty-five years, and was a trusted adviser and 
 chemical expert of the British Government. 
 
 Though not exclusively, it was chiefiy as a toxicologist that 
 Swaine Taylor acquired his great and justly merited reputa- 
 tion, and his name is indissolubly associated with the trial of 
 Terwell for poisoning his misti'ess with prussic acid, and with 
 that of Palmer for the murder of Cook by prussic acid. Tay- 
 lor's " Principles and Practice of Medical Jurisprudence " is a 
 standard British text-book among lawyers and medical men, 
 and his work on " Poisons," though now somewhat out of date, 
 is a valuable work of reference. Eor many years he edited the 
 Medical Gazette, and was an accomplished and. prolific writer. 
 Whatever he undertook, Taylor did well, and being all his life 
 possessed of snfficient means, no pecuniary advantage ever led 
 him to undertake what he had not sufficient time to carry out 
 thoroughly. 
 
 In person Dr. Taylor was tall, erect, and imposing, with a 
 singularly penetrating glance and handsome, dark eyes. His 
 manner was most gracious to students, strangers, and friends ; 
 but he was a bitter and relentless foe to anyone who ventured 
 
R. SWAVNL' TAl'LOR, M. 1). 
 
DE. ALFEED SWAINE TAYLOE. 
 
 to oppose liiin, especially in liis own department of professional 
 practice. As a witness, he was magnificent — cool, suave, posi- 
 tive, and not to be shaken on cross-examination or when op- 
 posed by other distinguished professional opinion. Ilis hatred 
 of lawyers found full vent in his text-books on medical juris- 
 prudence. Those who knew him and saw how he was respected 
 in private life would scarcely suspect how keen and sarcastic he 
 could be to foes. T. S. 
 
 Note by Claek Bkll, Esq. 
 
 This sketch is from the pen of Div Thomas Stevenson, who succeeded 
 Dr. Taylor, and occupied a similar relation to the English Government. 
 The portrait is from a photograph obtained by Dr. Stevenson from the 
 surviving daughter of Dr. Taylor, now living in London. 
 
MENTAL UNSOUNDNESS 
 
 AS AFPECTIlSra TESTAMENTARY CAPACITY. 
 
 BY JACOB SHEADT, LL. B., COUNSELLOR- AT-LAW. * 
 
 The capacity of a testator is to be determined by the law of 
 the domicile. The general rule is that aU are capable of mak- 
 ing a wiU of real estate, except infants, idiots, and persons of 
 unsound mind. Infants may make a will of personal property, 
 the age being eighteen for males, and sixteen for females. 
 Since 1849, married women may also make disposition of their 
 property by wiU. To which has been added by recent statutes 
 the inestimable right of suing and being sued. The great 
 exception which we have to deal with this evening is that of 
 mental incapacity ; the subject may be classified into cases of 
 natural weakness of understanding, and those where defect of 
 intellect supervenes upon and diminishes mental power, in- 
 cluding mania and dementia. It is clear where there is a total 
 absence of mental power, it is impossible that a valid transac- 
 tion can take place. But if there be some understanding, 
 there may be capacity to make a wiU, and this doctrine seems 
 to have been the result of Blackstone's definition of an idiot, 
 viz., one who has no glimmering of reason, cannot tell his own 
 name, or coimt twenty ; so that it follows, if the testator knew 
 enough to comprehend the amount of his property, and the 
 claims of others upon his bounty, he might make a valid wilL 
 
 * Bead before the New York Medico-Legal Society, May 13, 1869. ' 
 
MENTAL UNSOUNDNESS. 115 
 
 The case that goes furthest in this direction, is that of Alice 
 Lispenard, in 26 Wendell, 255. The mental characteristics 
 of Alice were briefly these : she in the first place was men- 
 tioned in her father's will as an imbecile ; was washed and 
 dressed like a child, even when thirty-five years of age; her 
 head wagged from side to side ; she dribbled at the mouth ; 
 had sudden fits of a.nger, so that she would strike children ; 
 would sit for hours in front of a window ; and continued in 
 that position even after the shutters were closed; had a 
 vacant stare ; drank beer and wine, and was often intoxicated, 
 even in the middle of the day. The rule of testamentary ca- 
 pacity adopted in this case was extremely rigorous, and the 
 proposition was sustained that in passing upon the vaKdity of 
 a will, courts do not measure the understanding of the testa- 
 tor, but if he have any at all, and be not an absolute idiot, 
 totally deprived of reason, lie is the lawful disposer of his 
 own property, and his will stands as a reason for his actions. 
 Senator Verplanck, dehvering the leading opinion of the court 
 of last resort, says : " To establish any standard of intellect 
 or information beyond the possession of reason in its lowest 
 degree, as in itself essential to legal capacity, would create 
 endless uncertainty, difficulty, and litigation ; would shake the 
 security of property, and wrest from the aged and infirm that 
 authority over their earnings or savings, which is often their 
 best security against injury and neglect. If you throw aside 
 the old common law test of capacity, then proofs of wild spec- 
 ulations, or extravagant and peculiar opinions, or of the for- 
 getfulness, or the prejudices of old age, might be sufiicient to 
 shake the fairest conveyance or impeach the most equitable 
 will. The law, therefore, in fixing the standard of positive 
 legal competency, has taken a low standard of capacity ; but 
 it is a clear and definite one, and therefore wise and safe ; it 
 holds, in the language of Shelford, the latest English commen- 
 tator, that weak minds differ from strong ones only in the 
 extent and power of their faculties ; but unless they betray a 
 total loss of understanding, or idiocy, or delusion, they cannot 
 properly be considered unsound. The right of testamentary 
 disposition is regarded as a common and natural right, to be 
 
116 MENTAL UNSOUNTDNESS 
 
 restricted no further than public policy, and the necessary 
 evidence of intent and consent, absolutely require. When the 
 testator is shown to possess such a rational capacity as the 
 great majority of men possess, that is sufficient to establish his 
 will; when this can be truly predicated, bare execution is 
 sufficient, no matter how arbitrary its provisions, or how hard 
 and unequal may be its operation on his family. On the other 
 hand, when a total deprivation of reason is shown, whether 
 from birth, as in idiocy, or ficom the entire subsequent over- 
 throw of the understanding, whether permanently or existing 
 only at the time of execution, further inquiry is needless ; the 
 will is itself a nullity, however just and prudent in its pro- 
 visions, and with whatever fairness of intention it may have 
 been obtained by weU-meaning friends. That intermediate 
 class who fall below the most ordinary standard of sound and 
 healthy minds, whether from the partial disease of one faculty, 
 or the general dulness and torpor of the understanding, are 
 not on that account interdicted from the common right of 
 citizens, and least of aU from that of testamentary disposal. 
 But their defect of intellect may furnish the most essential 
 and powerful evidence, in union with other proof, that some 
 particular will or codicil was obtained by fraud and delusion : 
 that it had not the consent of the will' and understanding, and 
 was not executed by one who in that respect was of a sound 
 and disposing mind and memory. As in the former class of 
 cases, there is a general legal disability, because the party, from 
 total imsoundness of mind and memory, is unable to consent 
 with understanding to any legal act whatever, so in the latter 
 instance there may be shown an absence of consent to the 
 particular will from inability to comprehend its effect and 
 nature." 
 
 But this doctrine is overruled, or at least modified in the 
 Parish WiU Case. In the language of the opinion derived 
 from various high authorities, the testator must have sufficient 
 capacity to comprehend perfectly the condition of his prop- 
 erty, his relations to the persons who were, or should, or 
 might, have been the objects of his bounty, and the scope and 
 bearing of the provisions of his will. He must have sufficient 
 
AS AFFECTING TESTAMENTAEY CAPACITY. 11 '/ 
 
 active memory to collect in his miad, witlioiit prompting, the 
 particulars or elements of the business to be transacted, and 
 to hold them in his mind a sufficient length of time, to per- 
 ceive at least their active relations to each other, and to be 
 able to form some rational judgment in relation to them. 
 The facts of the Parish WiU Case are as foUows : 
 Mr. Parish first made his will on the 20th day of Septem- 
 ber, 1842. He was then fifty-foui- years of age, in good health, 
 and in the fuU possession of ^ all his faculties. He was mar- 
 ried, but had no child, and none were ever bom to him. Of 
 the immediate relatives of his own blood, two sisters and two 
 brothers were then Hving. His property at that time was 
 estimated at $732,879. By the will he bequeathed to his wife 
 $331,000, or nearly half of his whole estate. Upon the 19 th 
 of July, 1849, Mr. Parish was prostrated by an attack of apo- 
 plexy ; whether, after this attack, he ever possessed testamen- 
 tary capacity was the chief point at issue. After this attack, 
 three codicils to his wiU were prepared by Mrs. Parish, and 
 executed, he giving his assent by making signs, which were 
 interpreted by her, the coiinsel guiding his hand while he 
 made his mark. The greater part of the voluminous testi- 
 mony taken in the case had reference to the mental condition 
 of the testator, of which the following are the essential feat- 
 ures, and those which seem to have exerted most influence in 
 the decision of the court. The alleged loss of understanding 
 on the part of Mr. Parish was dependent upon physical dis- 
 ease. He had had threatening of cerebral disturbance for 
 several years before his attack of apoplexy and paralysis in 
 1 849, and had hereditary tendency to disorders of that nature. 
 The shock of his final attack rendered him insensible and con- 
 vulsed for several hours. It was soon discovered that his 
 right side was paralyzed, imphcating the right arm and leg 
 and the organs of speech. He subsequently acquired a shght 
 control over the right leg, but the arm, which improved some- 
 what for the first six months immediately succeeding the at- 
 tack, afterwards entirely lost its power. The left arm and leg 
 were not permanently affected by the paralysis. It is stated 
 that Mr. Parish recovered in a considerable degree his strength 
 
118 MENTAL UNSOUNDNESS 
 
 after the first shock, and that during the remaining seven years 
 of his hfe, he enjoyed good, but not uninterrupted health. He 
 suffered from a severe and painful disease of the bowels ia 
 October, 1849 ; subsequently, he had a number of attacks dis- 
 tinct from, the general disease ; but the most frequent was 
 dependent upon its cause, viz., the condition of the brain 
 which led to the disease. He had one or more attacks of 
 cholera morbus ; one or more of inflammation of the lungs ; 
 an abscess formed at one time imder the jaw, and threatened 
 suffocation. His power of speech was mainly abrogated on 
 his first attack, and from that time to his death, he was never 
 able to utter anything, except a few imperfectly articulated 
 monosyllables. These were principally yes and no, which he 
 pronounced very imperfectly ; and there is even great doubt 
 whether he ever uttered them iatelHgibly. He expressed him- 
 self most frequently by the use of inarticulate sounds. These 
 are described by the witnesses as sounds resembling yali, yah, 
 yah, nyeh, nise, yeah, and others of a similar character. He 
 accompanied these sounds by gestures, and motions of the 
 left hand and arm, and by nodding or shaking liis head. The 
 gestures usually consisted in his waving his hand in different 
 directions -with his fingers extended, putting his fingers in his 
 mouth, or raising his hand and shaking it. 
 
 The external senses, feehng, hearing, and smelling, do not 
 appear to have been seriously affected. His eyesight was 
 never very good. He would occasionally look at books and 
 papers, but the preponderating evidence was, that he could 
 not read at all. An attempt was made to induce him to write 
 with his left hand, but after several trials, resulting in his 
 copying the first few letters of his name in very doubtful char- 
 acters, the attempt was abandoned. Block letters were pro- 
 cured, but he would not use them, and pushed them away. 
 He could not supply his own wants, and was washed and 
 dressed, and attended at table Uke a child, and was frequently 
 ■unable to control his evacuations. 
 
 Before his attack, Mr. Parish is described by his relatives 
 and acquaintances as a placid and unexcitable man of great 
 self-respect, and with great command of. temper ; his manners 
 
AS APFECTING TESTAMENTARY CAPACITY. 119 
 
 were raild, gentle, and unruffled ; a quiet undemonstrative gen- 
 tleman, rarely exhibiting any emotion, and deeply absorbed 
 in his commercial transactions. After his attack, he mani- 
 fested a marked change of disposition ; he occasionally shed 
 tears; he became petulant, and frequently violent; and in 
 several instances exhibited a want of appreciation of the re- 
 quirements of decorum and even of decency. He exhibited 
 some recollection of his former daily and familiar places of 
 resort, and of his former habits of business, which he would 
 attempt in trifling matters to resume, as by pulling out his 
 watch when he passed the City Hall clock, or insisting, when 
 driven out, upon being taken to the bank of which he was once 
 a director, or to his old office, or to various merchants with 
 whom he had been in the habit of dealing. 
 
 It was said by one witness : " Having been riding out of 
 the city, he would take his watch out of his pocket, look at it, 
 turn round and look at me, when I would ask him if he wished 
 to return ; if it was late, or about his usual drive, he would 
 say yes, and nod his bead." 
 
 Elsewhere the same witness says : " I recollect on one occa- 
 sion the dining-room clock was run down ; when he pointed at 
 the clock, I perceived that it had stopped, and remarked to 
 him that it had stopped and I would wind it up, when he 
 nodded liis head." 
 
 An old acquaintance testified that he recalled to Mr. Parish 
 a ridiculous circumstance that had happened to them in com- 
 pany many years before, and that Mr. Parish gave him to 
 understand that he recollected the circumstance and laughed 
 at it quite heartily. 
 
 These instances, however, of which the above are specimens, 
 were isolated, and, taken together, were not deemed of suffi- 
 cient significance to avoid the conclusion derived from the 
 facts before stated. After referring to the testator's failure to 
 oommiinicate by writing, or by the use of any artificial means. 
 Judge Davies states the final conclusions as follows : " To 
 what result does this review of the facts and circumstances in 
 this case, adverted to and commented on, lead the mind? On 
 a careful consideration of them all, with a most anxious desire 
 
120 MENTAL UNSOUNDNESS 
 
 to arriTe at a just and correct conclusion, we are clearly of the 
 opinion that the attack of Mr. Parish, on the 19th of July, 
 1849, extinguished his intellectual powers, and so obUterated 
 and blotted out his mental faculties, that after that period he 
 was not a man of sound mind and memory, within the mean- 
 ing and language of the statute, and was, therefore, incompet- 
 ent to make a will." 
 
 The late Dr. John Watson wrote an elaborate opinion on 
 the case, and concludes by saying that the organic disease of 
 the braiu was the determining cause of aU Mr. Parish's ail- 
 ments ; and that the loss of control of his body and limbs, 
 with the various complications of disease attending this, was 
 merely the external evidence of an internal disorganization 
 involving the functions of the mind and body, and destroying 
 the integrity of the former. Consequently, that Mr. Parish 
 was, from the primary occurrence of paralysis in July, 1849, 
 permanently disabled from executiag any document of blading 
 force. 
 
 Opinions were also given by Dr. D. T. Brown, of Blooming- 
 dale Asylum, Dr. Luther Y. Bell, Sir Henry Holland, and 
 others, equally conclusive, that the testator, from organic 
 disease of the brain, was mentally incapable of execirting a 
 wiU. The only opposing opinion was from Prof. Alonzo 
 Clark, whose objections were fuUy answered by Dr. Wat- 
 son. 
 
 A will made by one who is at the time under the influence 
 of intoxicating liquors, is not for that reason void. To avoid 
 such a win it must.be proved that the testator was so excited 
 by liquor, or that he so conducted himself during the particu- 
 lar act, as to be at the moment legally disqualified from giving 
 effect to it (Peck v. Cary, 27 N. Y., 9 ; Julke v. Adam, N. Y. 
 Surr., 1 Eedf., 454). 
 
 In cases of mania, if the faculties be all disordered, the wiU 
 will be void — if only a single faculty, as in monomania, it is 
 not fully settled what the result would be. Weight ought per- 
 haps to be given to the suggestion that monomania is only .the 
 incipient manifestation of a disorder which wiU disturb all the 
 mental powers ; at all events, it is settled, that should the 
 
AS AFFECTING TESTAMENTAKY CAPACITY. 121 
 
 delusion affect the very subject matter of the will, then the 
 instrument is void. 
 
 A testator was subject to two delusions ; one, that a man 
 who had been dead for some years pursued and molested him, 
 and the other, that he was pursued by evil spirits whom he 
 believed to be visibly present. It was admitted that at times 
 he was so insane as to be incapable of making a will. Held, 
 that the existence of a delusion compatible with the retention 
 of the general powers and facilities of the mindwiU not be suf- 
 ficient to overthrow the will, unless it were such as was calcu- 
 lated to influence the testator in making it (Banks v. Good- 
 feUow, 5 Q. B., 549, American Law Review, vol. 5, p. 302). 
 
 The most difficult cases occur when the mind is impaired 
 by disease or old age. The questions arising in these cases 
 are the more troublesome, because mental diseases are gener- 
 ally slow and gradual — the outward appearance of the diseased 
 person does not change ; and, although the mind is weakened, 
 the memory of the past is unimpaired. The great test of 
 capacity is an examination of the judgment and the strength 
 of the will ; and to inquire whether the sensibihties are unnat- 
 urally affected. Thus, if a testator makes an unnatural wiU ; 
 or cannot count money, and readily submits to the dictation 
 of others, and abandons to them the management of his prop- 
 erty ; or if he weeps without adequate cause, the inference 
 may well be drawn that his mind is impaired, according to the 
 presence or absence of these appearances. 
 
 Deafness will also be important to repel any presumption 
 that he may have heard the will read to him. The above facts 
 may not prove a total loss of intellect, but may only show that 
 however greatly it is impaired, capacity to make a will may 
 stUl exist, if the testator is left to himself. If, however, there 
 be any suspicious circumstances attending the execution of 
 the will, showing attempts to practise on the testator's weak- 
 ness, then it will be void unless satisfactory explanation is given 
 to the court (Bates v. Bates, 27 Iowa, p. 110). Some of these 
 suspicious circumstances are, that the will is in the handwrit- 
 ing of the principal legatee, and that such legatee holds a 
 fiduciary relation to the testator. Another suspicious circum- 
 
122 MENTAL UNSOUNDNESS 
 
 stance is, that the will has been ccmeealed from the relatives, 
 or that it dififers greatly from former wiUs, or from previous or 
 subsequently explained intentions. Such circumstances can 
 be explained by clear proof of the intentions of the testator, 
 such as that he gave instructions to the attorney who drew 
 the will, or that the wiU was distinctly read over to him ; 
 and even these wiU not always do where there is proof of 
 fraud. 
 
 From the opinion of Judge Denio, in the Hopper WiU Case 
 (33 N. Y., 619), it seems that on questions of testamentary 
 capacity courts should be careful not to confound perverse 
 opinions and unreasonable prejudices with mental alienation. 
 The true test of insanity affecting testamentary capacity, aside 
 from cases of dementia (or loss of mind and intellect), is men- 
 tal delusion. A person persistently beheving supposed facts 
 which have no real existence against all evidence and proba- 
 bility, and conducting himself upon the assumption of their 
 existence, is, so far as such facts are concerned, under an 
 insane delusion. If a testator, at the time of making his will, 
 is laboring under any such delusion, in respect to those who 
 would naturally have been the objects of his testamentary 
 bounty, and the court can see that the dispository provisions 
 were or might have been caused or affected by such delusion, 
 then such instrument is not to be deemed his wiU.* The 
 great difficulty which arises in all cases of mental diseases, as 
 seen from the above cases, is to fix some standard by which 
 the sanity or insanity of the testator may be satisfactorily 
 determined. This is a difficidty which seems to me almost 
 insurmountable, for the simple reason that it is impossible for 
 the most skillful experts to determine always where insanity 
 begins and sanity ends. 
 
 I find in Edmond's Select Oases, vol. 1, p. 35, a definition 
 by the Judge which I -wiR insert in conclusion of this paper, 
 as it seems to me to be quite a correct one, looking at it from 
 a logical point of view. A sane man is one 
 
 1. "Whose senses bear truthful evidence. 
 
 * Shelford on Lunacy, p. 389 ; Florey «. Florey, 24 Ala., 341 ; Cotton et al 
 V. Ulmer, 45 Ala., 378. 
 
AS AEFECTING TESTAMENTABY CAPACITY. 12S 
 
 2. Whose understanding is capable of receiving that evi- 
 dence. 
 
 3. Whose reason can draw proper conclusions from the 
 truthful evidence thus received. 
 
 4. Whose wOl can guide the thought thus obtained. 
 
 5. Whose moral sense can tell the right and wrong growing 
 out of that thought. 
 
 6. And whose act can at his own pleasure be in conformity 
 with the action of all these quahties. 
 
 All these things unite to make sanity, the absence of any 
 me of them makes insanity. 
 
Al^AIiYSIS OF THE EYIDENCE 
 
 Stennecke Alleged Poisoning Case.* 
 
 One of the latest of the many cases which have engaged the 
 attention of the New York Medico-Legal Society, is that of 
 Dr. Paul Schceppe, of Carlisle, Pennsylvania, indicted and 
 convicted of murder in the first degree, by causing the death 
 of Maria M. Stennecke by administering poison to her. The 
 particular kind of poison alleged to have been given is a mere 
 matter of theoretical speculation among the witnesses. The 
 first witness upon this point, a lady boarding at the same 
 hotel, says that the deceased told her that the Doctor had 
 given her something to make her sleep, but that the Doctor 
 denied it. This witness further testifies that two or three 
 hours after Miss Stennecke had taken two gi'ains of tartar 
 emetic with ten grains of ipecacuanha, and had vomited, she 
 found her so weak and drowsy that she got the impression 
 that she was under the influence of morphine. Several wit- 
 nesses testify to the rather sudden appearance of weakness 
 and drowsiness after the operation of the emetic given about 
 11 A.M. on the 27th, but none of them state that it was more 
 than drowsiness for the first nine or ten hours. No one testi- 
 fies that any other medicine whatever was given. The patient 
 was seen in this somnolent condition by one of the witnesses 
 
 * Eead before the New York Medico-Legal Society, July 33, 1869. 
 
IN THE STENNECKE ALLEGED POISONING CASE. 125 
 
 about 7 or 8 p.m., but slie was then able to get up and undress 
 herself. Hearsay testimony also says that about this same 
 hour she engaged in couTersation. A little later, however, 
 perhaps an hour, a knock at the door, followed by a call of 
 her name, was not responded to, and we have no farther his- 
 tory of the case till the following morning about six o'clock, 
 when she was found in a state of deep coma from which she 
 was never aroused. Hearsay testimony states that, when last 
 seen by the Doctor between 8 and 9 p.m., she complained of 
 feeling weak and tired, and on that account preferred to leave 
 her door unlocked for the night rather than to rise and 
 lock it. 
 
 No one is known to have visited her after this hour, till the 
 servant entered the room at six the next morning, and found 
 her ia the state above described. The Doctor was then sent 
 for, came in great haste, and apparently manifested deep 
 anxiety as to the condition of the patient, asking at once that 
 a consultation be called, feeling himself unable to decide alone 
 upon the proper course of treatment. 
 
 The consulting physician had no advice to give as to treat- 
 ment, thiaking the case already hopeless. He was not even 
 able to satisfy himself as to the diagnosis. He however, by a 
 process of reflection, and unusual reasoning, subsequently 
 came to the conclusion that it was a case of poisoning by a 
 compound of prussic acid, opium, and corrosive subhmate, 
 because the symptoms and the countenance of the patient "just 
 put him mind of a chicken-hawk " that he poisoned with such 
 a compound more than thirty years before. This testimony — 
 strange to relate — set on foot an investigation which resulted 
 in the production of two druggists who had sold prussic acid 
 to the Doctor, as they had often done to other physicians in 
 that part of the country, but no evidence is offered that he had 
 bought more than two lots of it during any recent period, and 
 one of these it appears in evidence was a worthless specimen, 
 making it necessary to get a second sample. No ante-mortem 
 noi" post-mortem evidence that the patient took any prus- 
 sic acid is, however, produced. Rumors, originating perhaps 
 from the same source that this remarkable testimony did, 
 
126 ANALYSIS OF THE EVIDENCE 
 
 induced an especial examination of the stomacli after deatL, 
 by a professor of chemistry, who stated that by two tests he 
 had detected a "faint trace " of prussic acid. Two equally 
 competent chemists, however, swear that the tests employed 
 by the professor were insufficient, and bis conclusions without 
 foundation. 
 
 The testimony on this poison was, therefore, ruled out. 
 There is no pretense that the remaining poisons, given to the 
 chicken-hawk, were employed in this case. Neither corrosive 
 sublimate nor the salts of morphia were fotrnd by the post- 
 mortem chemical examination thirteen days after death. AE 
 the remaining direct evidence in the case, amounting to some 
 six or seven witnesses, is as to the cause of death, and founded 
 upon a hypothetical case read to the witnesses. The hypothe- 
 sis was very properly objected to by the prisoner's attorney, 
 on the ground that it did not correspond to the case of Miss 
 Stennecke. The testimony upon it amounted to an opinion 
 that, if accurate, death did not take place from natural causes. 
 The post-mortem record, upon which this conclusion of these 
 witnesses was founded, is that " the vessels of the pia nater 
 were gorged with fluid blood ; " there " was a large amount of 
 blood in the cranium," which the witness could not account 
 for, or " how it came there ; " thought it " could not have 
 been by hemorrhage, because there was no clot." He " did 
 not discover any evidence of ante-mortem blood," therefore 
 he must have regarded the large amount of blood as a post- 
 mortem accumulation; in short, the witness, who was the 
 physician who made the post-mortem examination, found no 
 evidence to convince him that apoplexy of any kind had 
 existed. 
 
 He also stated that " the fourth ventricle was torn through 
 by its softening, before the cord was cut which attaches it to 
 the spinal column." Upon this point another medical wit- 
 ness who assisted at the post-mortem, testifies that " a 
 part of the brain was softened, but he coidd not say which 
 part." 
 
 However important this condition might be regarded by 
 most pathologists, it was not so estimated by these witnesses, 
 
IN THE STENNECKE ALLEGED POISONING CASE. 127 
 
 for they both declare under oath that they found no lesion 
 sufficient to account for death. 
 
 The organs of the chest were found he'althy, as weU as those 
 of the abdomen, except the kidneys, which were not examined, 
 that being " deemed unnecessary." When degenerative dis- 
 ease of the kidneys was suggested to this witness, he said that 
 " he did not examine the kidneys, because there were no 
 other evidences of Bright's disease, or other disease of the 
 kidney, which,^ had they been present, would certainly have 
 attracted his attention ; " and that "the chief of those evi- 
 dences were the oedema and ammoniacal odor which attend 
 that disease both before death and after, and are so promi- 
 nent when found as to attract the attention of any medical 
 man." " Any microscopical examination of the kidneys 
 would have been useless at that period after death." This 
 vidtness, however, again appears upon the stand at his own 
 request, to state that he made a mistake as to the necessary 
 presence of oedema, ammoniacal odor, and exudation into the 
 cavities in cases of Bright's or other serious disease of the 
 kidneys ; that he remembers one of his own cases in which 
 they did not exist. Several other medical witnesses testify 
 that these evidences of grave kidney disease are often entirely 
 absent. Upon this evidence it is claimed by the prosecution 
 that the fatal coma cannot be attributed to renal disease. 
 Chemical tests were applied to the stomach and a piece of the 
 intestine only. 
 
 The circumstantial evidence in the case is furnished by the 
 following history. 
 
 Dr. Schoeppe is a comparatively young man (though his 
 exact age is not stated), and, if we are to judge from the evi- 
 dence, he was, during the latter part of 1868 and the begin- 
 ning of 1869, very poor. Miss Stennecke, on the contrary, 
 was a maiden of sixty-five years and upwards, and, according 
 to the testimony of the attorney, was worth about 145,000. 
 During the summer of 1868, she went from Baltimore, her 
 place of residence, to Carlisle — ^for what purpose is not known, 
 but probably to pass the summer — and while there became 
 acquainted with Dr. Schoeppe. We are not positively in- 
 
128 ANALYSIS OF THE EVIDENCE 
 
 formed of tlie manner of tMs acquaintance, but it is presumed 
 that it was professional in the beginning, though, according to 
 the published correspondence at a subsequent date, after she 
 had returned to Baltimore, this acquaintance had grown into 
 social intimacy and personal feeling, and apparently mutual 
 interest. By the published correspondence put in evidence, it 
 also appears that among the professional items which Miss 
 Stennecke communicated to her friend, the Carlisle doctor, 
 was an account of the treatment by some oculist of Baltimore 
 for some aifection of vision. It also appears in the same cor- 
 respondence that, in the way of friendly confidence, the Doctor 
 had stated to her that he could make some very satisfactory- 
 business arrangements and add much to his happiness if he 
 could but raise $2,000, but in the absence of all immediate pros- 
 pects of being able to do so, he resigned himself to the will of 
 Divine Providence. This occurrence has been interpreted and 
 uniformly represented as a request on the part of the Doctor 
 to Miss Stennecke to loan him $5,000. If he ever made such 
 request, it was on some other occasion. 
 
 The most that can be made out of this is a hint that $2,000 
 or even $5,000 doUars would be useful to him. Whether to 
 especially gratify him by pecuniary aid, or for some other pur- 
 pose, we are not informed, it appears that soon after the 
 receipt of the letter conveying this notice of the Doctor's 
 financial wishes, Miss Stennecke returned from Baltimore to 
 CarUsle, and continuing her intimacy with the Doctor, finally, 
 under date of January 14, 1869, advanced him a $1,000 bond, 
 as part of the five thousand doUars she promised to give him 
 as a wedding present, if you please so to call it. 
 
 This, according to the evidence, she preferred to do, rather 
 than to give him the control of her property, for it appears that 
 this control she positively retained by the terms of the mar- 
 riage contract, and stiU further in proof that she did so, is the 
 fact that on the same date of this transaction, she made a 
 will disposing of her property in case of her death. Just at 
 this critical period, before the Doctor's business arrangements 
 were perfected, and before the projected marriage, she sudden- 
 ly sickened and died, with symptoms which excited suspicion 
 
IN THE STENNECKE AULEGED POISONING CASE. 129 
 
 that either a crime or a mistake has been committed. The 
 only dose of medicine she is known to have taken, was given 
 to her by the Doctor at about 11 a.m. on the 27th of January, 
 and is said to have been the emetic already mentioned. The 
 day after her death, the Doctor presented a check for fifty 
 dollars, signed by Miss Stennecke, for payment at her bank, 
 and its genuineness was questioned, though it was paid. A few 
 days later, a will, purporting to be the last will of Miss M. 
 Stennecke, appeared in the possession of the Doctor, and he 
 was by it made sole heir to and executor of her estate. This 
 was also regarded by interested parties as a forgery. As the 
 indictment was for murder and not for forgery, evidence 
 upon this point was not admissible, so that we have no 
 means of knowing which of the two wills, one made in favor 
 of Dr. Schoeppe on the 3d of December, 1868, and the other 
 we have already alluded to, made January 14, 1869, was the 
 more likely to be ' genuine. The testatrix died on the 28th 
 January, 1869, about thirty hours after she began to complain, 
 and if we judge from the printed testimony, it is quite as 
 likely that she died from some of the forms of apoplexy, urae- 
 mia, or cerebral embolism, as of narcotic poisoning. Her 
 remains were buried in Baltimore, the place of her residence. 
 Dr. Schoeppe accompanying them to the grave. Nearly two 
 weeks after their interment they were exhumed, and a very 
 careless and umisual examination of the body was made, in 
 the absence of a coroner or other civil ofEcer, so far as is 
 known, and without the Doctor having any notification so as 
 to give him an opportunity to be represented in the proceed- 
 ing. The few portions of the body taken by the chemist for 
 examination were very carelessly guarded, and easy of access 
 to those who might have been disposed to impregnate them 
 with poisonous substances, and were finally reported to fur- 
 nish a "faint trace " of prussic acid, a report ruled out 
 by the court as worthless. Finally, all agree that the post- 
 mortem examination, including the chemical testing, was so 
 imperfectly, and loosely, and carelessly, and illegally done, 
 as to render it totally unreliable and unworthy of considera- 
 tion. Nothing was found to sustain the charge that the 
 
130 ANALYSIS OP THE EVIDENCE 
 
 patient had been poisoned, and most important points of an 
 examination to determine whether death had occurred from 
 disease were omitted. 
 
 These are the chief featm-es of the testimony of this extra- 
 ordinary case as presented in a printed form to this Society 
 for its consideration, and for a report upon its merits as they 
 might appear to the Society. 
 
 The following is the Society's report : 
 
 EEPOBT OP COMMITTEE. 
 
 The undersigned Committee, appointed by the New York 
 Medico-Legal Society for the especial purpose, having atten- 
 tively examined the printed testimony in the case of the Com- 
 monwealth of the State of Pennsylvania against Dr. Paul 
 Schceppe, of Carlisle, who was recently found guilty by a jury 
 of causing the death of Miss Maria M. Stennecke, by admin- 
 isteriag poison to her, respectfully submit the following report 
 thereon. 
 
 From the tenor of the evidence, it seems that the prosecu- 
 tion assumed that the deceased was in the enjoyment of good 
 health up to the morning of the 27th of January, 1869 {See 
 Smith's Testimony, p. 1. This assumption, however, is not 
 sustained by the testimony, it appearing in evidence that she 
 had been under the professional charge of the Doctor during 
 a part of the previous summer, and had corresponded with 
 him about her health from Baltimore just before her return to 
 Carlisle, late in the year {See letter, p. 17). By this letter it 
 appears that during her absence from Carlisle she had sought 
 the advice and care of an oculist in Baltimore, on account of 
 an affection of her eyes, impairing her vision. The same cor- 
 respondence alludes to the state of her digestive organs in 
 such language as to clearly show that she had suffered de- 
 rangement of them, and in fact the Doctor's apprehensions 
 expressed in the same letter, that her apparent improvement 
 in this respect might be transitory, seems to have been real- 
 ized on the 27th of January, when she was engaged in trying 
 to walk off the feeling of oppression consequent upon over-eat- 
 ing, a condition which finally led to her taking an emetic {Seei 
 
IN THE STENNECKE ALLEGED POISONING CASE. 131 
 
 Drew's Testimony, p. 4 and 5). These facts as to tlie general 
 healtli of Miss Stennecke for a number of months ending Janu- 
 ary 27, 1869, when taken into account with the sudden occur- 
 rence of serious brain derangement on that day, which finally 
 terminated fatally, are regarded by the Committee as, under 
 the circumstances to be presently alluded to, very strongly 
 suggestive that renal disease existed. We wholly agree with 
 some of the witnesses in the case, that the symptoms of al- 
 leged poisoning presented by the deceased, were all of them 
 those well-known to attend some forms of fatal disease of the 
 kidneys. It is, therefore, very much to be regretted that the 
 interests of individuals, of science, and of truth were sacrificed 
 by a neglect, on the part of the physicians \\'ho conducted the 
 post-mortem examination, to examine the kidneys and any 
 urine the bladder might have contained- According to the 
 evidence, it appears most probable that an examiaation of 
 these organs at the post-mortem would have furnished a key 
 to most, if not all, of the mystery which seems to have sur- 
 rounded the fatal illness of this woman. But this very grave 
 neglect having occurred, we are unanimous in the opinion that 
 a safe judgment as to the real cause of death in the case can- 
 not be formed from the testimony produced. Mr. Hepburn's 
 statement that the " post-mortem examiaation was not carried 
 to such an extent as would permit any one to say that death 
 did not result from natural causes," is, in our opinion, unques- 
 tionably true. See p. 47. 
 
 The want of the information which the examination of the 
 urine in this case wotild perhaps have furnished ; the omission 
 to examine the kidneys, at the time of the post-mortem, and 
 other omissions to examine vital organs, both by the eye and 
 by chemical agents ; and especially the neglect to apply all 
 appropriate tests to the substance of the brain, whose affinities 
 for and slow elimination of toxical agents, are so well known 
 and so readily made available for purposes of scientific inquiry, 
 are omissions and defects which open the way to so much doiibt 
 and embarrass the history with so much ignorance, that the 
 question of either accidental or criminal poisoning in the case 
 cannot in our opinion, under the evidence, be taken into seri- 
 
132 ANALYSIS OF THE EYIDENCE 
 
 ous consideration. In tliis connection, however, "we deem it 
 proper to call attention to the status this question of poison 
 enjoyed during the trial. His Honor the Judge, in his charge 
 to the jury, upon the points presented by the prisoner's coun- 
 sel, instructed them to "lay the question of death from prus- 
 sic acid aside so far as it was affected by the testimony " of 
 the only witness who expressed a reasonable opinion that it 
 was or ever had been present in the stomach of the deceased. 
 This, it seems to us, effectually settles the question of death 
 from pmssic acid, and leaves only that of death from mor- 
 phine for us to remark upon. But we do not find the slight- 
 est proof, either post-mortem or ante-mortem, that Miss 
 Stennecke took this substance during her fatal illness. As to 
 the purely theoretical and speculative testimony of some of 
 the witnesses, that the symptoms presented during the last 
 hours of hfe were like those produced by morphine or opium, 
 or like those produced by a combination of those substances 
 with prussic acid, we deem it, under the evidence, as not only 
 totally unworthy of juridical regard, but as in the highest 
 degree disgraceful to the profession which produced it. We 
 would so especially emphasize that of the witness Herman. 
 See p. 8. In respect to the expert testimony of the witnesses 
 Dale, Halderman, Crowman, Keiffer, and Zeigler, we regard 
 it as entirely inadmissible, because it either was hearsay evi- 
 dence, or testimony based upon the findings of a post-mortem 
 examination which, we have seen, was partial, and totally 
 valueless for any scientific or legal purpose. The total failure 
 to detect any kind of poison after death, as well as the entire 
 absence of proof that any kind of poison was administered, 
 together vnth the fact that the proper means were not em- 
 ployed to ascertain if death did not take place from natural 
 causes, and that the fatal symptoms were not from disease, 
 in our opinion, render conviction upon this indictment im- 
 possible. 
 
 With this appreciation of the testimony thus far reviewed, 
 the Committee cannot but regard the circumstance of Dr. 
 Schceppe's interest in the estate of the deceased as most 
 unfortunate ; for, without that complication, no intelligent and 
 
IN THE STENNECKE ALLEGED POISONING CASE. 133 
 
 attentive jury could, in our opinion, upon all tlie other points 
 of the evidence, have for a moment entertained the idea of his 
 guilt. His conviction, therefore, forced the Committee to the 
 conclusion that, in rendering this verdict, the jury failed to 
 properly comprehend the important legal truth so clearly pre- 
 sented by the Court in its charge, " that motives cannot be used 
 to determine the primary question that a crime has been com- 
 mitted." In conclusion, we express the hope that this case 
 may be again laid before a jury, who, though Dr. Schceppe 
 may have had an apparent motive for the commission of an 
 alleged crime, will not convict him tiU they first prove that 
 the crime has been committed (which, in our opinion, has not 
 yet been done), and then that he committed it, which is still 
 farther from being proved by the evidence thus far offered. 
 
 "While the Committee are very decided and unanimous in 
 these views as to the proofs offered in support of the charges 
 of the indictment, they feel called upon, by a sense of obliga- 
 tion to defend justice generally, to make the following remarks 
 upon the circumstantial evidence. First, as to the check of 
 fifty doUars, purporting to have been drawn in favor of Dr. 
 Schceppe by the deceased a short time before death, and pre- 
 sented for payment the day following that event. We regard 
 the testimony presented, as to the genuineness of this paper, 
 as damaging to the general character of the Doctor for truth 
 and veracity ; but we are unable to see the slightest reason 
 for the supposition that, if a forgery, it was not committed 
 after the death of Miss Stennecke, and after every proper and 
 faithful effort, ia consultation, had been made by the Doctor 
 to save her life. If we are to be guided by the evidence, he 
 certainly had every rational motive to prolong the life of this 
 lady for some months at least, for, by so doing, he would evi- 
 dently have had less difficulty in obtaining money than in 
 case of her death. There seems to be no reason to doubt 
 that while aMve she was willing to furnish him with all the 
 money he required to execute any business plans, and that he 
 knew she was so disposed, and was able to do so. As respects 
 the wUl, purporting to have been drawn and executed on the 
 third of December, 1868, we find no more evidence of its 
 
134 STENNECKE ALLEGED POISONING CASE. 
 
 haying been drawn anterior to tlie death of Miss Stennecke, 
 than we do that the check was. The onlj evidence we find, 
 aside from the figures on the face of the document relating to 
 its date, is furnished by the witness Adair, who testifies that 
 either before Thanksgiving or Christmas, Dr. Schceppe copied 
 a, form of will from a book lent him for that purpose by this 
 witness. Whether this copy was obtained during the latter 
 part of November or of December is therefore uncertain, but 
 to us that point seems unimportant, for there appears more 
 reason to suppose that it was employed after the death of the 
 testatrix, than that she ever had any knowledge of it. As to 
 the circumstantial evidence, therefore, while it is in our opin- 
 ion very prejudicial to the general character of the accused, 
 we regard it as post-mortem in its relations, and not in the 
 least available on the charges of the indictment. 
 
 Stephen Eogebs, M. D. 
 
 J. C. MOETON, M. D. 
 
 E. H. M. Sell, M. D. 
 
 I. F. Chauveau, M. D. 
 
 Jacob Shkady, LL.B., CounseUor-at-law. 
 
 Note. — This report was followed by many similar ones from medical soci- 
 eties and from medico-legal writers in this counti-y and in Europe, and as a con- 
 quence, it is believed, the Governor of Pennsylvania withheld his signature 
 from the execution, and. after being in prison about two years subsequent 
 to his sentence, Schceppe was put upon his second trial, under the provisions 
 of two acts of the Legislature of that State, passed for his especial benefit. 
 
 First. A general law giving all persons convicted of homicide the right to 
 a writ of error. 
 
 Second. A special act to authorize the Court of Oyer and Terminer of the 
 county wherein he was convicted, to open the judgment against him, and to 
 hear a motion for a new trial, in the same manner as if the motion had been 
 made in proper time. 
 
 He was acquitted. 
 
 The sentiments of this report, relative to the moral character of the man, 
 liave since been justified by his conviction and sentence to State's Prison for 
 forging checks in Illinois with the assumed name of J. B. Schulenberg. 
 
 New Tobk, May 17, 1874. 
 
MEDICAL POINTS 
 
 XN BEGABD TO THE 
 
 Suicide and Intemperance Provisos 
 
 OF 
 
 LIFE INSUEANTOE POLICIES. 
 
 By De. S. TELLEE.* 
 
 Me. Peesident and Gentlemen : — 
 
 We intend to preface the medical part of our thesis, with 
 some legal points of the questions under consideration. 
 
 The law recognizes a life insurance pohcy in the hght of a 
 contract, made between the person whose Hfe is to be insured 
 and the company that takes the risk. As such, each party 
 concedes some points as promises, in consideration of which 
 the insurance is effected. On the part of the insured, those 
 conditions consist, besides paying a stipulated sum of money 
 at a certain time or times, in the truthful answer of some 
 questions, as regards health, family affairs, and habits of life, 
 contained in a paper which is called the application for insur- 
 ance, and which is expressly made a part of the contract. 
 This application contains a proviso to the effect, that if any 
 of those statements should prove, in any particular, untrue, the 
 policy should be void ; and if they are untrue the policy is 
 
 * Bead before the Society, December 9, 1869. 
 
136 SUICIDE AND INTEMPEEANCE PBOYISOS 
 
 hereby avoided ; however iramaterial the fact. (" Parson oa 
 Contracts," page 4:66.) 
 
 From the questions in the above-named application, we 
 will have to consider to-night the one which refers to habits of 
 the insured as regards temperance. 
 
 In the insurance poHcy proper, are also some exceptions 
 embodied, one of which refers to the death by suicide. 
 
 The judicial decision in such a case was : a man cannot 
 take advantage of his own wrong. Parson, page 475, says the 
 following : " A much more difficult question arises when death 
 is self-inflicted in a condition of, and because of, insanity ; the 
 authorities on the subject are conflicting." 
 
 We cannot but think, however, that the law would say that 
 death by one's own hand did not legally include a death which 
 was self-inflicted, but not with the concurrence or action of a 
 responsible mind or wiU. 
 
 According to these authorities, the insurance company in a 
 given case would have to prove the party who committed sui- 
 cide to have done so whUe in sound mind, whUe the opposite 
 party would have to prove insanity. And here the province 
 of the physician commences. 
 
 But, as the appHcation, on which the pohcy is based, con- 
 tains the question : Has the party had at any time insanity, 
 and even has the party's family 6ver had insanity ? we may 
 presume that, in case of an affirmative answer, the insurance 
 company either would refuse the risk, or, having taken it, 
 would hardly undertake a litigation ; we may, therefore, nar- 
 row down the hmits of our consideration to cases in which the 
 suicide was considered, at least some time previous to com- 
 mitting the act, as sound in mind. 
 
 These cases we will divide into two distinct classes ; in the 
 first class we will enumerate cases where the post-mortem 
 examination gives a clue to the cause of aberration of mind, 
 and in the second class we will exhibit cases where this great 
 help of diagnosis is wanting. 
 
 "We will begin with the first class. Here, the brain and its 
 membranous and osseous inclosures, its serous contents and the 
 blood-vessels which peneti-ate it, vsdU call for our first inspection. 
 
OF LIFE INSUEANCE POLICIES. 137 
 
 Wlieneyer we, therefore, find in cases of suicide — ^not pro- 
 duced by poisons which act on the brain — such changes in 
 the substance of the braiu, or in the menhiges, which of itself 
 prevent its normal psychological action, we may safely put 
 our finger on them, and affirm that the patient committed the 
 act ia a condition which would preclude the idea of his hav- 
 ing acted while in his right mind. We will explain this by 
 the following case, which the late Professor Schuh, of Vienna, 
 was in the habit of giving to the class, when speaking of in- 
 juries to the brain : A keeper of a prison in Linz (Austria) 
 was attacked one day by a prisoner with a dungfork, which 
 he thrust into his head ; the keeper was insensible for a short 
 time, felt indisposed for a few days, but kept still to his work. 
 Two weeks after the occurrence he walked from Linz to Vienna, 
 a distance of about ninety miles, arrived there, and dropped 
 down in the street, dead ; on post-mortem examination, the 
 whole of one hemisphere of the brain was found to be changed 
 to an abscess. Suppose this man had committed suicide after 
 receiving the injury, we might safely conclude that such a 
 pathological change on the brain had some influence on his 
 mind. It is a well-known fact that injuries of the brain may 
 be endured for some time without giving rise to any appre- 
 hensions ; the patients go about their vocations for some 
 length of time, but all at once severe symptoms set in, and the 
 physician has probably some trouble to remind the sufferer 
 of a previous injury as the cause of the affection. I have at 
 the present time a case under treatment which will go to prove 
 this assertion. A strong and robust man, in the fuU enjoyment 
 of health, complained one evening after coming home from 
 work, of severe headache, and became slightly dehrious during 
 the n^ht ; next morning I found his speech impaired, slight 
 paralysis of the right side of the body, but best recognized in 
 the face ; on making closer inquiries, it is found that he was, 
 about ten days previously, struck on the head by a large piece 
 of iron, which fell from a considerable height ; he was stunned 
 for a few moments, received a superficial wound of the scalp 
 which healed in a few days, bat returned to work, only com- 
 plaining of dizziness, until the above-named symptoms called 
 
138 SUICIDE AND INTEMPERANCE PEOVISOS 
 
 the attention of his family to his condition. Suppose this 
 man had committed suicide after receiving the injury, would 
 the fact of his previous injury not go far enough to prove he 
 could not have acted in the full possession of his senses ? 
 
 We may, therefore, put down that all injuries of the brain 
 producing directly or indirectly hypersemia, inflammation, or 
 abscess, may impair the action of the mind so far as to pro- 
 duce temporary insanity. No doubt every one of us may 
 recoUect cases of severe injury of the brain which have run 
 through their course smoothly, the patient recovering in the 
 end, probably without having been absent-minded for any 
 great length of time ; but those cases go only to show how 
 much injury the human frame can sometimes endure without 
 permanent damage, but they cannot disprove, in a given case, 
 the absence of a sufficient amount of resistance to the effect 
 of injury. In connection with injuries as a cause of an affec- 
 tion of the brain, producing aberration of mind, we will con- 
 sider next other affections of the braiu which have the same 
 tendency. 
 
 Who has ever walked through the wards of a lunatic asy- 
 lum, without noticing cases where tire disease of miud is pro- 
 duced by the effects of meniagitis ; how often do we find, in 
 dissecting insane subjects, tumors of different kinds, and origi- 
 nating sometimes from the skull, and at other times from the 
 meninges, or the brain substance pressing on the brain? All 
 these diseases may be borne for a long time. A patient suf- 
 fering from them may consider himself perfectly sound ; at most 
 think himself subject to occasional attacks of headache, and 
 even the physician vitII not find the true cause of the head- 
 ache. All at once severe symptoms set in ; the patient gets 
 insane. Suppose he commits suicide before he becomes a 
 maniac, would any one doubt the fact of his insanity by view- 
 ing the body; would not an extensive, firm, membranous 
 adhesion of the meninges on the bone go far to prove absence 
 of mind ? Next to .these diseases of the brain, we wiU have 
 to look for others which have a quasi-secondary character, the 
 principle of which is an anaemic condition of the brain, of 
 which we will speak soon hereafter; we may only mention 
 
OF LIFE INSUBANCE POLICIES. 139 
 
 here that it will not be sufficient by making the post-mortem 
 examination, to inspect the contents of the cranial cavity, but it 
 is required to dissect also the other organs of the body, to 
 hare in fact a fuU knowledge of the physical condition of the 
 deceased before gi"ving a conclusive opinion of his condition 
 of mind. 
 
 Before concluding this part of our discussion, I would men- 
 tion a precaution which we ought not to lose sight of. A 
 large number of suicides are committed by poisons ; some of 
 them act on the brain and produce hypersemia. In these 
 cases we wiU always have to consider whether the condition 
 of the brain, found on post-mortem examination, is the effect 
 of the drug used, and not the original disease which produced 
 an affection of the mind. This question might be very often 
 difficult to decide. 
 
 We come now to consider the second class of cases, those, 
 namely, on which the post-mortem examination gives no posi- 
 tive result. 
 
 In those cases we wiU have to get as clear an anamnesis 
 of the case as we possibly can collect. We will have to be 
 very minute in our questioning, and very careful in consider- 
 ing the shghtest circumstance. Insanity manifests itself 
 sometimes in single words; the insane is very suspecting, 
 keeps his ideas to himself. Insanity is often only recognized 
 by acts perpetrated when the patient thinks himself unob- 
 served. We will have, therefore, to collect our facts from the 
 relatives of the deceased, from the persons who were round 
 him during the last weeks or days of his life, from his com- 
 panions, servants, etc. 
 
 In getting at the anamnesis, we ought to consider every 
 period of the life of the deceased, get the history of his in- 
 fancy, the manner in which he was brought up, the standpoint 
 of his intellectual training, his early habits, the way he con- 
 ducted his business, and how he passed his leisure time, the 
 books he was fond of reading, his general character and tem- 
 perament ; in fact, we shoiild try to have a fuU history of his 
 hfe. It will be of still greater importance to find out whether 
 the character or the habits of our patient have undergone any 
 
140 SUICIDE AND INTEMPERANCE PB0VIS03 
 
 change of late. Such a gradual but increasing change of 
 character or habits is one of the most important signs of be- 
 ginning insanity. The punctual business man neglects his 
 duties, and finds immaterial excuses for it, the housekeeper 
 neglects her household and children. The patient gets melan- 
 cholic, neglects dress, leaves off reading, is entirely idle. 
 
 Another important fact is a sudden change of fortune ; good 
 and bad news suddenly coming on have often unseated a pre- 
 vious sound mind. Another point of the greatest importance 
 to be inquired into is the presence of hallucinations. All 
 senses are subject to haUucinations, but priucipaUy the sense 
 of hearing. Another and very important cause produciug 
 insanity is sexual excitement, be it excess in venere or mas- 
 turbation. Pregnancy and nursing have also some influence 
 on the mind. Of stiU greater importance is the question : 
 what diseases had the party gone through, in infancy, as well 
 as in his later years, and especially what was the condition of 
 his health at the time of death. 
 
 We will enumerate in the following the diseases which have 
 a predisposing influence on the mind : 
 
 1. All diseases which produce poisoning of blood, as syphi- 
 lis, cancer, tuberculosis, typhus, scurvy. To prove that, we 
 may only remember that in aU these the brain is sometimes 
 more or less affected. 
 
 2. All diseases which produce general anaemia, great loss of 
 blood after parturition, or injuries, chlorosis. 
 
 3. All conditions which produce a shock on the general 
 system, as great operations, the act of parturition and injuries, 
 even if the loss of blood is inconsiderable. 
 
 4. Disturbances in the functions of secretion and excre- 
 tion ; here belong aU irregularities of the catamenial flow 
 and constipation of long standing. 
 
 5. Hysteria in its different forms leads very often to insanity. 
 
 6. Epilepsy and St. Vitus's dance and neuralgic affections. 
 
 7. Sunstroke. 
 
 8. Finally, we have to mention one disease which is of the 
 greatest importance in judgiug cases of suicide, namely the 
 disease called mania transitoria. This disease has been for a 
 
OF LIFE INSUKANCE POLICIES. 141 
 
 long time a disputed point among psychologists. Dr. Kraft 
 Ebbing, physician of the lunatic asylum at lUenau in Baden, 
 has published a series of eighteen cases, and gives the follow- 
 ing symptomatology. 
 
 Mania transitoria is recognized by its sudden appearance ; 
 there are no prodromatio symptoms. According to the sud- 
 denness of the symptoms the acme is reached soon; in the 
 attacks, all knowledge of its own personahty and of the sur- 
 roundings is gone ; the patient acts automatic like, according 
 to his haUucinations ; the function of the senses is suspended ; 
 the look is fixed, the eye glistening, the face expresses fear ; 
 the patient is very violent. 
 
 The anatomical change is considered to be a very severe 
 and sudden hypersemia of the brain. The duration of the 
 attack is from two to six hours ; it terminates mostly in a 
 sound sleep, of which the patient awakes mentally weU. All 
 remembrance of what happened from the begiuning of the 
 attack till after the waking up from sleep is lost. 
 
 The following case is taken from Caspar's Hand-book of 
 Medical Jurisprudence: A highly-respected State functionary, 
 who Hved in the happiest family circumstances, gets up sud- 
 denly in the night furious, having gone to bed mentally as 
 well as bodily healthy. He attempts to throw his wife out of 
 the window. Being prevented from doing the act by neigh- 
 bors and brought to bed again, he falls, after a while, asleep, 
 gets up next morning and does not know anything about the 
 whole occurrence. 
 
 After taking exceptions for all cases, in which any of the 
 above-mentioned diseases can be proved either by the post- 
 mortem examination or by the anamnesis, I will say distinctly 
 that I do believe that suicide is often committed in sound 
 mind, and sometimes with the distinct design to defraud an 
 insurance company. I will give an instance of each out of 
 my own practice. Some years ago a patient was admitted at 
 the Jews' Hospital, suffering from progressive paralysis ; the 
 man had very Uttle pain ; he got a small dose of morphine 
 every evening to produce sleep ; I gave him his regular daUy 
 allowance in the evening, and not more. One evening the 
 
142 SUICIDE AND INTEMPERANCE PROVISOS. 
 
 bottle containiBg the medicine was lost, and I had to give him 
 his dose in another. Two days hereafter he committed sui- 
 cide early in the morning by cutting his throat with the razor 
 which he had borrowed in the evening from the nurse for 
 shaving, and which the nurse forgot to take away from him, 
 after he was done with shaving ; he had hidden the missed 
 bottle and taken that quantity with the dose of the last even- 
 ing to stupefy his senses before committing the act. He was 
 fuUy sensible hereafter, and confessed the act, and gave as 
 cause his being tired of life. 
 
 A second case is the following : A young man called on me 
 with the request to take his name down, and give the next 
 person who died at the hospital a certificate of death in liis 
 name. He was very much reduced in his affairs, and had no 
 means to support his family. He wanted some capital to start 
 in business ; he had an insurance on his life, which his wife 
 wiU get on proof of his death. My certificate should prove 
 it. This man committed suicide a few weeks after he called 
 on me. I am perfectly satisfied that he was in sound mind 
 and committed the act for the benefit of his family only, de- 
 frauding the insurance company by it. 
 
 As a summary of what I said, and as guidance in all cases, 
 I win give in conclusion the following remarks of Flemming 
 on diminished responsibility : Psychical health is that condi- 
 tion of Ufe in which all the functions of the human organism 
 are performed in such a manner that by them the functions 
 of the mind are not disturbed ; the opposite condition is psy- 
 chical disease. It follows, therefore : Not everything wrong in 
 the psychical action is to be considered as disease, but only 
 those which are caused by disturbances of the somatical life ; 
 therefore errors, moral shortcomings, and passions are to be 
 excluded. It follows further that not every abnormal condition 
 of the somatical life is symptom of physical disease, but only 
 those which are in causal connection. 
 
 Health and disease, in body as in mind, are extreme expres- 
 sions ; there are many conditions which lie between ; these 
 intermediate conditions are the doubtful cases, which give rise 
 to diverse opinions. 
 
OF LIFE INSURANCE POLICIES. 143 
 
 It is, therefore, the duty of the physician, by the explora- 
 tion of these cases, to find out the symptoms of health or dis- 
 ease, to explain his causes scientifically — the conclusions he 
 has to leave to the legal fraternity. 
 
 We mentioned, in beginning, that amongst the questions 
 about habits in the apphcation for insurance, is one in regard 
 to temperance. 
 
 The legal explanation in regard to it reads in Parson, page 
 471, as follows : This question is Tariously phrased, but what- 
 ever language is used, it must be construed with reasonable 
 reference to its intentions ; this intention must be to confine 
 the insurance to persons who are temperate, and there must 
 be always a wide debatable ground between temperance and 
 total abstinence. 
 
 Out of this we may conclude, the insurance company has 
 no right to require the iasured to abstain totally from intoxi- 
 cating Hquors, but only to be temperate in their use. 
 
 To prove intemperance it will be required to prove intoxica- 
 tion; this expression indicates that we have to deal with a 
 disease ; intoxication is the abbreviate expression for intoxica- 
 tion with alcohol; the disease is alcoholismus. One party 
 wiU, therefore, have to prove alcohoUsmus, the other to disprove 
 it ; this is the province of the physician in the question. To 
 contend that a man has led an intemperate life, so much as to 
 affect his health, it requires that he has shown symptoms of 
 alcohohsmus during life, and that the disease has produced 
 anatomical changes in his organic condition. We will point 
 out these symptoms : Alcoholismus is either an acute or a 
 chronic disease ; the acute disease manifests itself in an acute 
 affection of the intestines and of the brain. In the first we 
 find on the surface of the stomach and intestines a sediment 
 of albuminates by alcohol, the epitelium shrunken, light or 
 deep red or even cauterized spots of dissolved mucous mem- 
 brane, with suggilations and fluid exudations underneath the 
 last mentioned membrane ; in the latter, the substance of the 
 brain extraordinarily hardened, the ventricles often fiUed with 
 a fluid which smeUs of alcohol, sometimes with extravasation 
 of blood ; similar extravasations are found in different parts 
 
144 SUICIDE AND INTEMPEEANCE PROVISOS 
 
 of the brain. The plexus choroideus, the sinuses, and the 
 meninges are overfilled with a dark thiekish blood, the cerebro- 
 spiaal fluid augmented, and underneath the arachnoidea are 
 lymphatic or serous exudations. The spleen, liver, and kid- 
 neys are dark, red-colored, and filled with dark blood ; the left 
 ventricle and the arteries are empty ; the right ventricle, the 
 large veins of the chest and abdomen are filled with blood, the 
 air passages contain a foaming mucus, the substance of the 
 lungs is expanded and filled mostly with dark, thin, fluid 
 blood. 
 
 In the chronic affection produced by intemperate use of 
 alcohol, we find during hfe a certain general discrasia. The 
 functions of aU organs are increased, the piilse and respiration 
 more frequent, the blood is filled with fat (lipsemia), by degrees 
 an accumulation of fat takes place, which is deposited in the 
 muscular and cellular tissues, and produces an affection called 
 lipomatosis. But soon the digestion is disturbed by the poi- 
 soned blood, this disturbance goes over to the organs of respi- 
 ration, circulation, and innervation ; dyspepsia and diarrhoea 
 follow next, and afterwards diseases of Uver and kidneys, ter- 
 minating in a hydrsemic condition. Therefore the saying: 
 " Qui vivit in vino, moritur in aqua." In combination with 
 these general symptoms, there are always one or more sys- 
 tems or organs especially affected. The skin is in the 
 beginning red, but gets soon pale and has a cachectic 
 aspect. The intestinal canal is the seat of catarrhaHc 
 affections. The kidneys suffer more or less, the bladder 
 gets paralyzed. The sexual functions are greatly disturbed ; 
 impoteniia coeundi et regenerandi is a common affection of 
 drinkers. The lungs are affected by chronic catarrh, which 
 makes them inclined to pneumonia, and goes very often 
 over in oedema and emhysema. The throat suffers also 
 from catarrh, producing aphonia. The most common seat 
 of affection is the nervous system : tremoris delirium, hal- 
 lucinations, encephaHtis, encephalomalacia, dementia, dip- 
 somania, epilepsia, paralysis, anaesthesia, and apoplexia may 
 be enumerated. Accordingly the anatomical lesions after 
 death will be : the bones contain, according to Eokitansky, 
 
OP ^.IFE INSUBANCE POLICIES. 145 
 
 fat, whicli is accuimilated at the expense of the bony tissue in 
 the medullary canal. The muscles are thin and pale, the 
 cellular tissues filled with fat. The stomach and intestines 
 thickened, its mucous membrane eroded, ulcerated, and soft- 
 ened, its muscularis thickened. The UTer differently changed 
 from cyrrhosis to fat liver. The spleen smaller, its substance 
 loosened, its capsule thickened, the pancreas sometimes en- 
 larged. The kidneys congested, or even the seat of Bright's 
 disease ; the testicles very often atrophied. The heart in its 
 muscular tissue fatty degenerated, in its substance hypertro- 
 phied, the arteries show the atheromatous process, the lungs 
 cedematous, the brain more or less affected as in the acute 
 disease. 
 
 This description of the disease wiU have to guide us when- 
 ever the question of intemperance is raised ; we must say, in 
 conclusion, that here, as in all legal questions, the physician 
 has only to point out the symptoms ; he forms his opinion 
 according to these, not influenced by the vulgar apphcation 
 of the terms of sobriety or intemperance. 
 
HEEEDITARY INFLUENCE 
 
 IN 
 
 MENTAL DISEASES. 
 
 By JAMES J. O'DEA, M.D.* 
 
 The subject of the hereditary transmission of pathological 
 states and tendencies has lost none of its interest, despite its 
 great antiquity. Of late, indeed, a new impulse has been 
 given it by the researches of Mr. Darwin, whose volumes on 
 "Animals and Plants under Domestication" contain as lucid 
 an exposition of natural inheritance as can be found in the 
 literature of any language. 
 
 For ourselves, as professional men, the topic has a special 
 interest. It opens out to us one of the most momentous and 
 absorbing problems of human life ; the organic relations of 
 man with the past and future. Its study shows us how mate- 
 rially his interests are affected by the laws of inheritance, 
 whether he be regarded as the descendant of his parents, as 
 a responsible member of society, or as the progenitor of futare 
 generations. 
 
 Every infant born into this life bears the impress of some 
 ancestral pecuharity, although it often remains dormant until 
 puberty, or middle age, with its trials and responsibilities, or 
 some accidental circumstance brings it out into fuU and often 
 sad expression. 
 
 The law of the hereditary transmission of tendencies, even 
 such as are destructive to the individual, appears absolute and 
 
 * Read before the Medico-Legal Society, New York, December, 1869. 
 
MENTAL DISEASES. 147 
 
 uncontrollable, in some instances ; in others, susceptible of 
 modification. Occasionally, indeed, an individual may, by the 
 exercise of great circumspection, avoid it ; as when a descend- 
 ant of consumptive parents escapes the family disease by 
 rigidly observing the necessary hygienic rules. But it will 
 assail another at the very citadel of reason, and deprive him 
 of that guide and chart — reason — by which alone he can hope 
 to sail safely on the unexplored seas of life. 
 
 The morbid mental and bodily conditions arising in conse- 
 quence of individual conduct are as Hable to be inherited as 
 those which descend from ancestral sources, too remote and 
 devious to be always successfully traced. In this sense, at 
 least, the society of the future is cast in the mould of to-day. 
 Our good or evil conduct will permeate the generations to 
 come, influencing them for better or for worse. 
 
 In the foUowing pages I purpose reviewiag some of the 
 more important laws of natural inheritance. I shall then en- 
 deavor to apply them to the explanation of the phenomena 
 of Mredite in mental diseases. Much of our time wiU be 
 occupied with certain general considerations which it is im- 
 portant we should examine before commencing to study the 
 special subject of this evening's discussion. 
 
 Organic forms procreate their species in two ways — the 
 sexual and asexual — that is to say, all plants and many lower 
 animals procreate in eitiier way ; all higher animals in one 
 only — the sexual. Waiving aU consideration of this particular 
 branch of the subject, I wish now to caU your attention to a 
 fact, namely, the persistent tendency of offspring to reflect the 
 general, and sometimes even the special, characteristics of 
 their parents. This well-verified fact, Mr. Herbert Spencer 
 remarks, "has been rendered so famiUar by daily illustration 
 as almost to have lost its significance. That wheat produces 
 wheat — that existing oxen have descended from ancestral 
 oxen — that every unfolding organism eventually takes the form 
 of the class, order, genus, and species, from which it sprung — 
 is a fact which, by force of repetition, has acquired in our 
 minds almost the aspect of a necessity." * 
 
 * Principles of Biology, vol. i. , p. 338. 
 
148 HEEEDITAET mFLUENCE 
 
 The same instructive -writer says, speaking of the persist- 
 ence of Tarieties : "From all sides eyidence may be gathered 
 sho"wing a like persistence of varieties in each species of 
 animal. We have our distinct breeds of sheep, our distinct 
 breeds of cattle, our distinct breeds of horses, — each breed 
 maintaining its characteristics. The several sorts of dogs 
 which, if we accept the physiological test, we must consider as 
 all of one species, show us, in a marked manner, the hereditary 
 transmission of small differences — ^each sort, when kept pure, 
 reproducing itself not only in size, form, color, and quality of 
 hair, but also in disposition and specialty of intelligence." * 
 
 If you plant a shp from a shrub, and provide it with the 
 essential means of healthy hfe, it will grow to be an individual 
 similar to the parent from which it was taken. If you cut a 
 hydra in pieces, each section will reproduce an individual 
 strictly modeled after the parent type. I adduce these trite 
 examples because they exhibit the fact of inheritance in its 
 simple and elementary form, uncompHcated by the influence of 
 a second parent. And for this very reason it is a more uniform 
 consequence of this than of the more complex or sexual mode 
 of genesis. The latter requires two factors for the pro- 
 creation of offspring, namely, a male and female parent ; a 
 combination by which the tendency to heredite, though much 
 modified, is not materially affected. We call this phenomenon 
 atavism, a word derived from atavus, ancestor, and used to 
 denote the tendency to repeat ancestral peculiarities. A few 
 examples of this phenomenon, though not at all necessary to 
 prove its existence, will help to fix it more firmly in our 
 memories. We have all, doubtless, observed, that certain 
 pecuUarities of feature, complexion, accent, tone of voice, etc., 
 are transmitted from parent to child. I remember a son who 
 unconsciously copied his father with remarkable precision in 
 his way of walking, of entering a room and of sitting on a chair, 
 in the disposal of his limbs, in the tone and modulations of 
 his voice, and in the frequent use of certain peculiar methods 
 of expression. Even very exceptional habits are inherited. 
 
 * Op. cit., p. 240. 
 
IN MENTAL DISEASES. 149 
 
 For instance, a young female child in the cradle had trans- 
 mitted to her from her father a trick of sleeping on her back 
 ■with the right leg crossed over the left, and persisted in it, 
 though many efforts were made to cure her. Many such ex- 
 amples coTild be cited, were it necessary, to illustrate the force 
 of the inheritance of even very minute and unusual character- 
 istics. 
 
 Now, one of the invariable sequences of the law of sexual 
 genesis is this : the offspring, though inheritiag more of one 
 parent than of the other, differs from both. This is the initial 
 point of physiological variation. "What is variation ? I answer, 
 the sum of certain peculiarities in offspring, by virtue of which 
 it is, strictly speaking, unlike either parent. Eetumiag, for a 
 moment, to the brute creation, we find a striking example of 
 variation in the mule. In some of its parts this animal copies 
 the ass ; in others, as the body and neck, it takes after the mare. 
 Such is the normal and universal result of the sexual mode 
 of procreation. 
 
 Inherited peculiarities may be conveniently arranged under 
 two headings : (1) those which are congenital, and not trace- 
 able to any extrinsic cause ; (2) those not congenital, but "re- 
 sulting from changes of functions during the lives of individuals 
 bequeathing them." * Out of the many recorded examples of 
 the first, or so-called spontaneous, class of variations in the 
 human family, I shall quote the following, taken by Professor 
 Huxley from a monograph by Eeamur, on the history of a 
 peculiar variation in a Maltese family named KeUia. The 
 father, Gratio, was born with six fingers and six toes on each 
 hand and foot. At the age of twenty-two he married a Maltese 
 lady having the orthodox ntimber of fingers and toes, and they 
 had a family of four children. "What happened ? Did the 
 participation of a normal influence in the act of procreation 
 obhterate this peculiarity, or merely modify it ? As the result 
 will show, it merely modified it. Salvator, the first of the four 
 children, had six fingers and six toes, like his father ; the second, 
 George, had five fingers and five toes, hke his mother, but one 
 
 * Herbert Spencer, op. cit. 
 
150 HEKEDITAEY INFLUENCE 
 
 of tbein was deformed; the third, Andre, liad five fingers and 
 the same number of toes, all perfect; the fourth child was a 
 girl ; her name was Marie, and she had five fingers and five 
 toes, but her thumbs were deformed. In due time, all these 
 children married five-fingered and five-toed people. Mark 
 again the result. Salvator had four children, two boys, a girl, 
 and another boy. The first two boys and the girl were six- 
 fingered and six-toed, Mke their grandfather; with the third 
 boy there was nothing pecuhar. George had four children, 
 two girls with six fingers and six toes ; a third girl with six 
 fingers and five toes on the right side, and five fingers and five 
 toes on the left side, and a boy who had no peculiarity. Andre, 
 who was well formed, had many children, all well developed. 
 Marie had four children; the first, a boy, was six-toed, buttlie 
 other three were normal. 
 
 The history of this family illustrates three points, namely : 
 the so-called spontaneous origin of variations ; their tendency 
 to be repeated in the offspring, and their modification by fresh 
 accessions of paternal and maternal influences. Chiefly on this 
 latter account a check is often put to the career of variation, and 
 there occurs a reversion to the normal or primitive type. 
 
 The second class of variations, as already observed, com- 
 prises those resulting from changes of function during the 
 lives of the individuals bequeathing them. These modiflcations 
 of function result from changes in the external relations of the 
 individual, acting through the physiological laws of nutrition. 
 Though not primarily inherited, they are transmissible when 
 once fairly estabhshed. 
 
 The influence of changed external relations may be observed 
 in both the animal and vegetable kingdoms. Plants, when 
 removed from one zone to another, undergo certain manifest 
 alterations in structure and function, technically called "a 
 change of habit." The same result has been observed among 
 animals. "Some of our countrymen," says Sir Charles LyeU,* 
 " engaged about the year 1825 in conducting one of the principal 
 mining associations in Mexico, that of Real del Monte, carried 
 
 * Principles of Qeolopfy, lltli edition, vol. ii., p. 297. 
 
IN MENTAL DISEASES. 151 
 
 out with them some English greyhounds of the best breed, to 
 hunt the hares which abound in that country. The great plat- 
 form, which is here the scene of sport, is at an elevation of 
 about 9,000 feet above the level of the sea, and the mercury in 
 the barometer stands habitually at the height of about nineteen 
 inches. It was found that the greyhounds could not support 
 the fatigues of a long chase in this attenuated atmosphere, 
 and before they could come up with their prey, they lay down 
 gasping for breath ; but these same animals have produced 
 whelps which have grown up, and are not in the least degree 
 incommoded by the want of density in the air, but- run down 
 the hares with as much ease as the fleetest of their race in this 
 country." This, though given by our author as an example 
 of inherited instinct, is wholly the result of cUmatic influences 
 iipon the developing organism of the whelp. It is an excellent 
 example of modifications which, though not inherited, are 
 hereditary. 
 
 The same observation is equally true of man. Abundant 
 illustrations of it may be found everywhere. Look, for instance, 
 at the diflerences which chmate, food, and grade of civihzation 
 have made between the European and the Asiatic, or the 
 Anglo-American and his neighbor, the aboriginal red Indian. 
 The same change is taking place on a small scale in this 
 country which, granting the unity of the human species, must 
 have gone on from the remotest ages throughout the world. 
 I allude now to the change occurring in foreigners who sojourn 
 in these United States. It is not limited to the mere surface, 
 but permeates their habits, thoughts, and modes of expression. 
 It is observed, not only in the lower classes of society, but to 
 a considerable extent among persons of culture, whose minds 
 have been trained in the schools and imbued with the tradi- 
 tions of the eastern hemisphere. Mr. Hepworth Dixon devotes 
 a very interesting chapter of his "New America" to an expo- 
 sition of the mutual influences exercised by the "red and white 
 races of the West." "No race of men," he writes, " ever yet drove 
 out another race of men from any country, taking their lands 
 and cities from them, without finding, on the spot which they 
 came to own, a local genius which affected their poHty, their 
 
152 HEREDITARY INFLUENCE 
 
 usages, and their arts." Such has been the Nemesis, if I maj 
 so speak, of many triumphant nations ; of the Romans after 
 the subjugation of Greece ; of the Normans after the conquest of 
 England; of the Franks after the conquest of Gaul, and of the 
 Enghsh after the conquest of Ireland. "More Irish than the 
 Irish themselves" has long been proverbially true of Enghsh 
 settlers on the soil of the Emerald Isle. 
 
 Erom many examples at hand, I will select just one to show 
 the tendency of changes induced in the parent to become 
 hereditary in the offspring. "Some few years since. Dr. 
 Brown-Sequard, in the course of inquiries into the nature and 
 cause of epilepsy, hit on a method by which epilepsy could be 
 originated. Guinea-pigs were the creatures on which, chiefly, 
 he experimented ; and, eventually, he discovered the remark- 
 able fact that the young of these epileptic guinea-pigs were 
 epileptic ; the functionally estabhshed epilepsy in the parents 
 became constitutional epilepsy in the offspring." * 
 
 Passing from this part af our subject, yet keeping its essen- 
 tial facts in mind, let us clear a httle more of the ground about 
 the principle of Mredite ia disease by searching for the causes 
 which modify its action. One of the most important of these 
 is reversion, which means a turning back of the offspring to 
 certain original characteristics which were apparently lost, 
 but, in reality, only dormant during one or more intermediate 
 generations. When a child resembles in some particular 
 quality a remote blood relation of the direct or collateral hue, 
 it is said to revert — so far, at least, as the quahty is in question 
 — to that relation. In such cases the original pecuharity is 
 transmitted, though in a latent state, to the individual affected 
 by it, through the intervening members of the family. 
 
 The tendency to revert is very strong, and much speculation 
 has been indulged in regarding the number of years which 
 must elapse before it is entirely lost. Mr. Sedgwick cites the 
 case of a French family, of whose members, during six gener- 
 ations, eighty-five out of six hundred had been afflicted with 
 night-bliadness, and adds : " There has not been a siagle 
 
 * Herbert Spencer, Biology, 
 
IN MENTAL DISEASES. 153 
 
 example of this affection in tte children of parents (belonging 
 to the same family) who were themselves free from it." * This 
 example may be held to prove that adhesion to the normal 
 type is more powerful, under given circumstances, than rever- 
 sion to that which is abnormal. 
 
 Prepotency and sex both modify the hereditary tendency. 
 By prepotency is understood a superior transmitting power of 
 one parent over the other. A line of male parents, for example, 
 may transmit certain characteristics to male issue, despite the 
 influence of many mothers. 
 
 The modifying influence of sex is acknowledged by the very 
 highest authorities, among them by Mr. Darwin, who has the 
 following on the subject in the work from which I have already 
 quoted : " From the various facts recorded by M. Prosper Lucas, 
 Mr. Sedgwick, and others, there can be no doubt that peculiar- 
 ities first appearing in either sex, though not in any way 
 necessarily or invariably connected with that sex, strongly 
 tend to be transmitted by the offspring of that same sex, but 
 are often ti'ansmitted, in a latent state, through the opposite 
 sex." In the remarkable papers by Mr. Sedgwick, here 
 referred to, occurs the following illustration of the truth of the 
 above observation. A boy, aged fourteen years, was afflicted 
 ■with icthyosis, a disease hereditary in the family for three 
 preceding generations. It first appeared in the grandsire at 
 the age of seven or eight years. He had three sons and three 
 daughters. One son died at the age of five years and one at 
 seven, both being free from the disease; the third hved, and 
 though past middle age, manifested none of its symptoms. 
 The three daughters grew up, escaped the disease, and married. 
 Two of them had children, the oldest four. The first-born of 
 the oldest, a girl, had no sign of the disease ; the other three 
 were boys, of whom the oldest, aged fourteen years, and the 
 youngest, aged nine, had the disease, whUe the other son, aged 
 eleven, was free from it. The other daughter had three chil- 
 dren, the oldest of whom, a girl, was free from the disease ; the 
 other two were boys, and had the disease in a very decided 
 form. 
 
 * British and Foreign Medico-Chirurgical Review, 1861-03. 
 
154 HEEEDITABY INKLUENCE 
 
 The principle of sexual limitation is clearly shown in the 
 remarkable history of this family, a history which also illus- 
 trates the phenomenon of reversion in the non-appearance of 
 the disease in the second generation, and its reappearance in 
 the third. 
 
 Finally, age equally aiTects the course of inheritance. It 
 has been frequently obserred that diseases are inherited at 
 corresponding periods in the lives of parents and their chil- 
 dren. The Lecompt family is an example in point. Here 
 blindness was hereditary for three generations, no less than 
 thirty-seven descendants — children and grandchildren — ^having 
 been afflicted with it at about the same age— between the 
 seventeenth and eighteenth years. When an exception to 
 this rule occurs, it is generally in favor of an earlier ap- 
 pearance of hereditary disease in the offspring than in the 
 parent. 
 
 Turning our attention now to hereditary mental diseases, 
 and viewing them in the light of the foregoing principles, we 
 shall broadly define them to be variations from the healthy 
 or normal state of miad, arising either congenitaUy or in con- 
 sequence of the modifying effect of accidental causes on 
 nervous structure and function. A fair application of the prin- 
 ciples already set forth wiU enable us to reconcile and explain 
 the apparent anomalies and contradictions of inherited mental 
 states. 
 
 .The proportion of cases of insanity into which hereditary 
 taint enters is variously stated by the authorities, some plac- 
 ing it as high as sixty-nine per cent., others as low as twenty- 
 six. "Authors," says Dr. Maudsley, "are not agreed as to 
 the proportion of cases of insanity in which positive heredi- 
 tary taint is detectable ; some, like Moreau, putting it as high 
 as nine-tenths, others as low as one-tenth. The most careful 
 researches fix the proportion as not lower than one-fourth, if 
 not so high as one-half ; and there can be no doubt that the 
 tendency is to increase the proportion, as investigation be- 
 comes more searching and exact."* 
 
 * Article " Insanity," " Reynold's System of Medicine." 
 
IN MENTAL DISEASES. 155 
 
 To constitute the hereditary predisposition to insanity, it is 
 not essential that the parents or relatives should have been 
 actually insane. Nervous diseases often undergo metamor- 
 phoses in passing from one generation to another, a fact fuUy 
 insisted on by M. Moreau in his able treatise entitled, "La 
 Physiologie morbide, dans les rapports avec la PMlosophie de 
 VHistoire." The more important of these nervous diseases 
 are insanity, epilepsy, chorea, hysteria, neuralgia, and cata- 
 lepsy. It has been observed, with respect to physiological 
 pecuharities, that they are transmitted in their identity to the 
 offspring, but such is not the rule among pathological states. 
 The child of an epileptic may be, not epileptic, but insane. 
 The same fate may overtake the child of a drimken man or a 
 hysterical woman. Furthermore, it does not always follow 
 that the inheritor of the insane temperament must go crazy, — 
 a proposition quite intelHgible when it is remembered that 
 hereditary predisposition is no abstract influence, but a con- 
 crete organic state always bordering on actual disease, yet 
 generally wanting some exciting cause to make it such. One 
 of several events may, therefore, happen to the inheritor of 
 this temperament. Either his insanity (should he become 
 insane) may result immediately from the inherited taint, or its 
 advent may be iadefinitely postponed by judicious bodily and 
 mental traiuing, or it may be developed by injudicious man- 
 agement in youth, as by too much mental apphcation, by 
 capricious, unreasonable, or cruel treatment; or, finally; it 
 may be precipitated by such occurrences in the development 
 of the organism as the periods of puberty, middle age, child- 
 bearing, and change of life. 
 
 According to very good authority, certain practices, as in- 
 termarriage and intoxication, contribute largely to swell the 
 percentage of cases of hereditary insanity. 
 
 Esquirol considers it impossible to estimate the number of 
 French nobles of his time whose insanity was due to the then 
 common custom of intermarriage among the upper class. 
 Others have made similar statements respecting the descend- 
 ants of the old Scotch and English Eoman Oathohc families. 
 The family records of the royal houses of Europe — ^notably of 
 
156 HEKEDITABY INTLUENCE 
 
 the Spanish branch of the house of Austria — afford examples 
 of the evU consequences of this same custom. 
 
 The records of antiquity teach us that most ancient nations 
 practiced marriages of consanguinity. In Persia they were 
 allowed between fathers and daughters, mothers and sons. 
 In the early stage of the Hebrew people marriage was 
 permitted between near relatives in the collateral line. In 
 Athens it was legalized between brother and sister of the 
 same father, and in Sparta between brother and sister of the 
 same mother. 
 
 The question of the influence of intermarriage in the causa- 
 tion of insanity may be discussed from two distinct stand- 
 points. We may either consider whether intermarriage is of 
 itself a sufficient cause of degeneracy in its offspring; or 
 whether it may not be such in appearance only, the real fun- 
 damental cause being the cumulative aggravation of an 
 already existing family disease by the process of breeding ia 
 and in. There is an obvious difference between these two 
 aspects of the question, requiring a separate method of iaves- 
 tigation for each. In this paper, however, I wiU be obhged to 
 limit myself to the following observations on the subject. 
 
 Consanguiaity, or blood relationship, may be either direct 
 or collateral. Direct consanguinity is that existing between 
 generator and generated in the ascending or descending scale. 
 A father, for instance, is directly consanguiaeous with his 
 daughter, a mother with her son, a grandfather with his grand- 
 daughter. Collateral blood relationship is that obtaining 
 between the individuals of the collateral branches of a family, 
 as brother and sister, uncle and niece, aunt and nephew. 
 
 The objection to such marriages, namely, that they are a 
 vera causa of degeneracy in their offspring, is supported by a 
 very respectable array of evidence drawn from the organic 
 world in general. I may partly state it in Mr. Darwin's words : 
 " It is apparently a universal law of Nature," says he, " that 
 organic beings require an occasional cross Avith another indi- 
 vidual ; " * and he proceeds to show that although, owing to 
 
 * Fertilization of OrcliidB. 
 
IN MENTAL DISEASES. 157 
 
 the peculiar construction of the generative parts of orchids, 
 self-fertilization would be much more easy of accomplishment 
 than the scattering of the pollen to other flowers, it is never- 
 theless an unusual occurrence. He thinks we may infer from 
 this fact that there is something injurious in the process of 
 self-fertilization, and asks whether we may not consider it as 
 probable, " in accordance with the behef of the breeders of 
 our domestic productions, that marriage between near rela-j 
 tions is likewise in some way iajurious," etc. To the argu- 
 ment from the behavior of orchids is opposed the fact, that, 
 among some of the same species, self-fertilization, though the 
 rule, is not followed by any evil effects. 
 
 From the animal kingdom, also, observations have been 
 adduced to show the evil consequences of breeding in and in. 
 It is stated, for instance, that the pigeon and the pig gradu- 
 ally die out under this process. But, on the other hand, it 
 improves the breed of bulls and horses. 
 
 If such wide discrepancies exist between the observations 
 made on plants and animals, — objects whose actions can 
 be watched with such close scrutiny, — we should expect 
 to find them even greater among individuals of the human 
 family, who, as Mr. Darwin remarks, propagate slowly, and 
 cannot be submitted to the same tests as other organ- 
 isms. 
 
 Much has been said on both sides of this discussion, and 
 numerous statistics have been given for and against the asser- 
 tion that intermarriage leads, by itself, to various expressions 
 of degeneracy in the offspring, — sterihty, deaf-mutism, idiocy, 
 and epilepsy. Although I do not intend to occupy the time 
 of the meeting with these statistics, — none of them being con- 
 clusive one way or the other, — I may state a few just by way 
 of showing the remarkable conflict of opinion on so important 
 a topic. 
 
 It is declared that consanguineous marriages cause deaf- 
 mutism. The opponents of this assertion cite the case of the 
 Jews to disprove it. How frequent such aUiances are among 
 this race is not stated, but their law does not forbid them, and 
 it is altogether hkely that they contract them as frequently as 
 
158 HEEEDITAR¥ ESTFLUENCE 
 
 Christians. Now, it has been stated on good authority — ^the 
 Chief Rabbi, M. Isidor — that, among the Jewish congrega- 
 tion in Paris, then numbering 25,000 souls, scarcely four deaf- 
 mutes were to be found. Lately M. Boudin presented some 
 statistics to the Academy of Sciences of Paris, in which he 
 stated that two per cent, of the marriages in France were con- 
 sanguineous. The proportion of deaf-mutes born of such 
 aUiances in Lyons is, to the whole number of deaf-mutes in 
 the same city, only twenty-five per cent. ; in Paris, twenty- 
 eight per cent., and in Bordeaux, thirty per cent. Bearing 
 directly on the same side of the discussion are the statistics 
 collected by M. Aug. Voisin, relating to the results of such 
 marriages in the commune of Batz, Brittany. In this com- 
 mune there were 3,300 persons, all well isolated from the sur- 
 rounding country. " Among this population 46 marriages 
 took place between cousins, viz., 5 between cousins-german, 
 31 between cousins of the next degree below, 10 between 
 cousins of the next again." The 5 had issue 23 children, free 
 from aU constitutional disorders, 2 only having died, the cause 
 of death being some casual disorder. The 31 had issue 120 
 children, " none of whom labor under any constitutional in- 
 firmity," and 24 of whom died of acute diseases. The 10 had 
 issue 29 children, " aU born healthy, 3 having died of accident- 
 al diseases." Two females were sterile, '' the parents being 
 related in the third degree." Lisanity, idiocy, and deaf-mut- 
 ism were unknown.* 
 
 By contrasting such flattering statistics with the following 
 it wOl appear how very unsatisfactory the whole inquiry is as 
 it now stands. Dr. Beamis, of Louisville, presents what fol- 
 lows as the result of his investigations into 34 consanguiaeous 
 marriages. Of this number 7 were fruitless, 27 had 192 chil- 
 dren, 58 of whom died in childhood. Of the remaining 134, 
 46 are called healthy ; 32 are described in a general way as 
 " deteriorated ;" 9 are not reported ; 47 still remain, of whom 
 19 are scrofulous, 4 epileptic, 2 insane, 2 dumb, 4 are idiots, 
 
 * The above facts are taken from an excellent article in the Fortnightly 
 Bemew, 1865, p. 710. 
 
IN MKNTAL DISEASES. 159 
 
 2 blind, 2 deformed, 5 are Albinos, 6 have some defect of 
 vision, and one is choreic ! * 
 
 Eespecting alcohoHc excesses as a cause of degeneracy in 
 offspring, there is not room for the same variety of opinion. 
 Upon this point I adduced ample testimony at a previous 
 meeting, and what I have to say now wiU be merely by way 
 of further confirming what I then stated. It is affirmed on 
 the authority of Dr. Inman that drunkenness — that is, the 
 disease called methomania — may be hereditary in a family for 
 generations, irrespective of education and example. He, him- 
 self, has watched the children of inebriates and has seen them 
 become precocious drunkards, though early removed from the 
 influence of evil surroundings, and taught the necessity of in- 
 teUigent self-denial. Morel, also, states that the whole nature 
 of the descendants of drunkards is often depraved. These 
 unfortunates are remarkable for apathy, indecision, defective 
 moral sense, and a long catalogue of purely nervous disorders. 
 M. Lucas gives a striking case to illustrate the tendency of 
 alcoholic abuses in parents to become a mania in their off- 
 spring. A bachelor of literary tastes led a regular, busy and 
 economical life for thirty-four years, at which period he was 
 somehow seized with an uncontrollable desire to drink. During 
 eight consecutive days of every month he gave himself up to 
 this passion. In seven years more he died. His father was a 
 confirmed drunkard, and had died by his own hand. His two 
 brothers also became habitual di-unkards. 
 
 In accordance with what I have already said respecting the 
 determining causes of insanity, when the hereditary taint 
 exists, though in a latent state, is the observation of Mr. Dar- 
 win, that "in most cases the appearance of any inherited dis- 
 ease is largely determined by certain critical periods in each 
 
 * Since the above was written, Dr. Mitcliell, of the Edinburgh College of 
 Physicians, has given the results of his inquiries in the same field. He 
 objects to marriages of blood relations on the ground that they increase the 
 risk of transmitting morbid states. He says that if a deaf-mute marries a 
 person with the faculties of speech and hearing, the chance of their having 
 a deaf-mute child will be about 1 to 135 ; but if both father and mother are 
 deaf-mutes the risk will be increased to 1 in 30. 
 
160 HEEEDITAEY INFLUENCE 
 
 person's life, as well as by unfavorable conditions." Esquirol 
 narrates tlie case of a woman, aged forty-two, who commenced 
 wiae-drinking to relieve some distressing sensations attending 
 her climacteric period. Not content with this, she took to 
 brandy, and soon became a confirmed drunkard. Simulta- 
 neously, her disposition underwent a complete change ; she 
 abandoned all her occupations, and lost every feeling of affec- 
 tion for her family. She continued ia this state, for six j'^ears, 
 after which, the menstrual discharge becoming colorless, she 
 recovered. She now took a decided aversion to every kind of 
 intoxicating drink, even wine, and hved soberly, in the enjoy- 
 ment of excellent health, tUl the age of seventy-two. 
 
 A few examples of heredite in other forms of insanity will 
 suffice for this division of our subject. 
 
 The passion for gambling may be a manifestation of insanity, 
 and as such may be inherited. M. Lucas narrates tbe case 
 of a woman of wealth and social position who passed all her 
 nights in playing for money. Her two children, son and 
 daughter, were equally addicted to the same vice. 
 
 Erotomania may be inherited. The author just mentioned 
 instances the case of a man of rare business talent in his busi- 
 ness as a cook, who, from his boyhood up to his sixtieth year, 
 had been immoderately addicted to sins of impurity. A 
 natural son, who had not seen his father from early childhood 
 until he was nineteen years of age, began by manifesting pre- 
 cocious signs of erotomania, and finished by becoming as 
 debauched as his father. 
 
 The tendency to kleptomania may hke^ise be inherited. 
 Dr. Steineau has recorded a case of the kind which came under 
 his own observation. The individual in question was known 
 in the neighborhood as "the thief." His son was addicted to 
 acts of petty larceny. His grandson began, at the early age 
 of three years, by stealing edibles ; next, small, then large 
 sums of money. Finally, he became an expert pickpocket, 
 and having been ultimately detected in one of his hght-fingered 
 operations, was committed to the house of correction, he 
 having reached only his fourteenth year. 
 
 The hereditary tendency to suicidal melancholy has been 
 
IN MENTAL DISEASES. IGl 
 
 urged by many ■writers on this important subject. Cazau- 
 vieilh reports that the fact of hereditary influence was estab- 
 lished in twenty-two out of eighty-oae cases of suicide which 
 occurred in a circumscribed section of the department of Oise, 
 in France. 
 
 If the foregoing statements be founded in correct observa- 
 tion, they estabhsh the existence of a distinct class ia all 
 known communities, requiring to be governed on special prin- 
 ciples. Every one who has bestowed even a passing glance 
 upon the physical and mental peculiarities of habitual crim- 
 inals, will readily appreciate the words of M. Morel, when he 
 says, " the conditions of degeneration in which the heirs of 
 certain faulty organic dispositions find themselves, are revealed 
 not only by exterior typical characters, easily to be recognized, 
 such as a small, ill -formed head, predominence of a morbid 
 temperament, special deformities and anomalies, etc., but also 
 by the strongest and most incomprehensible aberrations in the 
 exercise of the iatellectual faculties,* and of the moral senti- 
 ments." But upon the great problem of the pathological 
 basis of crime I cannot attempt to enter at present. I am 
 fully convinced, however, that it Kes at the root of much crim- 
 inal conduct, and that no scheme of penal law can be justly 
 administered without full allowance being made for this fact. 
 Upon this poiat I shall have something more to say pres- 
 ently. Fortunately there are degrees in this degeneration, 
 and though some may be beyond hope of recovery, others are 
 
 * The intellectual feebleness of Habitual criminals is well illustrated in 
 tlie following remarks which I extract from an address on "Prisoners and 
 their Reformation," delivered before the late International Penitentiary 
 Congress, by Z. E. Broekway, Esq. , Governor of the Detroit House of Cor- 
 rection. "All who have studied criminals closely by actual contact with 
 tliem will have observed the undeveloped, incongruous or unbalanced con- 
 dition of their higher mental faculties, and the consequent sway of their 
 animal instincts. I have attempted to teach a class of twenty criminals of 
 the lower type the difference between letters, words, and sentences in com- 
 position without success. After an hour of instruction they were unable to 
 state correctly the number of words in so simple a sentence as the follow- 
 ing, namely, ' John bought a horse,' the class — every member of it — declar- 
 ing the two words ' a horse ' to be one word." 
 
 11 
 
162 HEEEDITAEY INFLUENCE 
 
 susceptible of improvement under wise management. I have 
 already observed that a judicious course of physical and moral 
 tratuing may prevent the development of insanity in a person 
 not too strongly predisposed thereto ; and it is not too much 
 to add that many of the dismal histories recorded in books as 
 illustrations of the force of heredite, might never have been 
 written had this fact been sufficiently appreciated. It is 
 clearly the duty of all who exercise any manner of supervision 
 over this class of persons, to study attentively and charitably 
 the weak points in their dispositions ; to watch the first dawn- 
 ing of conscience in them, or, if need be, to endeavor to create 
 one by dint of persevering efforts at moral, religious, and in- 
 tellectual education. If we feel a glow of tender sympathy 
 when following the progress of a healthy, vigorous soul from 
 darkness to light, a typical record of which we find ia the 
 noble " Confessions " of St. Augustine, how much more fully 
 and spontaneously should our commiseration flow out to those 
 of our feUow-creatures who are morally deformed and out of 
 joint ; who, burdened with the natural consequences of others' 
 sins, lack the volitional power to throw them off. Among the 
 many good things told of the Chinese, it is recorded that, 
 when a criminal is accused before their tribunals of justice, 
 the charge is examined in relation to the man and the man in 
 relation to his circumstances, his family history in particular. 
 They seek to know his temperament, the character of his im- 
 pidses, his degree of seK-restraint, his history, and that of his 
 progenitors, all of which data they employ as aids in determin- 
 ing the degree of his responsibility. Whether this statement 
 be true or not, I cannot say, but at least it appears to me 
 to embody the only feasible plan of dealing discriminately 
 with habitual criminals. No such thoroughly scientific method 
 has ever been adopted into our system of criminal procedure, 
 and yet the day is now come when something of the kind must 
 be attempted, if we are to deal with crime on principles 
 worthy of the advance of modern intelligence. 
 
 We have to consider, finally, some of the chief causes which 
 modify the transmission of insanity. Of these the first in 
 order is reversion, after which foUow age and sex. 
 
IN MENTAL DISEASES. 163 
 
 The following examples will serve to illustrate the law of 
 reversion ia mental unsoundness. WilHam, of Lunenburg, 
 sumamed the Pious, founder of the Hanoverian dynasty, 
 became blind and insane. After him followed seven genera- 
 tions free from mental disease, but in the eighth it reappeared 
 ia much the same form, ia the person of George the Third. 
 The latter, in other words, reverted to the insanity of William, 
 of Lunenburg. M. Lucas illustrates the same tendency by 
 the story of a family in which the insanity of the father 
 skipped the sons and reappeared in the grandsons. 
 
 The influence of sex on hereditary transmission has been 
 ably treated by Mr. Sedgwick in the learned papers already 
 quoted. I am indebted to him for many of the following facts, 
 and chiefly for the history of a family in which imbecihty was 
 limited to the female hne of descent. A mother was subject 
 to recurring attacks of insanity, and died of phthisis at the age 
 of fifty-two. She left a family of three children, consisting of 
 one boy, a very inteUigent lad, who, at the age of fifteen years, 
 was busy quaUfyiag himself for professional studies ; and two 
 girls, aged respectively eighteen and twelve, who were both 
 imbecile. She had a sister who also was subject to occasional 
 attacks of insanity, but of a more violent form, and three ma- 
 ternal aunts in whose families a like disease prevailed. Aunt No. 
 1 had three children ; the oldest, a girl, was very eccentric and 
 siUy ; the other two, boy and girl, were intelhgent. Aunt No. 2 
 had four children ; two sons, quite inteUigent, and two daugh- 
 ters, one Hviag and eccentric, the other ia a lunatic asylum. 
 Aunt No. 3 had two children ; a son, an intelligent school- 
 master, and a daughter, whose mind was sound concerning all 
 matters save religion, on which she became quite fanatical. 
 
 There appears to be a curious class of cases in which both 
 the development and transmission of mental disease are in- 
 fluenced by sex, each parent taking a distinct share in the 
 process, one in causing, the other in passing it on. For example, 
 the insanity may be due to the male, but its transmission be- 
 comes, as it were, a function of the female. And in some of 
 these instances each alternate generation is the medium chosen 
 for this act of transmission. Thus, Mr. Sedgwick records an 
 
164 HEREDITAEY INFLUENCE 
 
 example showing the second and fourth generations to be free 
 from a malady which was fuUy manifested in the third and 
 fifth. 
 
 Another fact worthy of notice is the statement that insanity 
 is more commonly inherited from the mother than from the 
 father. Baillarger declares that insanity on the mother's side 
 is much more to be feared than on the father's, "not only 
 because it is more often hereditary, but also because it is 
 transmitted to a greater number of children." His researches 
 show also that, from whichever sex derived, insanity in the 
 offspring is more prone to keep to that same sex. Of 346 
 children who had inherited the disease from the mother, 197 
 were girls and 149 boys. Of 215 children who had inherited 
 the disease from the father, there were 128 boys and 87 girls. 
 In some famihes insanity is transmitted in the male Mne 
 only. Louis XI. of France, whose peculiarities Sir Walter 
 Scott sketched so admirably in "Quentin Durward," inher- 
 ited his madness from his paternal great-grandfather, through 
 his grandfather Charles YI., and father Charles YII., 
 who, through a morbid fear of poison, starved himself to 
 death. 
 
 Moreau observes that personal resemblance and cerebral 
 disorder are never inherited from the same parent. When the 
 child resembled its parent of the opposite sex, the following 
 were the results obtained : " 47 sons resembling the father 
 derived their insanity from the mother, and 8 girls who resem- 
 bled their mother derived their insanity from the father." 
 
 Some very appalling illustrations are recorded of the strong 
 tendency among the male members of families to inherit sui- 
 cidal insanity. Dr. Burrows gives a case thus transmitted 
 through three generations. A grandfather hanged himself, 
 leaving four sons, one of whom died the same death ; the 
 second cut his throat ; the third, after some months of insan- 
 ity, drowned himself ; the fourth alone died a natural death, 
 though he, too, was insane. The following examples, recorded 
 by Falret, are equally strildng. A dyer, of a taciturn and 
 morose disposition, married a woman in good health, by whom 
 he had five sons and one daughter. The eldest son married 
 
IN MENTAL DISEASES. 165 
 
 and liad a family. After many fniitless attempts at suicide, 
 he finally jumped from a ■window and was killed. The second 
 son, also married, strangled himself at the age of thirty-five. 
 The third, in an insane attempt to fly, threw himself from a 
 window into the garden, and was severely injured. The fourth 
 tried to shoot himself. The fifth, though not a suicide, Avas 
 melancholic, and therefore dangerous to self. The sister mar- 
 ried, and never showed the least tendency to insanity or sui- 
 cide. The second example is that of a man whose brother 
 committed suicide in Paris. On viewing the corpse, he broke 
 out into the following confession : " What fatality ! My father 
 and uncle committed suicide ; my brother now imitates them, 
 and, as for myself, twenty times since I started to come here, 
 I have been strongly tempted to throw myself into the Seine." 
 
 The same tendency may be hereditary in the females of a 
 family, though it is not, I believe, met with as frequently as 
 among the males. Illustrations could be given, however, if 
 necessary, showing that grandmother, daughter, and grand- 
 daughter were affected with suicidal madness. 
 
 The last modifying cause I shall notice is age. Many ob- 
 servers have affirmed that insanity is often developed in 
 the offspring at about the same age as it appeared in the 
 parent. In his work on " Mental Maladies," Esquirol men- 
 tions the case of a lady who became insane at the age of 
 twenty-five, after her accouchement. A daughter was simi- 
 larly affected at the same age, and under like circumstances. 
 
 We are so accustomed to regard mind as not only a distinct 
 object, but one having a sphere and laws* peculiarly its 
 own and wholly independent of those of matter, that it is diffi- 
 cult to understand, at first, how a derangement of a substance 
 
 * We speak ordinarily of the laws of mind, meaning the modes of action 
 of mental phenomena and their relations. " All states of mind are immedi- 
 ately caused by other states of mind, or by states of body. When a state of 
 mind is produced by a state of mind, I call the law concerned in the case a 
 law of mind. When a state of mind is produced directly by a state of body, 
 the law is a law of body, and belongs to physical science " (Mills' " System 
 of Logic," ch. IV., " Of the Laws of Mind," p. 530, Amer. Edition, 1867). 
 The distinction here pointed out should be kept steadily in mind. 
 
166 HEBEDITAEY mPLUENCE 
 
 SO abstract and impalpable can be transmitted, Kke a bodilj 
 deformity, from generation to generation. The truth is, the 
 same principle underlies both phenomena. Whether mind is 
 or is not a pure manifestation of the matter of the vesicular 
 neurine, it at least depends upon it in a very intimate, and, so 
 far as we can tell, necessary way for its power of action, just 
 as the locomotive depends upon steam for its power of move- 
 ment. It wiU foUow, therefore, that if the bodily organ be 
 altered, by whatever cause, that which is built upon it must 
 accommodate itself to the change. Now, there can be no 
 doubt that the tendency so common among offspring to repeat 
 ancestral characteristics — that tendency which we called 
 atavism a httle while ago — ^is due to a transmitted modifica- 
 tion of phy.ncal structure. This is a sound hypothesis, and 
 without it we should be quite unable to understand, not only 
 inherited physiological and pathological characteristics, but 
 even so famihar a phenomenon of animated nature as the 
 instinct of animals. How is it that the experience of one gen- 
 eration of birds, for instance, becomes the possession of the 
 next, without any of that experimenting, so to speak, by which 
 the former had acquired its share ? Clearly by transmission 
 to the progeny of a modified nervous organism, — modified by 
 the shock of its own peculiar experiences. And so it is with 
 the hereditary disposition to disease, whatever form the latter 
 may assume, whether of some bodily ailment, as gout or con- 
 sumption, or of some mixed bodily and mental trouble such 
 as we find in insanity and the hereditary propensity to crime. 
 For, that there is a large and growing class among whom a 
 propensity to crime is transmitted from parent to chUd is be- 
 comiug a weU-recognized, as it is certainly a most important, 
 fact ia social science.* Shall we say, therefore, that the hab- 
 
 * " Thp following is the average result of statistics gathered by different 
 persons miscellaneously on a given day among the prisoners of a single es- 
 tablishment : Forty-four per cent, inherited from their ancestry within three 
 generations whatever impulse springs from intemperance, gross ignorance, 
 licentiousness, epilepsy, pauperism — all these ; twenty per cent, inherit from 
 intemperance, ignorance, and epilepsy ; fourteen per cent, inherit intemper. 
 ance and extreme irritability, amounting almost to insanity ; twelve pei 
 
IN MENTAL DISEASES. 167 
 
 itual criminal is incorrigible, that his case is hopeless because 
 he is the bondman of hereditary taint ? By no means. As 
 inherited instinct does not bound the whole mental powers of 
 animals, neither does the hereditary propensity to defective- 
 ness of moral character bound the intellectual and moral 
 capacities of a man. Beyond the Umits of this inherited modi- 
 fication stretches a wide, uncultivated tract of character, often 
 capable of yielding a fniitful harvest when the laborers are 
 skiUful and industrious. It is in this field that the most signal 
 triumphs of social science are to be won. 
 
 Mr. Leckey, in his " History of European Morals," says : 
 " We know much of the ways in which poHtical, social or in- 
 teUeetual causes act upon character, but scarcely anything of 
 the laws that govern innate disposition, of the reasons and 
 extent of the natural moral diversities of individuals and 
 races," — an observation to a very considerable extent correct. 
 StiU, whoever wiU take the trouble to examine the copious 
 literature of heredite, as a cause influencing nervous tempera- 
 ment, or "innate disposition," must feel constrained to ac- 
 knowledge the progress made during the last score or two of 
 years in the solution of this and some of the many other mys- 
 teries which surround the manifestations of mind. It is cer- 
 tainly true that most of the deepest problems, both in healthy 
 and morbid physio-psychology, remain as inscrutable as ever. 
 There is a something wanting to close the circuit between 
 physical and mental operations. Who can give us the cen- 
 tral and sufficient reason why puberty works a metamorphosis 
 in the whole character of the individual not less wonderful 
 than the emergence of the butterfly in fuU beauty from the 
 chrysalis state ; or why epidemics of crime, the excitements 
 of religious revivals, and various other moral frenzies, sweep 
 over districts, leaving the mental prostration of hundreds to 
 
 cent, intemperance and pauperiam ; while only four per cent, spring from 
 healthy stock and favorable early Influences. It is further shown that 
 twenty-eight per cent, of these prisoners thus examined have (or had) rela. 
 tions who are criminals."— (Z. R. Brockway, in "Transactions of the Inter- 
 national Penitentiary Congress, held in Loudon, July, 1872." Longman, 
 Green & Co.) 
 
168 HEREDITARY INFLUENCE 
 
 mark their paths. These are but a few specimens of the 
 numerous problems which moral pathology will have to face, 
 and ma J, I hope, one day conquer ; and I heartily agree with 
 Mr. Leckey where he says : " He who raises moral pathology 
 to a science, expanding, systematizing, and applying many 
 fragmentary observations that have been already made, will 
 probably take a place among the master-intellects of the 
 world." As a step toward the accomplishment of this neces- 
 sary, though arduous task, science has, at various times, forced 
 tlie world to reject certain obstructive theories respecting 
 the nature of insanity and the claims of the insane. Lunatics 
 are no longer condemned to the stake as possessed of the 
 devil. They are not now forced to submit to cruel and re- 
 strictive treatment as in the days when Panel commenced his 
 gi-eat reform. A searching scrutiny into the occult causes of 
 morbid nervous action has issued in a more rational patho- 
 logy, and in a treatment of lunatics in accordance with the 
 dictates of reason and humanity. The scientific spirit will 
 not stop here, for it has still an important work to accomplish. 
 It must develop the full bearing on responsibility of such facts 
 as have occupied much of our attention this evening. When 
 this is done, society wiU recognize that its treatment of habit- 
 ual criminals, far from being grounded on wise and perma- 
 nent principles, is merely tentative and wholly barren of good 
 results. Allow me to observe, in reference to the general 
 question of the treatment of our criminal classes, that though 
 crime be odious beyond comparison, the criminal is not prop- 
 erly disposed of when the anathema of society has cast him 
 out like a hopeless reprobate, into exterior darkness. And, if 
 society could intelligently place itself in the position of the 
 member who habitually violates one or more of the laws 
 framed for its integrity, and could experience all the details 
 of the process by which he was conducted to his fall, much 
 more wisdom woidd be displayed in his regard. Not that I 
 have any sympathy whatever with the sentimental treatment 
 of criminals so fashionable at the present day. Punishment 
 should be meted out to them, swift, stem, and proportionate 
 to theu' crimes, but not a punishment of revenge. It should 
 
IN MENTAL DISEASES. 
 
 1G9 
 
 be made the agent — the guide, as it were, — to lead them 
 through a radical change in their natures into a higher and 
 purer mode of life. For, truly, 
 
 " There is some soul of goodness in things evil. 
 Would men observingly distil it out." 
 
 The liberty they so greatly abuse ought, indeed, to be taken 
 from them, but it should be held as a trust to be restored when, 
 and only when, by their conduct, they afford ample and contin- 
 ued proofs of realiziag its legitimate uses. To the question, 
 how they can be brought to this, I answer, by education in its 
 broad and comprehensive sense. By this agency, wisely con- 
 ducted, a persevering attempt should be made to obhge them 
 to cast off the old, and put on the new man. " Upright crea- 
 tures may want to be improved," says the admirable Bishop 
 Butler, " depraved creatures want to be renewed. Education 
 and disciphne, which ma-y be in all degrees and sorts of gen- 
 tleness and of severity, are expedient for those ; but must be 
 absolutely necessary for these. For these, disciphne of the 
 severer sort too, and in the higher degrees of it, must be 
 necessary, in order to wear out vicious habits ; to recover 
 their primitive strength of self-government, which indulgence 
 must have weakened ; to repair, as well as raise into a habit, 
 the moral principles, in order to their arriving at a secure 
 state of virtuous happiness." * 
 
 To this end, then, all who take an interest in our great social 
 problem should labor. It should be their aim to have intro- 
 duced into our prisons and reformatories a provident treat- 
 ment of delinquents, a sound system of intellectual and relig- 
 ious training, as well as of moral discipline, by which virtuous 
 principles and a high ethical ideal will be made to replace 
 their depraved feehngs and debased moral standard. 
 
 * " The Analogy of Religion," pp. 153, 154 Bell & Daldy, London, 1868. 
 It is a remarkable proof of the sagacity of this great man that, although he 
 wrote one hundred and thirty years ngo, his ideas upon this and cognate 
 problems are fully abreast of the most advanced views of the present day. 
 No publication with which I am acquainted can approach his fifteen ser- 
 mons on " Human Nature " in point of philosophical insight into the prac- 
 tical workings of the human mind. 
 
THE LAW IN REFERENCE 
 
 TO THE 
 
 SALE OF POISOI^S BY DEUGGISTS. 
 
 BY FKANCIS TILLOU, ESQ., COUNSELLOR- AT-LAW. * 
 
 The sale of poison by druggists is regulated in the State of 
 New York by statute. 
 
 By the Revised Statutes, vol. 2, page 649, sec. 23, it ia 
 enacted that " Every apothecary, druggist, or other person 
 who shall sell and deliver any arsenic, corrosive subhinate, 
 prussic acid, or any other substance or liquid usually denom- 
 inated poisonous, without having the word ' poison ' written or 
 printed upon a label attached to the phial, box or parcel in 
 which the same is sold, or who shall sell or deliver any tartar 
 emetic without having the true name thereof written or printed 
 upon a label attached to the phial, box, or parcel containing 
 the same, shall, upon conviction, be adjudged guilty of a misde- 
 meanor, and shall be punished by a fine not exceeding one 
 hundred dollars." 
 
 By an act to regulate the sale of poisons, chapter 442 of the 
 laws of 1860, passed April 16, 1860, it was enacted by the first 
 section of said act, that no person should sell or give any 
 poison or poisonous substance, without recording in a book 
 to be kept for that purpose, the name of the person receiving 
 said poison, his or her residence (together with the name and 
 residence of some person as witness to such sale), excepting 
 
 * Read before the Society, January 13, 1870. 
 
SAIiE OF POISONS BY DRUGGISTS. 171 
 
 upon the written order or prescription of some regularly au- 
 thorized practising physician, whose name must be attached 
 to such order. Such book shaU be kept open for inspection." 
 
 But by an act passed 1862, chap. 273 of the session laws of 
 1862," the above first section of the act of 1860 was amended by 
 leaving out the requisition for the name of a \\itness to the sale. 
 
 By the second section of the act of 1860, it is further en- 
 acted that no person shall sell, give, or dispose of any poison 
 or poisonous substance, except upon the order or prescription 
 of a regularly authorized practising physician, without attach- 
 ing to the phial, box, or parcel containing such poisonous sub- 
 stance a label with the name and residence of such person and 
 the word "poison" aU printed upon it with red ink, together 
 with the name of such poison written or printed thereon 
 in plain and legible characters. 
 
 By the third section of the act of 1860 it was further en- 
 acted, " That the above provisions should apply to the follow- 
 ing poisonous substances, excepting when sold in wholesale 
 quantities of one pound or over, viz., arsenic and its various 
 preparations, oxahc acid, corrosive, sublimate, chloroform, 
 sugar of lead, tartar emetic, opium and its preparations, oil of 
 bitter almonds, cyanurets of potassium, mercury, silver, and 
 zinc, deadly nightshade, henbane, poison hemlock, prussic 
 acid, aconite and its various preparations, atropia and its salts, 
 cantharides, croton oil, daturia and its salts, delphinea and its 
 salts, digitalis and its preparations, nux vomica and its prepa- 
 rations, elaterium, ergot and its preparations, veratria and its 
 salts, cannabis and its preparations." 
 
 But by the amendatory act of 1862 this third section of the 
 act of 1860 was repealed. 
 
 By the fourth section of said act of 1860, it is enacted that 
 any person infringing any of the provisions of said act shall, 
 upon conviction, be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and 
 shall be punished by a fine not exceeding fifty dollars. 
 
 By the fifth section of said act of 1860, it is further enacted 
 that said act shall only apply to incorporated cities and vil- 
 lages having a population of one thousand inhabitants and 
 upwards in this State. 
 
lili lAW m EEFERENCE TO THE 
 
 By chapter 478 of the laws of 1869, an act regulating the 
 preparation of medical prescriptions was passed May 1, 1869. 
 
 By the first section of this act of 1869, it is enacted that no 
 person employed or in attendance at any drug store or apothe- 
 cary' shop shaU prepare a medical prescription, unless he has 
 served two years' apprenticeship in a drug store, or is a grad- 
 uate of a medical coUege or a college of pharmacy, except 
 under the direct supervision of some person possessing some 
 one of the before-mentioned qualifications ; nor shall any one 
 having permanent charge as proprietor or otherwise of any 
 store at which drugs are sold by retail, or at which medical 
 prescriptions are put up for sale or use, permit the putting up 
 or preparation thereof therein by any person, unless such per- 
 son has served two years as apprentice in a retaU drug store, 
 or is a graduate of a medical college or a college of pharmacy. 
 
 And by the second section of the same act it is provided 
 that any person violating the provisions of said act shall be 
 guilty of a misdemeanor, and shall be punished by a fine not 
 exceeding one hundred dollars, or by imprisonment not to 
 exceed six months in the county jail ; and in case of death 
 ensuing from such violation, the person ofi'ending shall be 
 deemed guilty of a felony, and be punished by a fine not less 
 than one thousand dollars, nor more than five thousand dol- 
 lars, or by imprisonment in State prison for a term of not less 
 than two years, nor more than four years, or by both fine and 
 imprisonment, in the discretion of the court. 
 
 By statute every man who by his culpable negligence causes 
 the death of another, although without any intent to kill, is 
 guilty of manslaughter. (2 R. S., 662, sec. 19.) 
 
 The foregoing seem to be all the existing statutory provis- 
 ions on the subject. 
 
 A druggist who neghgently sells a poison, labelled as a 
 harmless drug, and thereby causes the death of a person to 
 whom it is administered, is guilty of manslaughter. 
 
 So highly does the law value human hfe that it admits of 
 no justification wherever life has been lost, and the careless- 
 ness or negligence of one person has contributed to the death 
 of another. 
 
SALE OF POISONS BY DRUGGISTS. 173 
 
 And this rule applies not only when the death of one is 
 occasioned by the negligent act of another, but where it is 
 caused by the neghgent omission of a duty to that other. 
 
 Besides the penalties imposed by statute, there is also a 
 common law liability of the druggist for damages sustained by 
 his neghgence. 
 
 All persons who deal with deadly poisons are held to a strict 
 accountabUity for their use. 
 
 The highest degree of care known amongst practical men 
 must be used to prevent injury from the use of such poisons. 
 
 And one who sells poisons labelled as an innocent drug is 
 Eable in damages to any person injured thereby, no matter 
 through how many hands it may have passed. 
 
 A druggist is undoubtedly held to a special degree of re- 
 sponsibihty for the erroneous use of poisons, corresponding 
 with his superior knowledge of the business. 
 
 Affixing a false label to a poison, and sending it into 
 market in that condition, so as thereby to mislead others and 
 endanger human Ufe, is an unlawfid act, for which the party 
 guilty of the act is responsible, whether he did it wilfully or 
 negligently, and to entitle the aggrieved party to his action in 
 such case no privity is necessary except such as is created by 
 the unlawful act and consequential injury. Privity of con- 
 tract in such case is out of the question. For a duty violated 
 by a druggist giving a false label is a duty not created by con- 
 tract, but by law, every on« being under an obUgation to 
 abstain from acts tending naturally and probably to endanger 
 human life. 
 
 The injury is not rendered too remote to sustain a recovery 
 because separated from the unlawful act by intervening events, 
 however numerous or of whatever kind, provided they are the 
 natural and probable consequences of the act. 
 
 And when the unlawful act is in its nature likely to produce 
 the events which follow, as, for instance, a patient taking a 
 poison instead of some harmless or different prescription 
 than that intended, by reason of a false label of a druggist, 
 the author of it may be treated as having caused the suc- 
 ceeding events, though they consisted of the acts of third 
 
174 LAW IN EEFEKENCE TO THE 
 
 persons. For the false label is a continuing authority or direc- 
 tion by the druggist for the use of the poison, and he is bound 
 to indemnify against the acts which it was likely to cause 
 when sold in that condition. 
 
 The foregoing propositions seem to be fuUy sustained by 
 the case of Thomas v. "Winchester, in the Court of Appeals. 
 
 That was an action brought to recover damages for negh- 
 gently putting up, labelhng, and selling as and for the " Ex- 
 tract of Dandelion " a jar of the " Extract of Belladonna," by 
 means of whicli the plaintiff's wife, Mrs. Thomas, being sick, 
 a dose of dandelion was prescribed by a physician, and a por- 
 tion of the contents of the jar of belladonna was administered 
 as and for the extract of dandelion, etc. 
 
 The facts of the case, briefly, were as follows : — • 
 
 The defendant, Winchester, was engaged at 108 John street, 
 New York, in the manufacture and sale of certain vegetable 
 extracts for medicinal purposes, and in the purchase and sale 
 of others. 
 
 The extracts manufactured by him were put up in jars 
 for sale, and those he purchased were put up by him in Uke 
 manner. 
 
 The jars containing extracts manufactured by himseK, and 
 those containing extracts purchased by him from others, were 
 labelled ahke — both were labelled as " prepared by A. Gilbert," 
 a person in the employ of defendant. 
 
 The jar in question was labelled "\ lb. Dandelion ; prepared 
 by A. Gilbert, JVo. 108 John sL, N. Y.;" and in fact contained 
 belladonna, and not dandehon. 
 
 The jar was sold by defendant to a wholesale druggist in 
 New York, as and for the extract of dandelion. Dr. Foord, a 
 physician and druggist at Cazenovia, Madison county, N. Y., 
 purchased the article from the New York druggist, as and for 
 the extract of dandelion. 
 
 Mrs. Thomas being iU, her physician prescribed a dose of 
 dandehon. Her husband purchased what was beheved to be 
 the medicine prescribed at the store of Dr. Foord. The medi- 
 cine was taken from the jar in question and administered to 
 Mrs. Thomas, who was thereby made dangerously iU, and the 
 
SALE OF POISONS BY DBUGGISTS. 17 J 
 
 action was brought against Winchester and Gilbert to recover 
 damages. 
 
 It appeared that the extract in the jar in question was not 
 manufactured by defendant himself, but was purchased by 
 him from another manufacturer or dealer, but labelled with 
 Gilbert's labels, which labels were paid for by Wiuehester, 
 and used in his business with his knowledge and assent. 
 
 It was objected, among other questions, that the action 
 could not be sustained, as the defendant was the remote 
 vendor of the article in question, and there was no connection, 
 transaction, or privity between defendant and the plaiutift". 
 
 A verdict was rendered against the defendant Winchester ; 
 the defendant Gilbert being acquitted by the direction of the 
 Court. 
 
 The defendant Winchester appealed to Court of Appeals, 
 and it was there held that a dealer in drugs and medicines, 
 who carelessly labels a deadly poison as a harmless medicine, 
 and sends it so labelled into market, is liable to all persons 
 who, without fault on their part, are injured by using it as 
 such medicine in consequence of the false label. That the 
 liability of the dealer, in such case, arises not out of any con- 
 tract or direct privity between him and the person injured, 
 but out of the duty which the law imposes upon him to avoid 
 acts in their nature dangerous to the Hves of others. He is 
 liable, therefore, though the poisonous drug with such label 
 may have passed through many intermediate sales before it 
 reaches the hands of the person injured. That where such 
 n^ghgent act is done by an agent, the principal is liable for 
 the injury caused thereby. 
 
 Although the defendant Gilbert was acquitted by the jury 
 under direction of the Court, and judgment rendered against 
 the defendant Winchester alone for damages. Judge Ruggles, 
 iQ deliveriag the opinion of the Court of Appeals, said that 
 " Gilbert, the defendant's agent, would have been punishable 
 for manslaughter, if Mrs. Thomas had died in consequence of 
 taking the falsely labelled medicine." (2 E. S. 662, sec. 17 ; 
 Tessymond's Case ; 1 Lewin's Crown Cases, 169 ; Eegina v. 
 Swindall ; 2 Car. & Ker., 232.) 
 
176 LAW IN REFERENCE TO SALE OF POISONS. 
 
 " Although the dtsfendant Winchester may not be answer- 
 able criminally for tJie negligence of his agent, there can be 
 no doubt of his liability in a civil action, in which the act of 
 the agent is to be regarded as the act of the principal." 
 
 See the case fuUy reported in 6 New York (2 Selden) Ee- 
 ports, page 397, and the numerous authorities there cited and 
 referred to. 
 
 The law regulating the sale of poison by druggists might be 
 amended in this respect : — 
 
 Druggists should be required, in addition to the label of 
 poison and the name of the poison, to name also the antidote 
 to such poison, and give brief directions for administering the 
 antidote. This should be printed or written plainly and 
 legibly, so that in cases of poison being taken by accident or 
 design, an antidote could be quickly administered without the 
 delay of getting a physician ; and no doubt many lives could 
 thereby be saved. 
 
 The law of 1860 seems to be defective in limiting its appH- 
 cation to incorporated cities and villages having a population 
 of one thousand inhabitants and upwards. 
 
 It might with advantage be made general in its application 
 throughout the State. 
 
GEORGE M. BEAED, A.M., M.D. 
 
 De. Beard, the son of a Congregational minister, was born 
 in Montville, Conn., May 8, 1839. He prepared for college at 
 Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass., and subsequently entered 
 the academical department of Tale, graduating in 1862. In 
 college he was prominent as a scholar, writer, and debater, re- 
 ceived a prize for English composition, and the Townsend pi'e- 
 minm, and was editor of the 'Yale Literary Magazine. He 
 received .the degree of M.D. from the College of Physicians 
 and Surgeons in 1866, and shortly after became associated with 
 Dr. A. J. Rockwell in the study of nervous diseases. Dr. Beard, 
 in conjunction with the writer, embodied the results of their 
 experiments in a series of articles in the JSTew York Medical 
 Record, entitled " The Medical Use of Electricity, with Special 
 Reference to General Electrization as a Constitutional Tonic," 
 etc. 
 
 These were extensively copied in foreign journals, both in 
 England and on the Continent, and with other methods and 
 ideas, have long been incorporated into scientific literature, and, 
 as has been conceded, mark epochs in this department of sci- 
 ence. In 1868 he translated from the German and edited with 
 an introduction, Tobold's " Chronic Diseases of the Larynx,'' 
 and in the following year he published a large and popular 
 work for the family, entitled "Our Home Physician." In 
 1871, two treatises, called respectively "Eating and Drinking," 
 and "Stimulants and Narcotics;" in 1872, in connection with 
 the writer, he published an exhaustive treatise on " Medical and 
 Surgical Electricity;" in 1873 he published in the same man- 
 ner a monograph, entitled "Clinical Researches in Electro-Sur- 
 gery," and in 1874 a monograph on "Legal Responsibility in 
 
GEOEGE M. BEAED, A.M., M.D. 
 
 Old Age," based on tlie author's researches into the relation of 
 age to work. In the same year he founded a semi-annnal jour- 
 nal. The Ar chives of Electrology and Neiirology^ and also began 
 the stndj- of psj'chology and pathology of delusions, explaining 
 the performances of the Eddy Brothers and Brown, the mind 
 reader ; in 1876, a work on " Hay Fever," based on original 
 researches and advocating the nerve theory of that disease ; in 
 1877 a monograph on " Scientific Basis of Delusions," being a 
 new theory of trance and its bearing on human testimony ; in 
 1880, a practical treatise on "Neurasthenia;" iu 1881, a popu- 
 lar work on " Sea-sickness," in which he first advocated the 
 bromide treatment; and also in the same year a popular treatise 
 on "American Nervousness, its Causes and Consequence." 
 During tlie last year Mr. Ilerbert Spencer, while in this coun- 
 try, in an after-dinner speech 'which excited widespi'ead inter- 
 est, repeated many of the ideas first enunciated in this work. 
 In a pamphlet termed " A Scientific Coincidence," written by 
 Dr. Beard, and which was issued some days after his deatli, 
 attention is called to this singular circumstance. In 1882 lie 
 published " Trance and Muscle Reading," and in the same year 
 a monograph, entitled "Psychology of the Salem Witchcraft 
 Excitement, and its Practical Application to Events in Our Own 
 Time, Including the Cases of Guiteau and Cadet Whittaker; " 
 in 1883 a work on " Sexual Neurasthenia;" and in the same 
 year a monograph, entitled " Medical Education and the Med- 
 ical Profession in Europe and America." 
 
 Dr. Beard not only gave much attention to psychology of 
 delusions, but he was the first to clearly and prominently de- 
 monstrate that the facts of the phenomena of these delusions 
 belpng to psychologj', and should be brought into science ex- 
 clusively by psychologists. Previously these phenomena had 
 been studied, so far as they had been studied at all, by physic- 
 ists, chemists, astronomers, general physiologists, and psychol- 
 ogists. His doctrine was that delusions were to be overcome 
 not by direct attack, but by organizing in science the phenom- 
 ena that give rise to them. In his work on " Psychology of 
 Witchcraft," he has given definitions of religion, delusion, su- 
 
GEOEGE M. BEARD, A.M., M.D. 
 
 pei'stition, and science, and has explained their relations to 
 each other. In his works on "Neurasthenia" and "American 
 Kervonsness,'' he has given attention to facts and phenomena 
 that had hitherto, with some exceptions, been thought unworthy 
 of scientific attention. 
 
 In the words of one who knew him well, there are " in this 
 great human caravan, keeping pace to the marcli of time, thi'ee 
 classes of workers: first, and bj far the largest in number, 
 those who merely plod, and follow in routine courses, or walk 
 in circles ; second, those who strive to make these routine 
 courses and these circles easier and straighter by chipping off a 
 little here and filling a little there, lessening the grade at this 
 point, and increasing the momentum at that ; and third, em- 
 bracing a very small fraction of this great multitude, those who 
 are the advance workers, who do what is sometimes called 
 ' original work,' who live beyond or in advance of their time." 
 
 He early became a member of the Medico- Legal Society of 
 New York, taking from the outset an active interest in its 
 labors. He attended the inaugural meeting in January, 1883, 
 a short time before his death. He was one of the founders of 
 the National Association for the Protection of the Insane, and 
 of the New York Society of Neurology and Electrology. He 
 read a paper before the Medico-Legal Society, entitled "Legal 
 Responsibility in Old Age, based on Researches into the Rela- 
 tion of Age to Work ; " also one entitled " Problems of Insan- 
 ity;" another on "Hypnotism." 
 
 During the latter part of his life he gave much attention to 
 medico-legal studies, contributing much that is valuable to 
 forensic literature. 
 
 He was among the foremost alienists of our country, and his 
 reputation was widei- extended, especially abroad, perhaps, than 
 that of any of his contemporaries of his years. 
 
 The work for which Dr. Beard was best fitted and most pe- 
 culiarly adapted, and in which, had he lived, he could have 
 been most useful, was doubtless that of lunacy reform. 
 
 It is questionable if any of our American alienists had studied 
 the subject more deeply and thoroughly than had Dr. Beard. 
 
He had mastered the English system, both in its legal and 
 practical aspects, and was thoroughly familiar with continental 
 systems. 
 
 He recognized the changes needed at home in our laws and 
 asylums, and his death was a severe blow to that body of 
 thoughtful minds who engaged in the consideration of the 
 problems of this interesting question. 
 
 In no society, however, in this country, was his loss more 
 keenly felt than in the Medico-Legal Society of New York, in 
 the success of which he took the liveliest interest. 
 
 He was largely instrumental in inaugurating The JSfedieo- 
 Legal Journal, to which he pledged the support of his influ- 
 ence and his pen — but his voice is hushed and his pen laid 
 aside forever. Although cut off in the prime of his manhood 
 he has left, in his printed works, an enduiing monument. 8ie 
 itur ad astra. A. J. K. 
 
A MEDICO-LEGAL STUDY 
 
 OF THE CASE OF 
 
 r)_A.NIEL McF^RLA.]SrD 
 
 By WILLIAM A. HAMMOND, M.D. * 
 
 I. The mind of man may be defined as a force deyeloped 
 by nervous action, and is appropriately divisible into four dis- 
 tinct parts : the perception, the intellect, the emotions, and the 
 wUl. Either one of them may be exercised independently of 
 the other, though they are very intimately connected, and in 
 all continuous mental processes are more or less brought into 
 relative and consecutive action: 1. Thus we see an object, 
 hear a sound, taste a flavor, smell an odor, or touch a sub- 
 stance, and perception is exercised. 2. We form an idea of 
 the material which has been brought to our knowledge through 
 the medium of our senses, and the intellect acts. 3. We are 
 moved to pleasure, disgust, affection, or some other emotion 
 by the information obtained, and the judgment formed ; and 
 
 * This paper is republislied from the Psychologieat Journal for July, 1870, 
 at the request of many medical and legal friends. It was read before the 
 Medico-Legal Society of the city of New York, on the evening of May 12th, 
 and was honored by a special vote of commendation. That the principles 
 which it enunciates are true, will scarcely, I think, be questioijed by those 
 whose knowledge of psychological medicine gives any value to their opin- 
 ions ; that those principles are applicable to the chief actor in the tragedy, 
 will not, I imagine, be doubted by those whose judgments are not warped 
 by a prejudice more powerful even than ignorance. 
 13 
 
178 A MEDICO-LEGAL STUDY OF THE 
 
 4. We act in accordance therewith, and thus bring the will 
 into operation. 
 
 II. Individuals of well-balanced minds, and under ordinary 
 circumstances, do not act either from mere sensorial impres- 
 sions or in accordance with their emotions, but from the ideas 
 which tbeir intellect presents to them, {. e., after due reflec- 
 tion. Others, however, less happily constituted, and all of us 
 in times of excitement and emergency, under the influence of 
 certain drugs, or while suffering from bodily disease, are 
 guided to a great extent by the senses or the emotions alone, 
 and thus either bring the intellect into feeble action, or are 
 not influenced by it at all. 
 
 III. Again, the intellect may be intensely preoccupied by 
 some engrossing subject, an impression is made upon the 
 senses, and an act is performed in accordance with the per- 
 ception, but \\'ithout even the knowledge of the intellect. In- 
 dividuals thus circumstanced are said to be " absent-minded." 
 
 IV. On the other hand, the senses may become so highly 
 abstracted that both the intellect and the will are paralyzed : 
 1. Thus a frightful object or event is said to "freeze with hor- 
 ror." 2. The hand coming suddenly and unexpectedly in 
 contact with a cold, dead human body has excited the emo- 
 tion of fear to such an extent as to induce permanent insanity. 
 3. A sound such as that of burglars breaking into a house has 
 been known to cause complete mental and physical paralysis 
 for several hours. 4. In these and in many similar instances 
 which are familiar to all, the cause excites only the percep- 
 tion and the emotions, and in some cases touches the first 
 only. The will, in persons normally constituted and in good 
 health, never acts unless set in motion either by the percep- 
 tion, the emotions, or the intellect, and then the resultant 
 action is a logical and direct consequence of the sensorial, 
 intellectual, or emotional factor. 
 
 V. Now, in individuals of well-formed brains, which are free 
 fr-om structural changes, and nourished with a due supply — 
 neither excessive nor deficient — of healthy blood, the percep- 
 tion, the intellect, the emotions, and the wiU, act in a manner 
 common to mankind in general : 1. Slight changes in the forma- 
 
CASE OF DANIEL McFABLAND. 179 
 
 tion or nutrition of the brain induce corresponding changes in 
 the several parts of the mind, or in it as a whole. As no two 
 brains are precisely alike, so no two persons are precisely alike 
 in their mental processes. 2. So long, however, as the devi- 
 ations are not directly at variance with the average human 
 mind, the individual is sane. If they are at variance, he is 
 insane. 
 
 VI. But within the limits of mental health marked irregu- 
 larities are met with in the different parts of the mind : 
 1. Thus some persons are noted for never perceiving things 
 exactly as they are. 2. Others have the emotional system 
 inordinately or deficiently developed. 3. Others are weak in 
 judgment, defective in memoiy, feeble in powers of applica- 
 tion, or vacillating in their opinions. 4. Others, again, are 
 lacking in volitional power, and the ability to perform certain 
 acts, to refrain from others, or to foUow a definite course of 
 action which the intellect tells them is expedient and wise, 
 (a.) Such persons are "eccentric," and the emotions which 
 influence them most powerfully are those which react upon 
 themselves — vanity, pride, the love of approbation or of 
 notoriety, etc. (6.) They stand upon the verge of insanity 
 with a decided predisposition to mental disease, and ordinarily 
 do not pass the limit merely for want of a sufficient exciting 
 cause. 
 
 VII. Others are naturally so constituted, or through the 
 operation of morbid causes are so changed, that the several 
 parts of their minds, as a whole or separately, are exercised 
 in an abnormal manner : 1. Thus the perception may be 
 deranged to such an extent as to render them continually 
 the victims of erroneous sensorial impressions. 2. These, 
 when produced by the false interpretation of real objects, are 
 called illusions, and when originating internally, and having 
 no real basis, hallucinations. Illusions are eccentric, haUu- 
 cinations centric. The latter are, therefore, of more serious 
 importance. 3. An individual who has such derangements of 
 his sensorial processes is suffering from the primary form of 
 mental aberration — ^perceptional insanity. 
 
 VIII. Thus far there is no error of intellect : 1. He recog- 
 
180 A MEDICO-LEGAL STUDY OP THE 
 
 nizes the fact that his senses convey false impressions to the 
 higher parts of the brain, or that these latter are so disordered 
 as to act from within upon the sensorial organs, and he is not 
 deceived, except, perhaps, for the instant. 2. We all at times 
 momentarily have illusions and hallucinations, but the judg- 
 ment at once prevents continued deception. 3. When this 
 fails to be the case, delusions exist, and we are the subjects of 
 intellectual iasanity. 
 
 (a.) Thus a person has a sensation of a fly or an ant crawl- 
 ing over his skin. He applies his finger to the spot, and 
 ascertains that he has a false sensation, an illusion, or an 
 hallucination. This is probably the end of it. (b.) But if he 
 should happen to imbibe from these erroneous impressions 
 the idea that a fly or an ant really was on his skin, and should 
 persist in this opinion against all reason, he would have a 
 delusion, and would be intellectually insane, (c.) To what 
 point this delusion might carry him no one could predict. It 
 might, and in a perfectly logical manner, prompt him to steal, 
 commit arson, murder his dearest friend or his worst enemy, 
 or make a wiU, leaving aU his property away from his natural 
 heirs. Delusions are the essential feature of intellectual 
 insanity, but of no other uncomplicated form of mental 
 derangement. They are not, therefore, a scientific test of 
 insanity ia general. 
 
 IX. Insane actions are often the direct consequences of 
 delusions : 1. The wUl, when the organism is in a normal con- 
 dition, acts in obedience to the intellect, to the ideas which 
 the healthy brain elaborates. 2. Persons intellectually iasane 
 foUow the same law, and do those things to which their delu- 
 sions logically lead them. A delusion being a false concep- 
 tion of the intellect which is accepted as true, it exercises the 
 same power over the wiU as a true belief. 3. A man, there- 
 fore, who imagines he hears the voice of God commanding 
 him to kill his wife or his children, obeys with as much un- 
 questioning faith in the reality of the impression made upon 
 his auditory nerves as Abraham had when he received the 
 divine command to sacrifice his only son. 4. Neither is the 
 " knowledge of right and wrong " a test of the mental condi- 
 
CASE OF DANIEL McFABLAND. 18i 
 
 tion of an individual except to a very limited extent. The 
 faculty in question is not inherent, but is the result of educa- 
 tion ; and what is right with one race, or nation, or commu- 
 nity, is wrong with another, and vice versa ; so that persons of 
 perfectly normal mental organization might be incapable of 
 making the distinction according to our ideas. We all, at 
 times, feel that those only are right whose views are in accord- 
 ance with our own, and it is, therefore, most unwise to set up 
 so arbitrary a standard as a test of the integrity of an iadi- 
 vidual's mind. 
 
 X. On the other hand, insane persons are often perfectly 
 able to discriminate between acts which may be right or 
 wrong, according to their ordinary normal standard. A per- 
 son manifestly insane wiU reason logically ia regard to con- 
 duct which he knows has been contrary to law, and at variance 
 with the principles instilled into him from childhood, but 
 which he was not able to control or prevent. 
 
 XL The emotions are at all times difficult to control, but 
 they may acquire such undue prominence as to dominate over 
 the intellect and the wUl, and assume the entire mastery of 
 the actions in one or more respects : 1. The love of a father 
 for his offspring is one of the most powerful of all the emo- 
 tions, and under certain circumstances may be developed into 
 a passion, or even an insane impulse. 2. As an example of 
 the former, take the case of a father who saw his child in a 
 burning house, entirely surrounded by flames, and cut oft 
 from aU chance of escape. Without stopping to reflect on the 
 futility of the action, or on the certainty that his own life 
 would be sacrificed, he rushed into the midst of the fire and 
 smoke in the vain attempt to save the being so dear to him, 
 and perished before half the space was traversed, (a.) In 
 such a case a moment's exercise of the reasoning faculties 
 would have been sufficient to show the hopelessness of the 
 effort, (h.) But the emotion of paternal love was all-powerful ; 
 there was no intellect, no will, and the act was, therefore, one 
 done in the " heat of passion," and as such differing only in 
 unessential particulars from others which the law regards as 
 criminal. 
 
182 A MEDICO-LEGAL STUDY OF THE 
 
 XII. The emotions are also subject to insane exaggeration 
 through the influence of motives which act slowly, but with 
 constantly-increasing force : 1. Thus, a mother is affected with 
 emotional insanity from the fact that her son or daughter has 
 become depraved or criminal. 2. She struggles against the 
 consciousness that her hopes are blasted; but at last the 
 intellect and the will yield, a settled melancholy predominates 
 in aU her thoughts, and she commits suicide, unable longer to 
 bear up in the unequal conflict. 3. Here there is no delusion, 
 no error of judgment, but simply an inability to apply her 
 reasoning powers to the consideration of the subject, or to 
 exercise her wiU against the overpowering emotion which 
 renders her life a burden. 
 
 XIII. Again, there may be no motive whatever discover- 
 able on the most minute examination : 1. To be sorrowful 
 when we have met with a great misfortune, to rejoice when 
 we have cause for gladness, to be jealous when there is reason, 
 to be afraid when there is occasion for fear, are emotional 
 actions which are common to mankind when in a state of 
 complete health. 2. Some persons, however, are able to exer- 
 cise a greater degree of control over the manifestations of 
 their emotions than others, who yield to very slight disturb- 
 ances in the routine current of their lives. 
 
 XIY. Many examples of apparently causeless emotional 
 insanity are met with in the practice of physicians who devote 
 themselves to the study of mental diseases : 1. A few days 
 ago I was consulted in the case of a lady who had become 
 morbidly depressed without evident cause. For several hours 
 every day she sat weeping and wringing her hands. She 
 could give no reason for the intense melancholy which affected 
 her, and to escape from which she was ready to destroy her- 
 self. 2. Of course, in cases such as this there is a cause, but 
 it is not primarily mental, or even emotional. It is to be 
 found in the functional derangement of some one of the bodily 
 organs, capable, by sympathetic action, of influencing the 
 operations of the nervous system, or else is located in some 
 part of the nervous system itseK. 3, A gentleman occupying 
 a prominent public position is now under my charge, suffering 
 
CASE OF DANIEL McFAELAND. 183 
 
 with profound melanclioly, for which he can allege no cause. 
 " The community," he said to me, " regards me as one of the 
 most favored of men in every respect. I am wealthy, my chil- 
 dren have turned out well, I have succeeded in aU my under- 
 takings, I have no source of anxiety or grief ; and yet I am 
 only restrained from committing suicide by the consciousness 
 that reproach would fall upon my family. I exaggerate the 
 petty trifles of life to momentous troubles ; the conduct of my 
 friends is misinterpreted ; little slights are magnified into gross 
 insults or serious wrongs ; and yet I am inwardly conscious 
 that no one commands a higher degree of respect than myself, 
 or has a greater right to be happy." (a.) Here another emo- 
 tion, that of family pride, is stronger for the present than 
 those which depress him, and consequently it acts upon his 
 will, and restrains him from committing suicide or other crim- 
 inal act ; (b.) but in an instant the balance may be reversed, 
 and the slumbering embers kindled into flame by a scarcely 
 perceptible spark. A dose of opium, an undigested meal, an 
 attack of constipation, a httle irregularity in the action of the 
 liver, a sleepless night, or a real cause for mental anxiety, 
 might result in the loss of the control he now has, and force 
 him to commit a deadly injury to himself or others, (c.) How 
 much greater would be his danger if, instead of a faithful wife, 
 devoted children, and a placid existence, the last few years of 
 his hfe had witnessed the wreck of aU his domestic joys, the 
 rise of enemies, and the success of the harassing measures 
 they had undertaken against him ! 
 
 XV. The emotions are also frequently secondarily deranged 
 through the morbid operations of the intellect : 1. A person, 
 for instance, imbibes the delusion that he has committed the 
 unpardonable sin, or that God has deserted him, and in con- 
 sequence passes into a condition of settled melancholy, dm-ing 
 which he may attempt self-destruction to escape from his har- 
 rowing thoughts, or commit a homicide in order that the same 
 end may be accomphshed by his being hanged for murder. 
 2. Other emotions may, of course, be excited into morbid 
 activity by derangement of the intellect. Delusional jealousy, 
 anger, hatred, or love may thus urge their unfortunate victim 
 
184 A MEDICO-LEGAL STUDY OP THE 
 
 to the perpetration of crime, plunge him into a depth of un- 
 happiness from which there is no escape, or lift him to an 
 ecstasy of bliss far exceeding that derivable from the realiza- 
 tion of all his wishes. 
 
 XVI. The brain may be so disordered that insanity is mani- 
 fested only as regards the will : 1. There are no false concep- 
 tions of the intellect, and no emotional disturbance, but solely 
 an inability to exert the fuU will power either affirmatively or 
 negatively. 2. Many instances of "morbid impulse " are un- 
 complicated cases of volitional insanity, in which an idea, 
 suddenly flashing across the mind, is immediately carried out 
 by the individual, although his intellect and his emotions are 
 strongly exerted against it. (a.) Thus, a person who previ- 
 ously has not exhibited any very obvious symptoms of mental 
 derangement — though careful inquiry wiU invariably show 
 that slight evidences of cerebral disease have been present for 
 some days — instantaneously feels a morbid impulse to com- 
 mit a murder, or perpetrate some other criminal act. (&.) The 
 many species of what is sometimes called " moral insanity," 
 may properly be classed together under the head of voHtional 
 insanity ; of such are kleptomania, dipsomania, pyromania, 
 etc. The subject of volitional insanity wiU be more fully con- 
 sidered in a subsequent part of this paper. 
 
 XVn. Hence the mind may be ~ disordered as regards the 
 perception, the intellect, the emotions, and the will, sepa- 
 rately, and to this partial derangement the term " monomania " 
 is often applied : 1. It may also be unsettled by the simul- 
 taneous perversion of two or more of these parts from the 
 normal standard, and this state is frequently designated 
 mania. 2. In general mania, the patient is insane in his per- 
 ceptions, i. e., he has illusions and hallucinations ; in his intel- 
 lect, i. €., he has delusions, and is disordered in the faculties 
 of judgment, memory, etc. ; in his emotions, which become 
 exaggerated or uncontrollable ; and in his wiU, by which he is 
 rendered incapable of self-control or self-direction. 
 
 XVIII. Dementia is that condition in which the mind, 
 originally of normal character, has lost a portion of its power ; 
 and idiocy, that in which the mind has always been feeble. 
 
CASE OF DANIEL McFAKLAND. 18o 
 
 From the foregoing remarks, it will be perceived that I 
 regard insanity as a manifestation of disease of the brain 
 characterized by a general or partial derangement of one or 
 more faculties of the mind, and in which, while consciousness 
 is not abohshed, mental freedom is perverted, weakened, or 
 destroyed. 
 
 XIX. An essential feature of the definition here given of 
 insanity is, that it depends directly upon a diseased condition 
 of the brain : 1. This is the immediate cause, and may con- 
 sist of structural changes due to injury, disease, or malforma- 
 tion, or of mal-nutrition, the result of excessive intellectual 
 exertion, the action of powerful emotions, irritations in distant 
 parts of the body, the sudden stoppage of the digestive proc- 
 ess, the introduction into the system of certain drugs, such 
 as opium, alcohol, belladonna, etc., the retention in the organ- 
 ism of substances poisonous in character, but which in health 
 are excreted, and of other factors capable of altering the quan- 
 tity or quality of the blood circulating through the cerebral 
 \essels, or of accelerating or retarding the metamorphosis of 
 tissue which the brain undergoes in common with aU the other 
 organs of the body. With this general view of the subject of 
 insanity as I understand it, I pass to the consideration of 
 points more intimately connected with the case under con- 
 sideration. 
 
 XX. I have stated, incidentally, that there is a form of 
 insanity, which, in its culminating act, is extremely temporary 
 in its character, and which, in all its manifestations, from 
 beginning to end, is of short duration : 1. This species of 
 mental aberration is well known to aU physicians and medical 
 jurists who have studied the subject of insanity, (a.) By 
 authors it has been variously designated as transitory mania, 
 ephemeral mania, temporary insanity, and morbid impulse. 
 (5.) It may be exhibited in the perceptional, intellectual, emo- 
 tional, or volitional form, or as general mania. 2. The excit- 
 ing causes of temporary insanity are numerous, (a.) It may 
 be induced by bad hygienic influences, such as improper food, 
 exposure to intense heat, cold, or dampness, or to a noxious 
 atmosphere ; by excessive physical exercise, by disease of the 
 
ISG A MEDICO-LEGAL STUDY OF THE 
 
 heart, by blows upon the head or other parts of the body, by 
 certain general and local diseases, by the abuse of alcohoHo 
 liquors, by the ingestion of certain drugs, such as opium, 
 belladonna, and hashish, by excessive intellectual occxipation, 
 by loss of sleep, and, above all, by great emotional disturb- 
 ances, {b.) Among these latter are religious excitement, grief, 
 disappointed affection, and especially anxiety, by which the 
 mind is kept continually on the stretch, tortured by appre- 
 hensions, doubts, and uncertainties, and by which it is worn 
 away more surely than by the most terrible reahties. 3. The 
 predisposing causes are to be found in the individual as an 
 inherent part of his organization, (a.) They consist in an 
 hereditary tendency to insanity, or to some other profound 
 affection of the nervous system ; (h.) or the possession of an 
 excitable, nervous temperament, which is incapable of resist- 
 ing those morbid influences which persons of phlegmatic dis- 
 position would easily withstand, (c.) Thus, all men are not 
 affected alike by disturbing causes, because all men are not 
 cast in the same physical or mental mould ; a circumstance 
 which will produce insanity in one person will scarcely ruffle 
 the equanimity of another. 4. The immediate cause of tem- 
 porary insanity is the disease itself, of which the mental aber- 
 ration is simply the manifestation. It may consist of^(a.) A 
 condition of cerebral exhaustion, in which, owing to excessive 
 wear and tear of the brain, new substance is not formed with 
 sufficient rapidity to take the place of that used, (b.) The 
 circulation through the brain of blood which is not normal in 
 quality, (c.) Cerebral congestion. 
 
 5. The first of these is more particularly the existing con- 
 dition in those cases of temporary insanity which result from 
 the excessive use of the brain and in which loss of sleep is a 
 characteristic feature, (a.) Sleep is the period during which 
 the brain rests and is recuperated ; but if the sleep be insuffi- 
 cient, and the brain is kept in a state of activity when it should 
 be in repose, not only is its nutrition prevented, but it is stiU 
 further exhausted by the demands made upon its substance. 
 (b.) For, every sensation which it perceives, every emotion 
 which it experiences, every thought which it elaborates, every 
 
CASE OF DANIEL McFABLAND. 187 
 
 volitional act wliicli it performs, is the result of the destruction 
 of the cerebral tissue : now, in healthy sleep the blood-vessels 
 of the braia are comparatively empty ; when they are over- 
 loaded, sleep is impossible, (c.) The existence of wakefulness 
 not only indicates a morbid activity of the brain, but it is a 
 positive sign of cerebral hypersemia or congestion, which con- 
 dition is intimately related to the one now under consider- 
 ation. 
 
 6. The second condition — the circulation through the brain 
 of blood of morbid quality is very often the disease which 
 gives rise to temporary insanity, (a.) The retention in this 
 fluid of the elements of the bile or urine vitiates its quality to 
 such an extent as to interfere with the normal functions of the 
 brain, and sometimes to cause temporary insanity, (h.) A 
 similar state, though of course induced by different substances, 
 is caused by the ingestion of alcohol, opium, belladonna, and 
 other drugs, (c.) The temporary insanity, however, which is 
 brought about by any poisonous material, animal or vegetable, 
 contained in the blood, presents peculiar features according 
 ■to the character of the toxic substance, which are easily recog- 
 nizable by the experienced physician. 
 
 (d.) The blood may be poisoned by the influence of certain 
 emotions, and thus rendered unfit for the use of the brain. In 
 regard to this point, Descuret * says : 
 
 " It is more than probable that the blood likewise experi- 
 ences through the effect of the passions alterations of which 
 chemistry will hereafter perhaps be able to ascertain the 
 natTire." 
 
 7. We know, too, that a violent emotion will so interfere 
 with the action of certain excretory organs as to arrest their 
 functional activity, and thus cause the effete and poisonous 
 substances, which it is their office to ehminate, to be retained 
 in the blood, (a.) Excessive passion has also been known so 
 to alter the constitution of the mother's milk as to render it a 
 deadly poison to the infant at her breast. (&.) Offspring 
 
 * La Medecine des Passions, ou les Passions considerees dans leurs rap- 
 ports avec les Maladies, etc. Paris, 1860. Tome i., p. 175. 
 
188 A MEDICO-LEGAL STUDY OF THE 
 
 begotten by a father wlio is suffering from harassing emotion 
 are born idiotic or with a marked procKrity to diseases of the 
 nervous system ; fear or sorrow will even in a single night 
 blanch the hair ; the sweat of persons under the influence of 
 strong passions acquires a peculiar odor ; and the saliva of an 
 angry man is sometimes as poisonous as that of a rabid dog. 
 (c.) All these changes must take place through the medium of 
 the nervous system, and the blood, whereby the latter under- 
 goes some radical change, (d.) There is every probability 
 that the sudden outbursts of mania during or immediately 
 after great emotional excitement are in part at least the result 
 of morbid alterations in the quahty of the blood. 
 
 8. The third diseased state which may give rise to tempo- 
 rary insanity is that which is characterized by an increase in 
 the amount of blood contained in the brain. This condition 
 may be induced by causes similar to those which produce 
 mal-nutrition and morbid changes in the constitution of the 
 blood. Some of these, however, require more particular con- 
 sideration than has yet been given them in this paper. 
 
 9. The quantity of blood in the brain is increased by long- 
 continued exercise of the intellectual powers, (a.) We are 
 all familiar with this fact in our own persons, from the sensa- 
 tions of heat, fuUness, and sometimes pain, we experience after 
 we have overtasked our brains. Several cases of mental 
 derangement, the effects of excessive work imposed upon the 
 brain, have come under my observation, and the influence is 
 well recognized by aU alienists, (b.) For the fuU exercise of 
 the cerebral functions blood is necessary in large amount, and 
 it must be frequently renewed. In this respect the brain does 
 not differ from the other bodily organs, but the supply of 
 blood sent to it is greatly in excess of that received by any of 
 them, for the reason that while they have their periods of rest, 
 the brain is active every instant of life ; not even sleep afford- 
 ing it entire repose in aU its parts. Now, increased action 
 reqiiires an increased amount of blood; the vessels thus 
 become over-distended, they lose thereby their ability to 
 contract, and thus even after the exciting cause is removed 
 they continue dilated, (c.) Congestion is thus induced, and 
 
CASE OF DANIEL McPABLAND. 189 
 
 the individual rendered liable at any moment to an attack of 
 mania, or temporary insanity. 
 
 (d) Congestion of the brain and temporary insanity may be 
 produced by an overdistended stomach. A case of the kind 
 is now under my care. A gentleman ate hurriedly a hearty 
 meal, and in a short time afterward became furiously maniacal, 
 during which state he had to be forcibly restrained from in- 
 juring himself and others. 
 
 (e.) Alcohol, opium, belladonna, and other drugs, likewise 
 cause cerebral congestion. This fact is so well known that it 
 is scarcely necessary to do more than allude to it. That tem- 
 porary insanity is produced by them is a fact with which aU 
 are familiar. 
 
 10. Passing over several other causes of congestion of the 
 brain, we come to one set of factors which are more potent 
 than any other, and these are the emotions, {a.) There is a 
 nerve in the body which, from its connections with all the 
 bodily organs, and its manifest office in the economy, is called 
 the sympathetic or emotional nervous system. (5.) Through 
 tliis system the heart beats with augmented force and fi'e- 
 quency under the influence of anger or other emotional dis- 
 turbance ; (c.) Through it the desire to urinate is felt in anxi- 
 ety ; (d.) Through it the action of the liver or kidneys is 
 arrested or perverted in rage or jealousy ; (e.) Through it the 
 muscles of the face expand in joy, and those of the chest and 
 abdomen contract convtdsively in the laughter of mirth ; 
 (/".) Through it the lachrymal gland is excited to increased 
 activity, and the tears flow down the cheeks in sorrow and 
 anguish ; (g.) Through it the saliva ceases to be secreted in 
 fear, or is formed in excessive quantity by the emotions 
 excited at the sight of a savory dish ; (A.) And through it the 
 milk in the mother's breast ceases to be secreted in alarm, 
 anxiety, or grief. 
 
 11. But the sympathetic system of nerves has another most 
 important office to perform in the organism, and one which in 
 its relations to the present subject is of very great moment, 
 (a.) It is the organ by which the size of the blood-vessels is 
 regulated, and many of the examples cited of its action depend 
 
190 A. MEDICO-LEGAL STUDY OF THE 
 
 upon this property. (&.) The effect of certain emotions is, 
 however, directly seen in the blushing produced by shame, 
 and the pallor caused by fear, (c.) In the one case the ves- 
 sels dilate, and the blood flows in torrents to the face and 
 heart ; in the other they contract, and this fluid cannot enter 
 the more minute ramifications, (d.) Emotional disturbance 
 ■with equal certainty increases or diminishes the amount of 
 blood in the brain, (e.) This is shown.not only by the vertigo, 
 the heat in the head, the suffusion of the eyes, the throbbing 
 of the carotid and temporal arteries, the rupture of blood- 
 vessels, and the sudden death produced by the one action, 
 and the syncope resulting from the other, but by direct obser- 
 vation of the fundus of the eye with the ophthalmoscope. 
 (f.) No fact in medical science is more clearly established 
 than this, of the action of the emotions over the circulation of 
 blood in the brain. 
 
 XXI. Now, what is the condition known as transitory 
 mania? 
 
 1. It may be defined as a form of insanity in which the 
 individual, with or without the exhibition of previous notable 
 symptoms, and with or without obvious exciting cause, sud- 
 denly loses the control of his wiU, during which period of non- 
 control he commonly perpetrates a criminal act, and then as 
 suddenly recovers more or less completely his power of voli- 
 tion. 
 
 2. Attentive examination will always reveal the existence 
 of symptoms precursory to the outbreak which constitutes the 
 culminating act, though they may be so slight as to escape 
 siiperficial examination, (a.) The hypothesis, therefore, that 
 a person may be perfectly sane one moment, insane the next, 
 and then agaio perfectly sane in a moment, is contrary to all 
 the experience of psychological medicine. 
 
 3. The symptoms indicative of an approaching attack of 
 temporary insanity are chiefly those of cerebral congestion, 
 though it win be found upon thorough examination that other 
 organs besides the brain are more or less deranged in their 
 fimctions. (a.) Thus the appetite is lessened or altogether 
 abolished, the bowels are torpid, the kidneys fail to eliminate 
 
CASE OF DANIEL McFARLAND. 191 
 
 the normal quantity of urine, the heart becomes irregular in 
 its action, and beats with increased frequency — a certain sign 
 of a weak and excited nervous system — and the skin is either 
 bathed in perspiration, or is dry and harsh. 
 
 4. The initial symptoms of cerebral congestion can always, 
 even when slight, be detected by a physician accustomed to 
 the study of diseases of the nervous system, and are generally 
 so decided as to be noticeable by the patient, and by persons 
 not familiar with medical science, (a.) Among the most 
 prominent, and in its effects the most exhausting, is wakeful- 
 ness. It indicates beyond all doubt an increased flow of 
 blood to the brain, and in its turn it reacts upon this organ, 
 and still further deranges its normal functions. The effect, 
 therefore, becomes a cause. 
 
 5. With the wakefulness there is generally combined great 
 mental and physical irritability. The patient is occupied with 
 the thoughts and emotions which have engaged his attention 
 during the day, and he dwells upon them not only with inten- 
 sity of thought, but often with the intellect perverted from the 
 mode of action natural to him. (a.) He may likewise have 
 illusions, hallucinations, and delusions, and when he does, 
 toward morning, obtain a little sleep, he is disturbed with 
 frightful dreams which prevent his being refreshed. 
 
 6. And his condition is such that he is prevented taking the 
 ordinary means of quietly going to bed in order to obtain 
 sleep. His whole nervous system is in such an irritable state 
 that he paces his chamber the greater part of the night, or 
 seeks the open air and walks the streets tiU, thoroughly ex- 
 hausted mentally and physically, he succeeds in getting a 
 Httle inquiet slumber. 
 
 7. All writers on subjects connected with psychological 
 medicine have insisted with great force on the influence of 
 insomnia in causing mental aberration. In my work on 
 "Sleep and its Derangements," I have dwelt at length on this 
 point, but no one has done so with more emphasis than Dr. 
 Isaac Eay.* (a.) He says, in regard to the injurious effects 
 of wakefulness : 
 
 * Mental Hygiene : Boston, 1863, p. 98 et seq. 
 
192 A MEDICO-LEGAL STUDY OF THE 
 
 " One of its most common effects is a degree of nervous 
 irritability and peevishness, which even the happiest self-dis- 
 ciphne can scarcely control. That buoyancy of the fe(?lings, 
 that cheerful, hopeful, trusting temper, that springs far more 
 from organic conditions than from mature and definite con- 
 victions, give way to a spirit of dissatisfaction and dejection ; 
 while the even demeanor, the measm'ed activity, are replaced 
 either by a lassitude that renders any exertion painful, or an 
 impatience and restlessness not very conducive to bappiaess. 
 Upon the intellectual powers the mischief is stiU more serious. 
 They not only lose that healthy activity which combiaes and 
 regulates their movements in the happiest manner, but they 
 are no longer capable of efforts once perfectly easy. The con- 
 ceptions cease to be clear and well defined, the power of 
 endurance is weakened, inward perceptions are confounded 
 with outward impressions, and illusory images obtrude them- 
 selves unbidden upon the mind. This kind of disturbance 
 may pass sooner or later into actual insanity, and many a 
 noble spirit has been utterly prostrated by habitual loss of 
 rest. 
 
 (5.) "Where a predisposition to insanity exists, nothing 
 proves to be a more potent exciting cause than the loss of 
 sleep. Persons thus unfortunately constituted must beware 
 how they allow their duties or pleasures to interfere with this 
 restorative process, which is indispensable even to their per- 
 fect safety. The records of our asylums show that in a large 
 proportion of cases the disease was attributable chiefly 
 to this cause, which a Uttle more prudence would have 
 prevented." 
 
 8. Before long, and sometimes from the very first, the intel- 
 lectual faculties become involved. The ideas even in regard 
 to simple things are confused and without logical arrangement, 
 the sense of identity is often perplexed, the speech — the out- 
 ward manifestation of the thoughts— is incoherent, the mem- 
 ory fails in regard to recent occurrences, the judgment is weak 
 and vacillating, and the sufferer, naturally accustomed to rely 
 upon his own intellect, loses faith in his mental capacity, and 
 turns to others for the advice and guidance which he feels he 
 
CASE OF DANIEL McFABLAND. I'JS 
 
 noeds ; any effort at continuous or severe thought, and espe- 
 cially arithmetical calculations, increase the difficulties of the 
 mind, but no cause is so potent in this respect as emotional 
 disturbance. 
 
 9. In addition to the foregoing evidences of mental and 
 physical disorder, the face is flushed, the eyes suffused, the 
 carotid and temporal arteries beat with increased force, ver- 
 tigo is generally complained of, and the pupils are contracted 
 sometimes to mere points. Examination with the ophthal- 
 moscope shows the vessels of the retinae to be increased in 
 number, diameter, and tortuosity, and to pulsate with more 
 than normal force. The optic disk is often found congested, 
 and there is peripapillary infiltration. 
 
 10. The sesthesiometer reveals the existence of abnormal 
 sensibility, either an increase or a diminution, on one side or 
 other of the body. 
 
 11. The patient is likewise unable to make a straight line 
 with the dynamograph, by reason of the irregular nervous 
 action which originates in his brain. 
 
 12. Now, this state may exist for weeks or months, with 
 more or less intensity, aggravated or lessened by the habits of 
 life, the occupations, and the emotions and thoughts of the 
 patient, (a.) It may then pass away, or, what is more com- 
 monly the case, it terminates in — 1. An attack resembling 
 apoplexy. 2. Epileptiform convulsions. 3. Inflammation of 
 the brain or its membranes. 4. Mania, often of a transitory 
 character. (&.) With the first three of these modes of culmi- 
 nation we have nothing to do at present. The fourth is of more 
 momentous importance, (c.) " Even in healthy persons," says 
 Dr. I. Crighton Brown,* of the Derby County Asylum, Eng- 
 land, ia his article on " Mania Ephemera," " or in persons of 
 plethoric habit, this determination of blood may occasion 
 transient delirium, with various signs of encephaUc disturb- 
 ance, such as extreme sensibility to hght and sound, restless- 
 ness, pain in the head, and visual hallucinations ; a flood of 
 
 * Medical Critic and Psychological Journal. Edited by Dr. Forbes Wins- 
 low. No. IX. January, 1863, p. 49. 
 
 13 
 
194 A MEDICO-LEGAL STUDY OF THE 
 
 distorted ideas flows through the mind, and overpowei's it, 
 bewilderment and incoherence follow, and for the time being 
 the patient is to all intents and purposes maniacal. A dis- 
 tinguished physician narrates the case of a gentleman subject 
 to attacks of determination of blood to the head, which caused 
 him so much suffering and loss of moral control that he cut 
 his throat to destroy his hfe. While recovering from the 
 wound, attacks sometimes came on, first with beating of the 
 carotids, then with flushing of the face and head, suffusion of 
 the eyes, and feeHng of distraction in the head. But it is not 
 in the plethoric or healthy that determination of blood to the 
 head is so likely to produce ephemeral mania as in the weak 
 and anaemic, who, though suffering from general depression 
 and debility, are still liable to irritation and exaltation of all 
 the corporeal functions. And of all functions those of the 
 nervous centers have been found most liable to excitement 
 in cases of spansemia. The generally intensely nervous 
 character of persons with greatly prostrated strength has 
 been long remarked, as also their proneness to exoitc' 
 ment." 
 
 (d.) Dr. "W. Carmichael Mcintosh,* of Murray's Eoyal 
 Asylum, Scotland, in his paper on "Morbid Impulse," 
 says : 
 
 " Ordinarily, friends around do not dream of mental derange- 
 ment, and even one examination by a physician may not 
 always lead the patient to betray his defect, unless very skill- 
 fully handled ; yet, in no long time, a desperate or disgraceful 
 act may startle all alike by its impetuous suddenness and 
 dangerous nature. For instance : it is related that a gentle- 
 man of high attainments and character, while in the apparent 
 enjoyment of excellent health and spirits, had a dinner-party 
 of his friends ; there was no one present so agreeable and 
 attractive in conversation and manners as himself, but in the 
 middle of the festivity he arose and politely apologized for 
 absenting himself for a moment, and retired to an adjoining 
 
 • Medical Critic and Psychological Joarnal, No. IX., January, 1863, p. 
 103. 
 
CASE OF DANIEL McFARLAND. 195 
 
 room, cut his throat to the vertebras at the very time that his 
 friends were drinking his health." 
 
 (e.) Dr. A. Devergie, * one of the most eminent alienists in 
 France, in a paper read before the Imperial Academy of Medi- 
 cine, entitled " Transitory Homicidal Mania ; where does 
 Reason end or Mania begin ? " says : " Those physicians who 
 have devoted themselves to the treatment of insanity, admit 
 that, besides dementia, mania, and monomania, there exists an 
 instantaneous, transient insanity, which they caU transitory, 
 and as the resxdt of which an individual, until then, in 
 appearance, at least, of sound mind, commits suddenly a 
 homicidal act, and returns as suddenly to a state of 
 reason." 
 
 XXII. It would be easy to quote a himdred authors of 
 recognized pre-eminence in psychological mediciae, to the 
 eifect that such an affection as temporary insanity reaUy 
 exists. The authorities on medical jurisprudence are hkewise 
 decided upon this point, and the fact is accepted every day by 
 courts of law. It is unnecessary, therefore, to adduce further 
 support to the doctrine. 
 
 XXIII. But the plea of temporary insanity is often abused. 
 Suicide is extenuated, and criminals escape, on the ground 
 that their acts, committed in the "heat of passion," are perpe- 
 trated during an attack of temporary insanity. 
 
 1. Premising, therefore, that there is no doubt that emotion 
 may give rise to temporary insanity, I proceed to indicate the 
 marked differences which exist between " heat of passion " 
 and temporary insanity. To do this effectually, clear ideas 
 must first be formed of the meaning of certain terms. 
 
 2. An emotion is that pleasurable or painful sensation 
 which arises in us in consequence of sensorial impressions 
 or intellectual action. According to Bain, the word emo- 
 tion is used to comprehend aU that is understood by feelings, 
 states of feehngs, pleasure, pain, passion, sentiments, affection, 
 etc. 
 
 * The Journal of Psychological Medicine and Mental Pathology, No. XVI., 
 October, 1859, p. 538. 
 
19G A MEDICO-LEGAL STUDY OF THE 
 
 3. Passion is emotional activity. It designates that state 
 of miad in whicli certaia impressions or emotions are felt, and 
 which is accompanied by a tendency or impulse, often irresis- 
 tible, to act in accordance "with these impressions or emotions 
 irrespective of the intellect. An act performed in " the heat 
 of passion " is one prompted by an emotion which, for the 
 moment, controls the will, the intellect not being called into 
 action. It is an act, therefore, performed without reflection. 
 (a.) The passions are to a certain extent under the control of 
 the will ; and this power of checking their manifestations is 
 capable of being greatly increased by self-discipline. Some 
 persons hold their passions in entire subjugation, others are 
 led away by very slight emotional disturbances, (i.) The law 
 recognizes the natural weakness of man in this respect, and 
 wisely discriminates between an action done after due reflec- 
 tion, and one committed in the midst of passional excite- 
 ment. 
 
 4. The acts performed during temporary insanity, in their 
 more obvious aspects, and when viewed isolatedly, resemble 
 those done in the heat of passion. But they are so only as 
 regards the acts themselves, (a.) Thus, a person entering a 
 room at the very moment when one man was in the act of 
 shooting another, would be unable to teU whether the homi- 
 cide was done in the " heat of passion," or under the influence 
 of temporary insanity, (h.) He would be equally unable to 
 say whether it was committed with malice aforethought or in 
 self-defense, (c.) The act, therefore, can teach us nothing. 
 ^e must look to the circumstances and to the antecedents of 
 the perpetrator for the facts which are to enlighten us as to 
 the state of mind of the actor. Now, the conditions of tern- : 
 porary insanity are so weU marked that there can be no diffi- 
 culty on this score, and those which precede the act of cul- 
 mination have already been dwelt upon at sufficient length ; 
 suffice it, therefore, to repeat, that the act which mar/es the height 
 of the pa7'oxysm is always preceded hy symptoms of mental 
 aberration, while acts done in the heat of passion are -not thus 
 foreshadowed. 
 
 5. And, as regards the subsequent state of the individual, 
 
CASE OF DA1«EL McPAELAND. 197 
 
 the distinction is equally apparent, (a.) The one who hap 
 committed a criminal act in the heat of passion, soon subsides 
 to his ordinary equanimity, and begins to think of his safety. 
 (&.) The other, who has perpetrated a similar act during an 
 attack of temporary insanity, never thinks of escape, nor even 
 avoids pubhcity. He may even boast of his conduct, or de- 
 hver himself iato the hands of the law. (c.) "What is, how- 
 ever, of greater importance, is the fact that, though he may 
 subside into a condition of comparative sanity, the evidences of 
 disease are still present, and remain in him for days, weeks, or 
 even months and years. These symptoms are in general those 
 of cerebral congestion, to which attention has already been 
 directed. 
 
 6. In heat of passion the act follows immediately on the 
 excitation of which it is the logical sequence. In temporary 
 insanity, the act is the culmination of a series of disordered 
 physical and mental manifestations, and may or may not be 
 in relation with the emotional cause. 
 
 7. BeUart, quoted by Devergie, has said that, by assimilat- 
 ing the passions to mental alienation, immorahty is justified : 
 it is placed upon the same level as calamity. The man who 
 acts under the empire of passion has commenced by suffering 
 his will to become depraved. The man who acts under the 
 influence of calamity obeys, as a machine, a force, the power 
 of which he cannot contend with. How far the accused in the 
 present case was acting from passion, and how far he was 
 under the influence of a calamity, the force of which he could 
 not resist, will be apparent from a consideration of the facts 
 developed during the trial, and those which I have ascertained 
 by my personal examination. 
 
 XXrV. 1. On the 25th of November, 1869, at about five 
 o'clock in the afternoon, the accused was standing at the end 
 of a counter in the office of the Tribune, ia this city. A few 
 minutes previously he had been writing at a desk. While 
 standing as above stated, Albert D. Richardson entered the 
 office, crossed it, and went to a desk at the end of the counter 
 near where the accused stood. The counter was between the 
 parties. The accused, distant about four feet, drew a pistol 
 
198 A MEDICO-LJiGAL STUDY OF THE 
 
 and fired at Bichardson, wounding him in the abdomen 
 Death ensued on the 2d of December. 
 
 2. Immediately after the shooting, the accused left the office 
 without molestation, and proceeding to the Westmoreland 
 Hotel, at the corner of Fourth Avenue and Seventeenth street, 
 registered his name in full, and had a room assigned to him. A 
 few hom's afterward he was arrested. 
 
 3. It is in evidence that the accused, who was a married 
 man, was devotedly and passionately attached to his family ; 
 that he had intercepted a letter from the deceased to his wife, 
 which was calculated from its sentiments to arouse the most 
 powerful emotions in the human mind ; that his wife had left 
 him, taking with her both the children ; that he had instituted 
 legal proceedings to obtain the possession of his offspring; 
 that he was opposed by his wife and the deceased, the latter 
 supplying the funds for the resistance of the father's efforts ; 
 that these troubles partially unsettled his reason, so that sev- 
 eral persons who knew him and were thrown into contact 
 with him remarked that he was incoherent, rambling, excited, 
 and the thought of his domestic difficulties was almost con- 
 tinually present, as shown by his conversation and actions : 
 that he was unable to sleep ; that he wandered through the 
 streets at night in all kinds of weather, talking of his troubles 
 to pohcemen and others ; that he could not by reason of his 
 mental condition perform properly the duties of the office he 
 held under the Government of the United States ; that various 
 powerful medicines, such as morphia, Indian hemp, hyoscy- 
 amus, and bromide of potassium, had been prescribed for 
 him in large doses by his medical attendants; that for 
 several days previous to the homicide he had taken large 
 quantities of morphia; that during this period, and even 
 before, his pulse was never below 104 per minute, and was 
 frequently much more rapid ; that his face was flushed, that 
 there was involuntary twitching of the facial muscles ; that his 
 eyes were suffused and his pupils contracted ; that he had 
 flashes of light and dark specks before his eyes ; that he suf- 
 fered from vertigo ; that his head was painful and hot ; that 
 he had frequent outbursts of excitement ; that he had haUu- 
 
CASE OF DANIEL McFAELAND. 100 
 
 cinations and delusions ; that he had doubts as to his iden- 
 tity ; that he had threatened to commit suicide ; that his 
 memory was impaired; that while in this condition he heard 
 that a divorce had been granted to his Avife, in the State of 
 Indiana, on ex parte statements ; that the symptoms of mental 
 disorder then became greatly aggravated ; and that on the 
 afternoon of the homicide he was met in the street by a friend 
 who remarked his wild expression, and who was convinced 
 that he was not in his right miad. 
 
 4. It is also in evidence that a first-cousin of the accused 
 died insane, and that the resemblance of the latter to him in 
 features and manner is very great. 
 
 5. From this full and decided evidence, there can be no 
 doubt in regard to the mental condition of Daniel McParland 
 during a long period previous to the homicide ; and that, for 
 about two weeks prior thereto, his state was such as to ren- 
 der him entirely irresponsible for his acts. If he had been 
 taken away to a distance, he might and probably would have 
 recovered his mental control, and the homicidal act would 
 never have been perpetrated ; but, surrounded as he was with 
 all the associations and circumstances which had so unsettled 
 him, and constantly receiving fresh accessions to his troubles, 
 recovery was impossible. While at the very height of his 
 state of mental aberration, he accidentally met the man 
 most nearly connected with the origin of aU his difficulties — 
 the one to whom he attributed the wreck of his hopes — 
 the one who, he believed, had injured him more than all 
 the rest of the world combined. Without an instant's re- 
 flection, indeed ia his condition without the possibility of 
 reflection, he perpetrated the act for which he has just 
 been . tried for his life. The sight acted upon him just 
 as does the sight of dangerous weapons upon other insane 
 persons. 
 
 6. A case related by Dr. Mcintosh, in the memoir already 
 cited, well illustrates this point : A religious monomaniac had 
 for many years an antipathy to a feUow-patient who assisted 
 in his gallery, imagining that he practiced animal magnetism 
 and various other tortures of his "soul" upon him. He 
 
200 A MEDICO-LEGAL STUDY OF THE 
 
 avoided him as mucli as possible, but he never evinced any 
 homicidal tendency, at least so as to attract attention. Sc 
 far from being suspected of such a tendency, he was indeed 
 trusted with many weapons, such as cricket-bats, bows and 
 arrows, etc., which might have been used with deadly effect 
 on his victim had he chosen, for he was often within easy 
 access. One rainy winter evening, however, he startled the 
 gallery by a sudden and desperate onslaught on his victim, 
 resulting in the death of the latter. Seeing the object of his 
 antipathy reclining easily on a sofa and sleeping, and espying 
 a ready and rare weapon at hand, he advanced stealthily upon 
 him so as to approach the sleeping person from behind, then 
 wielding the weapon on the devoted man's head so conven- 
 iently situated, he caused a compound comminuted fracture of 
 a fatal nature. He subsequently confessed that it was the 
 sight of the weapon and the tempting posture of his neighbor 
 that overcame him. 
 
 7. The first thought of a person who has criminally killed a 
 human being is ordinarily of his own safety. He is conscious 
 that he has committed an offense, he knows that he has in- 
 curred punishment, and he seeks to escape it. The accused 
 took no measures toward that end ; on the contrary, he went 
 to a well-known hotel, registered his name, and quietly waited 
 to be arrested. This was not the act of a criminal. It is 
 exactly, however, such conduct as might have been expected 
 from an insane man. 
 
 8. The antecedents of the accused and the concomitant cir- 
 cumstances of the crdminating catastrophe leave no doubt 
 that for a considerable period before the homicide he was 
 affected with jnental derangement, that the act itself was 
 done during an attack of temporary insanity, and that im- 
 mediately subsequent thereto he was not entirely restored to 
 reason. 
 
 XXV. And now as to his subsequent condition : 
 
 1. On the 6th of March, three months after the homicide, I 
 visited Daniel McFarland in the city prison, at the request of 
 his counsel, and saw him for the first time. 
 
 2. I found his head large, well-formed, and exhibiting no 
 
CASE OF DANIEL McFARLAND. 201 
 
 marks of injury or disease, his general appearance indicated 
 a sanguineo-nerrous temperament. 
 
 3. His whole nervous system was largely developed and ir- 
 ritable to an extreme degree, as shown by involuntary twitch- 
 ing of the facial and other muscles, great excitability of man- 
 ner, and an easily aroused emotional nature. 
 
 4. The symptoms of cerebral congestion present were : 
 abnormal heat of the face and head, throbbing of the carotid 
 and temporal arteries, suffusion of the eyes, unequal size of 
 the pupils, intolerance of Hght, pulse rapid (108) and irregular, 
 a different degree of sensibihty on the two sides of the body, 
 as shown by the aesthesiometer, and congestion of the retinsB 
 and optic disks, with partial atrophy of the latter, as revealed 
 by ophthalmoscopic examination. 
 
 5. The foregoing symptoms were objective. The subjective 
 symptoms were wakefulness, flashes of light before the eyes, 
 noises in the ears, and pain and a sensation of fullness in the 
 head. ' 
 
 On the 10th of March I made another examination. 
 
 6. I found the face flushed, the muscles twitching, the eyes 
 suffused, the head hot, and the pulse ranging from 104 to 114. 
 The mental excitability was excessive, especially when his 
 troubles were mentioned, and there was a constant dis- 
 position to talk about his affairs. Wliile my finger was 
 on his wrist, I happened to mention Mr. Richardson's name, 
 when his pulse at once increased from 104 to 128 per 
 minute. 
 
 March IS^A. — He was much excited, and began at once to 
 talk of his troubles ; pupils contracted, pulse 108, 104, 124, 
 hard and full ; face flushed, and temporal and carotid arteries 
 throbbing with violence ; muscular twitching greater than I 
 had ever before seen it in him. 
 
 March 21s^. — Pulse 110 ; other phenomena similar to those 
 present on 18th. 
 
 March 29th. — At this visit I showed him the photographs of 
 his wife, and asked him some questions about them. At the 
 sight of them he was much moved, tears came into his eyes, 
 his voice trembled, his speech became incoherent and ram- 
 
202 A MEDICO-LEGAL STUDY OF THE 
 
 bling, his articulation indistinct, and the muscular twitching 
 was increased. His pulse rose to 142, and I was for a time 
 apprehensive of serious consequences. After a while, how- 
 ever, he began to weep, and I succeeded in bringing him to 
 something Hke calmness. But, duriag the whole of my inter- 
 view, which lasted over an hour, he remained excited, and was 
 at times incomprehensible in his language. 
 
 April 3d. — Dr. Austin Flint visited him with me, and ex- 
 pressed the opinion, after a very fuU. examination, that there 
 was no disease of the heart or lungs, and that the frequency 
 of his pulse was due to nervous derangement. , 
 
 On the 20th of April I examined the accused again. His 
 pulse was 132. The dynamograph showed that his muscular 
 tone was low, and his nervous system weak and irritable. 
 
 7. The facts obtained at these examinations show that the 
 accused, at a period of more than three months after the homi- 
 cide, was stiU suffering with cerebral congestion ; but perhaps 
 not so extreme in degree as for several weeks before this event, 
 but yet to such an extent as might readily, with a sufficient 
 exciting cause, be developed into a condition of much 
 greater severity. The confinement and seclusion he had un- 
 dergone had certainly exercised a curative influence such 
 as would have attended his isolation in an asylum for the 
 insane. 
 
 The result of the trial is well known. After an absence from 
 the court-room of scarcely two hours, the jury returned a ver- 
 dict of not guilty. That this verdict was based upon the 
 views expressed by the medical experts for the defense, of 
 whom the writer was one, I have positive assurance. Into 
 the merits of the other questions raised before, during, and 
 since the trial, it is not in my province to enter. That the 
 accused was insane for a long period before the homicide 
 there can be no doubt. The touching story of his wife pub- 
 lished since the trial shows this in such indubitable language, 
 and she expresses her opinion to this effect so decidedly, that 
 the wonder is why her unfortunate husband was not long siace 
 placed under the restraint of an asylum, and why, before he 
 was tried for his Mfe, the facts and opinions contained in her 
 
CASE OF DANIEL McFAELAND. 203 
 
 statement and that of Mr. Kichardson were not brought for- 
 ward in extenuation of his conduct. That he is at present in 
 such a physical and mental condition as to render him liable, 
 upon comparatively sHght cause, to another explosion of 
 mania, is a fact in regard to which repeated examinationa 
 leaTe no doubt upon my mind. 
 
A MEDICO-LEGAL OPINTOS 
 
 RELATIVE TO THE 
 
 SANITY OF CARLTON GATES. 
 
 By CHARLES A. LEE, M.D., op Peekskill, K. T." 
 
 A DEFINITION of insanity is usually considered an essentially 
 preliminary in the decision of questions like the present, 
 although it is generally acknowledged that a definition, appH- 
 cable to all cases, is quite an impossibiUty. The following, 
 however, may be deemed sufficiently accurate for all practical 
 purposes : Insanity is a chronic disease of the brain, producing 
 either derangement of the intellectual faculties, or a prolonged 
 change of the feelings, affections, and habits, or both — its form 
 depending on constitution, temperament, and various accidental 
 circumstances — but, in all cases, perverting or destroying the 
 freedom of the will. 
 
 The following " opinion " has been deliberately and consci- 
 entiously formed from a knowledge of the entire testimony 
 offered in this case, all of which has been either heard or 
 carefully read ; also, from my own intimate acquaintance of 
 over twenty years : 
 
 I. Carlton Gates labored under confirmed insanity during 
 the last year of his life at least, and probably for a much 
 longer period. 
 
 n. The form of his mental disease was what usually goes 
 
 " Read before the Society, September 8, 1870. 
 
OPINION KELATIVE TO THE SANITY OF CAELTON GATES. 205 
 
 under the name of monomania, ttat is, a perversion of the 
 understandiag limited to a single object, or a small number of 
 objects, accompanied in the present instance, as it often is, 
 with moral perversion, or disorder of the natural feelings, affec- 
 tions, and habits. 
 
 m. A striking characteristic feature in the case, and one 
 which was never absent during the last year of his life, was 
 the existence of delusions on a variety of subjects, but chiefly 
 in regard to the hostility of his parents and relatives, and to 
 poisoning. 
 
 IV. The mental derangement was amply sufficient to impede 
 and destroy the free and healthy exercise, of the intellectual 
 faculties, and the freedom of the will, so that the power of 
 thinking and acting freely was annulled. 
 
 Y. In consequence of this impairment of the mind and free- 
 dom of the will by disease, he was incapable of performing a 
 valid civil contract, as making a will ; and also was deprived 
 of aU criminal responsibility. 
 
 YI. The proof of delusion in the mind of the testator is 
 amply proved by the testimony of almost every witness in the 
 case, especially his physicians, parents, relatives, and such 
 servants as were allowed to be about his person, and permit- 
 ted to testify. It seems remarkable that those who were with 
 him the most during his last illness, as the Eev. Dr. Hulbert, 
 his housekeeper, nurse, etc., and knew best the state of his 
 mind at that time, were not called upon the stand to testify. 
 There is, however, abundant proof to the point without it. 
 
 YH. This deponent is not called upon to discuss the sub- 
 ject of undue influence any further than to say that the mind 
 of the testator was ia such a diseased and perverted state as 
 to render him peculiarly liable to impositions and unreason- 
 able prejudices of aU kinds, especially to artful attempts to 
 excite suspicions of his nearest and best friends, and to make 
 him entertain a belief that the individual making such attempts 
 was his very dear and " particular friend." 
 
 Ym. That such attempts were persistently made, and that 
 they proved successful in the present instance, is abundantly 
 established by various witnesses, as well as by the wording of 
 
206 A MEDICO-LEGAL OPINION RELATIVE 
 
 the will itself. The a priori improbability of such a wicked 
 effort being made must yield before the evidence adduced in 
 proof of the fact, which in this case cannot be disputed. 
 
 IX. When it is considered that, just before his last visit to 
 Europe, Gates had made a will, restoring the whole of his 
 property to his mother, and that it remained unaltered until 
 his weak and perverted mind had been thoroughly poisoned 
 against her, and nearly up to the time of his death, when a 
 new will was executed, revoking his former bequests in favor 
 of the very individual who, it is proved, had caused the new 
 will to be made, and who had had sole charge of Carlton's 
 person for the last two weeks of his life, such an instrument 
 appears so unreasonable, so unnatural, and so imjust on its 
 very face, and bears upon it such irresistible marks of 
 intrigue, dishonesty, and fraud, that it must necessarily be 
 rejected. 
 
 X. That the existence of delusion is the recognized legal test 
 of insanity, is so well known and acknowledged, that the 
 learned counsel, employed by the contestants of the wUl, will 
 have no difficulty in establishing it by many weU-attested cases 
 and decisions, both foreign and native. I shall, therefore, 
 only quote here two legal authorities in point. 
 
 XI. " Setting aside cases of dementia, or loss of mind and 
 intellect, the true test of insanity is mental delusion. If a per- 
 son persistently believes supposed facts, which have no real 
 existence except in his fevered imagination, and against all 
 evidence and probability, and conducts himself, however, 
 logically upon the assumption of their existence, he is, so far as 
 they are concerned, under a morbid delusion : and delusion in 
 that sense is insanity" ("Abbott's N. Y. Digest," vol. vii., 
 1863). 
 
 XII. " What constitutes insanity of mind is a question which 
 has been very much discussed, especially of late years ; and 
 the opinions of learned judges seem at first view to be con- 
 flicting ; but much of the apparent discrepancy may be recon- 
 ciled by adverting to the nature of the cases respectively in 
 judgment. The degree of unsoundness or imbecility of mind, 
 sufficient to invalidate the acts of the party in some cases, 
 
TO THE SANITY OF CAELTON GATES. 237 
 
 may not suffice in others. But in regard to insanity, where 
 there is no frenzy or raving madness, the legal and true charac- 
 ter of the disease is delusion ; or, as the physicians express it, 
 illusion or hallucination ; and the insane delusion consists in a 
 belief of facts which no rational person would believe " (" Pro- 
 fessor Greenleaf's Law of Evidence," vol. i., p. 464). 
 
 Numerous other legal authorities to the same point are 
 omitted. 
 
 XIII. There is perfect uniformity of opinion in regard to 
 this test of insanity, among all the medical authorities. They 
 all agree with our distinguished countryman, Dr. Isaac Eay, 
 who delares that " delusions, if genuine, can only spring from 
 insanity " (" Medical Jurisprudence of Insanity," p. 142). 
 Beference on this point may be made to Maudsley on the 
 " Physiology and Pathology of the Mind," p. 327 ; also to 
 Esquirol, Pritchard, Guy, and Oombe, On " Insanity." 
 
 " In monomania proper, and in melancholia," says Maudsley, 
 " we have a partial ideational insanity, with fixed delusion or 
 delusions upon one subject or a few subjects, apart from which 
 the patient reasons tolerably correctly. Psychologically 
 speakiag, the existence of a delusion indicates fundamental 
 disorder of mental action — radical insanity ; secondly, the de- 
 lusion reacts injuriously upon other mental phenomena, inter- 
 fering secondly with correct ratiocination, or due co-ordina- 
 tion of functions, and predisposing to convulsive mental 
 phenomena ; and, thirdly, while it cannot be subordinated to 
 reflection, the individual may at any moment be subordinated 
 to it, and act under its instigation." 
 
 It is unnecessary to quote medical writers to any greater 
 extent, to show that morhid delusion is regarded as a true test 
 of insanity. It must be recollected, however, that it is not 
 maintained that such delusion exists in every case of insanity, 
 but that, where it does exist, there insanity exists. For instance, 
 I have known of several cases of mania, or general insanity or 
 melancholia, and bad charge of them, where there existed no 
 delusion whatever. 
 
 XIV. There is another test of insanity, which is regarded 
 by medical men as very important in forming correct conclu- 
 
208 A MEDICO-l^EGAL OPINION EELATTVE 
 
 sions in regard to the existence of mental derangement, and 
 "which I have always looked upon as an invaluable guide in 
 forming a correct judgment in these cases : madness, for 
 example, is not often indicated so much by any particular 
 extravagance of thought or feeling, as 5z/ a iveU-marhed change 
 of character, or departure from the ordinary halnts of thinking, 
 feeling, and acting ivithout any adequate cause. I beheve it 
 cannot be questioned that the testimony fully discloses such a 
 change in the conduct and character of Carlton Gates during 
 the last year of his hfe, without any adequate motive or cause, 
 and therefore conclusively establishes the fact of his insanity 
 (see the testimony of Dr. and Mrs. Gates, Mrs. and Miss Nes- 
 bit, etc., etc.). 
 
 From a hfe-long and intimate acquaintance with the tes- 
 tator, he having resided a year in my own family, I was able 
 to testify to the natilrally amiable and kind disposition of 
 Carlton, especially his strong attachment to his mother, and 
 ardent aifection for her, manifested, when abroad, by sending 
 her numerous costly presents ; his entire ''change in these and 
 other respects is amply exhibited in the testimony, and needs 
 no comment. 
 
 XV. In forming a judgment in this case in regard to the 
 state of mind of the testator, I also find sufficient endence of 
 insanity in the nature of the will itself. To say nothing of the 
 strange and unnatural nature of the bequests themselves, 
 proving conclusively the change of feeling and disposition 
 already referred to, the confident expression of Carlton's belief 
 in the fact of his having been poisoned, notwithstanding the 
 positive assurance of all his physicians that such was not the 
 fact — the direction to have the contents of his stomach ana- 
 lyzed for the detection of poisons, supposed to have been 
 administered many months hefore — he being a medical man ; 
 the appropriation of $25,000 (at first $50,000) for the prosecu- 
 tion of certain suspected persons not named in the wiU ; the 
 gift of the Yonkers estate to the corporation of Yonkers, 
 although he knew he had no legal title to it, and was only 
 trustee of the property ; the false statements in regard to his 
 father and mother, and her income, imbecility, etc., etc. ; when 
 
TO THE SANITY OF CAELTON GATES. 209 
 
 to all this we add the extraordinary year and suspicion of detec- 
 tion and discovery, during the drawing and execution of the 
 will, directing "doors to be carefuUy closed," and "to see that 
 no one was about," who might possibly hear what was going 
 on — all this, so characteristic of the cunning and secrecy of 
 the insane, proves, in connection with the other circumstances, 
 the positive insanity of the testator. There was, undoubtedly, 
 reason enough remaining to render him conscious that he was 
 about doing a wrong, perverse, and wicked act, for the insane 
 are often able to distinguish between right and wrong, for, as 
 soon as the will was executed, he exhibited no fear or sus- 
 picion whatever. 
 
 XVI. Nearly all professional writers on insanity speak of 
 the great irritability of the insane — the perversion of the moral 
 sense, and especially a change in the sentiments and feeUngs 
 and affection toward their relatives and friends — a complete 
 indifference or positive hostility toward them ; and all this 
 while they themselves are perhaps quite unconscious of the 
 existence of any disorder, and then only where it has come on 
 by slow degrees, and is only partial in its effects — ^but espe- 
 cially in the form of monomania, which afflicted Carlton. 
 When the partial derangement of the intellect becomes organ- 
 ized and systematized, it is remarkable what a desperate 
 degree of tenacity it presents ; we find it in vain to attempt to 
 argue with the patient, or convince him of his errors. He 
 shelters himseK behind his convictions with unshaken con- 
 fidence in their truth ; and if for a moment he be compeUec? 
 to admit that his enemies are imaginary, and those from whom 
 he has become ahenated his best and dearest friends, in a 
 short time, however, his delusive notions again reappear and 
 take full possession of his mind. 
 
 XVII. I have generally found that in this form of insanity 
 the understanding is tolerably sound on most subjects but 
 those connected with the delusion ; and even where the dis- 
 order is more compUcated, involving a more extensive train 
 of morbid ideas, though the patient may reason correctly, and 
 talk rationally on many subjects unconnected with those of 
 his delusion, the understanding is more extensively deranged 
 
 14 
 
210 A MEDICO-LEGAL OPINION EELATIVE 
 
 than is generally supposed. In these cases, by close obser- 
 vation, we can generally detect some perversity of feeling or 
 action altogether foreign to their ordinary character ; and thus 
 it was with Carlton during the last years of his life. At first, 
 and, indeed, for a considerable portion of the time, there was 
 httle intellectual derangement, but gradually there was dis- 
 tinctly observed creeping over him a profound perversion of 
 the sentiments and affections, marked at times by real mania- 
 cal excitement and acts of violence which have been errone- 
 ously attributed to intoxication. But, if one had conversed 
 with him, during all this time, on subjects not connected with 
 the morbid part of his mental state, probably, httle or no dif- 
 ference between him and other persons would have been 
 noticed. He preserved so correct a notion of propriety of 
 conduct and the etiquette and social observances of life, that 
 he usually conducted himself in society as well as most other 
 people. But, through the influence of selfish and interested 
 persons, as shown by the witnesses, whose avaricious designs 
 prompted them to the unholy work, his feelings became alien- 
 ated from his friends ; he imputed to them designs against his 
 welfare, his happiness, and even his life ; he suspected even 
 his parents of a design of poisoning him ; and at last, contrary 
 to all evidence and assurances, died ia the full belief that he 
 had been poisoned ! 
 
 XAHIII. The evidence, then, fully sustains the following con- 
 clusions : 
 
 1. The existence of permanent delusion on several points, 
 especially in regard to the matter of poisoning — ^by various 
 persons and at different times. 
 
 2. A marked change of feeling, character, and conduct; 
 indeed, an apparent total loss of affection for his parents and 
 friends, and deadly hostihty toward them. 
 
 3. Paroxysms of monomahiacal excitement, during which 
 his conduct was marked by acts of insane violence, restless- 
 ness, boisterous behavior, profanity, sleeplessness, abusive 
 language, etc. 
 
 4. Positive hatred of his mother, and a desire to punish her 
 by excluding her from any share in the property given him by 
 
TO THE SANITY OP CARLTON GATES. 211 
 
 her, and considering her insane, against all evidence to the 
 contrary. 
 
 5. A persistent beUef in the existence of facts which had no 
 real existence except in his disordered imagination, and 
 against all evidence and probabihty, and hearing directly on 
 the nature of his will. 
 
 6. As these delusions and false notions had special reference 
 to his parents and relatives, who would naturally have been 
 the objects of his testamentary capacity, a wiU, made under 
 these circumstances, must necessarily be invahd. 
 
 XIX. The above statements and considerations, perhaps, 
 contain all that is really necessary to estabUsh the want of 
 testamentary capacity in the testator; there are some con- 
 siderations, however, connected with the subject which may 
 properly find expression in this place. 
 
 XX. Although it is claimed by most writers on mental dis- 
 eases that the mind of the monomaniac is sound, apart from 
 his delusions, I hold that the diseased idea is a part of the 
 mind ; and that the mind, therefore, is no more sound than 
 the body is sound, when a man has a serious disease of some 
 vital organ — that the exquisitely delicate and complex mechan- 
 ism of mental action — ^the brain — ^is radically deranged ; else, 
 the morbid idea could not have been engendered and exist. 
 The mind is not unsound upon one point only ; but an unsound 
 mind expresses itself in a particular morbid action. More- 
 over, as in the case of Carlton, when the delusion is once pro- 
 duced, there is no power of drawing a sanitary cordon around 
 it, and thus, by putting it in quarantine, as it were, preserving 
 aU other mental processes from infection ; on the contrary, 
 the morbid center reacts injuriously on the neighboring parts, 
 and there is no guarantee that at any moment the most des- 
 perate consequences may not ensue. In other words, speak- 
 ing psychologically, I regard the existence of a delusion as in- 
 dicating fundamental disorder of mental action — radical insan- 
 ity ; and that, secondly, the delusion reacts injuriously upon 
 other mental phenomena, interfering, more or less, with cor- 
 rect ratiocination, and predisposing to acts of violence ; and 
 thirdly, while it cannot be fully subordinated to reflection and 
 
212 A MEDICO-LEGAL OPINION KELATIVE 
 
 consciousness, the individual may at any time be subordinated 
 to it, and act under its instigation. Where delusion then 
 exists, however partial the mental derangement may appear, 
 the mind is actually unsound, not to be relied on, and not to 
 he held responsible ; disease is going on in it, and no one can 
 teU when or where it will end. 
 
 XXI. Carlton Gates inherited a weak bodily frame, and an 
 extremely active, sensitive, nervous temperament ; in fact, it 
 may be truly stated that he inherited what has been called 
 the insane temperament, characterized by singularities or eccen- 
 tricities of thought, feeling, and action. He was impression- 
 able to subtle and usually unrecognized influences. There 
 was in his constitution an innate tendency to isolation— to act 
 independently, as an element in the social system ; and there 
 was evidently a personal gratification in the indulgence of 
 such a disposition which seemed to mark great selfishness and 
 vanity. This peculiarity of temperament was allied in him 
 with considerable native talent and genius, qualities which we 
 often find closely allied to madness ; in his estimation he was 
 right, all the rest of the world was wrong — he was forever in 
 " a minority of one." This fatal heritage was painted upon his 
 physiognomy, on his external form, his ideas, passions, habits, 
 and inclinations. There was Httle power of vital resistance in 
 his system, and his personal habits were not conservative of 
 vital force. Pari passu with the progress of corporeal dis- 
 ease, we find in him, as might almost have been anticipated, 
 the feeling or affective life greatly perverted, his whole habit 
 and manner of feeling was changed, his passions and moral 
 affections became perverted and deranged more than one year 
 before his decease ; ideational or intellectual derangement suc- 
 ceeded, and, probably, had he hved, would have soon pre- 
 dominated. But, as in numerous other similar cases, the 
 affective disorder was the fundamental fact preceding, and then 
 accompanying intellectual disorder ; and both would have 
 been equally prominent had he long survived. But during 
 his life moral alienation was the predominant form of his men- 
 tal derangement. He had labored for many months pre'sious 
 to his death under a tubercular state of the lungs, seriously 
 
TO THE SANITY OF CARLTON GATES. 2.tS 
 
 impeding the oxygenation and healthy renewal of the blood, 
 and necessarily aggravating the mental disorder. 
 
 XXII. It cannot be denied that, in the presence of stran- 
 gers, Carlton, for the most part, manifested no special signs of 
 insanity ; but then it is to be recollected that the insane have 
 great power of self-control ; they can frequently conceal all 
 indications of mental derangement, where it is poHcy to do 
 so ; and so notoriously is this the fact, that insane individuals, 
 and even inmates of our lunatic asylums, are often considered 
 sane by others and unjustly confined. To feign sanity on the 
 part of the insane is far easier than the opposite — to feign 
 insanity on the part of the sane. The latter requires what is 
 not often possessed, namely, an accurate acquaintance with 
 the characteristic features of the various kinds of mental 
 derangement. Such persons, accordingly, are apt to overact 
 their part, and seldom escape detection. It is generally sup- 
 posed that persons actually mad must show it on all occasions 
 and in their whole conduct. But this is far from being the case 
 where there is any motive to sane conduct. Thus, in nearly 
 all our insane asyliims, rehgious chapel-services are regularly 
 observed on Simdays, at least, and ia many of them daily 
 prayers are held night and morning, at which a large propor- 
 tion of the patients are present, and whose conduct is as quiet 
 and orderly as is generally observed in religious assemblies 
 among sane people. Violent conduct, growing out of ungov- 
 ernable impulse, is rare among the insane. Carlton Gates is 
 a good example to show to what extent a madman may have 
 control of his actions even where a powerful impulse prompted 
 him to acts of extreme and murderous violence ; and so decor- 
 ous was his behavior in the presence of his physicians, and 
 the subscribing witnesses to his will, that they were even led 
 to doubt his insanity. But, when we consider that they had 
 no suitable opportunity, and used no proper tests by which to 
 judge of his mental condition, it is by no means remarkable 
 that they failed to discover his actual state ; and their opinion 
 should have, therefore, very little, if any, weight. It is some- 
 what singular, however, that, a few days before his decease, 
 they all thought him incapable of making a vahd will. 
 
214 
 
 A MEDICO-LEGAL OPINION BELAITVE 
 
 XXIII. As abeady remarked, mental derangement is a 
 matter of degree, and as no two people are exactly alike in 
 mental character and development, so no two cases of mental 
 degeneration are exactly alike. As tlie braiu presents every 
 variety of indivi4ual functions in health, so also it pre- 
 sents every variety of morbid function in disease; conse- 
 quently, two cases of insanity may resemble one another in 
 the general features of exaltation or depression, or in the 
 character of the delusion (as poisoning, for example), and yet 
 each have its own special features. In fact, insaniti/ is no 
 fixed morbid entity ; but every case of it is an example of in- 
 dividual degeneration, representing individual mental life 
 under other conditions than those regarded as normal or 
 typical. The features of insanity, in any given case, must 
 depend very much on the degree of development the mind of 
 the individual has reached ; the more cultivated the mind, 
 the more various and complex the symptoms of its de- 
 rangement; moral insanity, so-called, does not exist among 
 
 XXIV. This attempt to conceal the existence of insanity, 
 on the part of an individual, imphes of course a self-conscious- 
 ness that he is a victim to it. 
 
 As we often see in the incipient stage of intoxication, a per- 
 son will make a determined effort to comport himself like a 
 sober man, being, to some extent, conscious of the degrading 
 and brutalized condition to which he is reduced ; he thus 
 endeavors to conceal from observation his actual state by 
 making a great effort to control his ideas, talk rationally, and 
 walk steadily ; and, although much intoxicated, he is possibly 
 able, by a resolute and determined effort of the wiU/for a time 
 to play well his part, and disarm all suspicions as to his actual 
 condition of inebriation. This is very analogous to the state of 
 the mind in incipient insanity. The patient is tolerably aware 
 of his condition — he battles courageously, and often success- 
 fully, to disarm all suspicions as to his mental unsoundness — 
 to banish aU unnatural and unhealthy thought and mental 
 impressions ; but the morbid condition of the brain proves too 
 much for him— too strong for his wUl to control ; and first 
 
TO THE SANITY OF -CARLTON GATES. 215 
 
 one weak point sliows itself and then anotlier, till finally he 
 becomes, as Carlton Gates did, the victim of morbid delusion 
 — a mere wreck of what he once was ! 
 
 XXV. It is now nearly thirty years since the laws of Eng- 
 land and the decisions of the courts, both in that country and 
 the United States, have recognized both partial and general 
 intellectual insanity, as well as partial and total moral insanity, 
 as a groimd both of exclusion of convictions for crime, and as 
 incapacitating for the performance of civil contracts, especially 
 for making a vahd wiU. 
 
 Besides other cases, where partial moral insanity, assuming 
 the form of monomania, has served as a successful ground of 
 defence for an alleged criminal act, I may mention that of 
 Kleim, tried in the city of New York in 1845, before Judge 
 Edmonds, for homicide. In charging the jury in this case, 
 Judge Edmonds remarked as follows : 
 
 " It must he borne in mind that the moral as ivell as the intel- 
 lectual/acuities may be so disordered by disease as to deprive the 
 mind of its controlling power." 
 
 From that time, at least, to the present, moral insanity has 
 become firmly established as a part of the jurisprudence of 
 this State. 
 
 It wiU, doubtless, yet become an admitted principle in juris- 
 prudence, that sometimes the character of the criminal act 
 itself wiU furnish sufficient evidence of its having been 
 prompted by insanity, especially where the motive defies all 
 penetration or suspicion, and the mind itseK has previously 
 evinced no positive signs of impairment, and the most skiUful 
 psychological expert wiU detect no other proofs of its exis- 
 tence, after the closest investigation of the bodily and mental 
 condition of the party ; as where a mother murders her chil- 
 dren, etc., etc. 
 
 And so also the nature of a dvil act, as a will, depriving a 
 parent, brother, sister, or other relative, of an inheritance 
 which would naturally, rightfully, and legally fall to them, and 
 which, perhaps, as in the present instance, was bestowed on 
 the party by them, and toward whom no feeling but that of 
 affectionate attachment had existed up to a late period, and 
 
21G A MEDICO-LEGAL OPI^fION RELATIVE 
 
 then had become changed without any adequate cause or 
 motive ; I say such an unnatural and causeless act -mil of 
 itseK prove the mental unsoundness of the party, and the wiU 
 or other act will be declared, as a matter of course, iavaUd. 
 This would be a much safer principle to act upon in jurispru- 
 dence than an abstract knowledge of right and wrong ; and, 
 while the results would be more satisfactory, an immense 
 amount of useless litigation and expense would be saved. 
 
 XXYI. The time will probably come when insanity will be 
 divided into two grand classes, viz. : insanity without positive 
 delusion, and insanity with delusion, or affective and ideational 
 insanity ; the present artificial classification of the disease is 
 certainly not ia conformity with nature ; and the one suggested 
 is reaUy more scientific than one which, by postulating an 
 exactness that does not exist, is a positive hinderance to an 
 advance ia psychological knowledge. Until this time arrives, 
 medical experts wUl have to recognize forms of mental derange- 
 ment where there are no 'delusions. The deviations from 
 healthy mental life are innumerable, and the divine mind can 
 only be pronounced perfectly sound ; but let us not make 
 divisions in knowledge where there are none in nature, but 
 regard all present classifications as only provisional; some 
 writers, for example, would make four kinds of insanity, with 
 reference to the perceptions, the emotions, the intellect, and 
 the win, which, it is stated, may be disordered aggregately or 
 separately ; but Nature knows no such classification ; these 
 forms of insanity run into each other, or co-exist in the same 
 case ; the intellect, for example, cannot be deranged without 
 affecting the wiU ; delusion, the true test of insanity, may exist 
 in aU forms of it, and the same is true of emotional disturb- 
 ance, etc. 
 
 XXVU. I have already mentioned the strong predisposition 
 to insanity on the part of Carlton, and some of the causes 
 which probably precipitated it. These causes were such as 
 usually undermine the constitution, and produce bodily as well 
 as mental disease. During his residence of many years abroad, 
 it is believed he made a rather free and probably habitual use 
 of wine, although he was not fond of distilled liquors; but 
 
TO THE SANIT/ OP CAELTON GATES. 2i7 
 
 even this mild stimulant exerted, no doubt, a very unfavorable 
 influence upon his nervous, excitable temperament, and it con- 
 stituted almost the only alcoholic liquor he drank after his 
 return from Europe, in November, 1868 ; on the few occasions 
 on which he ventured on a stronger drink, he exhibited symp- 
 tons of slight intoxication ; to which the attempt has been 
 made, by the counsel employed to sustain thfe will, to attribute 
 the hallucinations, delusions, and other symptoms of insanity 
 manifested by the testator. This attempt, however, must 
 signally faU, inasmuch as these delusions, etc., were permanent 
 during the whole of the last year ; whereas he seldom drank 
 intoxicating or distilled Uquors, and then generally far within 
 the limits of decided inebriation. Yet it is a fact well known 
 to those who have investigated disorders of the mind, that 
 positive insanity is not unfrequently produced by alcohoHc 
 drinks ; and these are often, it is to be feared, the occasions of 
 great injustice being done by our legal tribunals. Statistics 
 prove that intemperance is the mos^'frequeut cause of insanity in 
 the United States. 
 
 XXVIII. Persons who are strongly predisposed to mental 
 derangement, who possess the insane temperament, who labor 
 under severe constitutional disease or chronic affections, where 
 the blood is contaminated, or who are easily affected by small 
 quantities of liquor, are often Hable to become actually insane 
 after taking such drinks ; during which they are really as 
 irresponsible for their acts as those laboring under the most 
 decided insanity produced by any other cause. In this con- 
 dition, it is true, hallucinations, illusions, and delusions may 
 exist, and the sufferer may perpetrate crimes of which after- 
 ward he has no recollection, and of the nature of which, at the 
 time, he is entirely unconscious. We meet occasionally with 
 cases where the individual imagines he sees strange sights and 
 hears strange sounds, as in delirium tremens, and commits 
 strange and violent acts under such delusive impressions. 
 The courts have repeatedly decided that such persons cannot 
 be held responsible for civil or criminal deeds committed dur- 
 ing the existence of such hallucinations. 
 
 XXIX. It has long been a well-known fact that a vitiated 
 
218 A MEDICO-LEGAL OPINION BELATIYE 
 
 state of the blood exercises a marked effect upon the functions 
 of the brain ; and the frequently observed effects of alcohol 
 upon this organ is the best and simplest illustration of this 
 statement. It is doubtless true that the temporary derange- 
 ment produced by alcohol is very similar in many cases to 
 the permanent insanity produced by any cause whatever. 
 First, we usually observe an agreeable excitement — a lively 
 flow of ideas, and a general activity of mind, as in the earlier 
 stages of mania ; then foUow incoherence of thought and 
 speech, passional excitement, the nature of which depends 
 much on the temperament of the individual ; then a stage of 
 depression, followed, perhaps, by convulsions, paralysis, demen- 
 tia, stupor, and even death. Just as we see in insanity, alcohol, 
 hke the other causes of derangement, affects different people 
 according to their temperament — making a furious maniac of 
 one, a drivehng melanchoUc of a second, and a third it ren- 
 ders stupid, dull, and heavy : the constitution rather than the 
 nature of the cause determines the form which the madness 
 takes. 
 
 XXX. Another iateresting fact may be noticed in this con- 
 nection, and that is, that, besides alcoJiol, many other narcotic 
 poisons may enter the blood, and derange the functions of the 
 brain, such as opium, heUadonna, conium, stramonium, Indian 
 hemp, Calabar bean, etc., producing more or less delirium, hal- 
 lucinations, illusions, and even insanity, where their use is 
 long persisted in, or they are taken in considerable quantity. 
 But the blood is not only thus poisoned by substances taken 
 into the stomach, but also by the formation in the tissues, and 
 retention of the blood, of matters generated in the system, as 
 urea and uric acid in Bright's disease of the kidneys, so-caUed. 
 If not eliminated from the body, these agents produce urcemie 
 poisoning attended with delirium, convulsions, and death. 
 Hallucinations and false perceptions are produced by all 
 these substances. 
 
 XXXI. I have chiefly attributed the monomaniacal insan- 
 ity of Carlton to a peculiar constitution and temperament, in 
 which there manifestly existed a certain inherent aptitude or 
 tendency to morbid mental and corporeal degeneracy, and 
 
TO THE SANITY OF CARLTON GATES. 219 
 
 lacking that reserve power necessary to the trying occasions — 
 " the wear and tear " — of life. Insanity and phthisis were its 
 natural and legitimate fruits. Considerable predisposing in- 
 fluence in this case has been attributed to the circumstances 
 of his education and to faulty moral training ; but while it is 
 freely admitted that an injudicious bringing up may aggravate 
 an inherent latent mischief or defect, yet, where the germs of 
 future disease, as in this case, are so deeply implanted in the 
 very constitution itself, it must be an exceptionally excellent 
 training, both physical and mental, that can prevent the usual 
 and natural results ; no one will pretend to say that the testa- 
 tor inherited any morbid taint of blood or vice of nature from 
 either parent, except that which is common to all the race ; 
 neither was there ever set before him the evil of a bad paren- 
 tal example ; but the morbid nervous element in his constitu- 
 tion accidentally predominated, subordinating to it aU the 
 other elements of his nature, and wrought the effect of devel- 
 oping an unnatural precocity strongly predisposing to disease. 
 There was no parental harshness or neglect in his treatment ; 
 but, on the contraiy, the utmost kindness, indulgence, and 
 affection. This indulgence, it is possible, may have been car- 
 ried to that extent as to somewhat interfere with or weaken 
 the necessary lessons of renunciation and self-control ; but 
 this is so common a defect in the education and training of 
 the youth of the present age that it calls for no special con- 
 demnation in this instance. " Let him that is without fault 
 cast the first stone." So far as moral causes are concerned, 
 much of the increasing insanity of the times may be traced to 
 the habitual encouragement, on the part of parents, of self- 
 feeKng, vanity, and the egotistic element in the child, which 
 go far to create a morbid predisposition and irritable sensi- 
 tiveness which disqualify from bearing up successfully against 
 the calamities and adverse circumstances of hfe. The pre- 
 vention of insanity will, doubtless, be found in aU those cir- 
 cumstances that go to develop strong characters — strong 
 mentally and physically, intellectually, morally and corporeally. 
 XXXII. Edmonds, in his "Select Cases" (vol. 1., p. 35), 
 has defined a sane man as one — 
 
220 A MEDICO-UEGAL OPINION RELATIVE 
 
 1. Wliose senses beai' truthful evidence. 
 
 2. Whose understanding is capable of receiving that evi- 
 dence. 
 
 3. T\Tiose reason can draw proper conclusions from the 
 truthful e^adence thus received. 
 
 4. Whose wiU can guide the thought thus obtained. 
 
 5. Whose moral sense can tell the right and wrong growing 
 out of that thought. 
 
 6. And whose act can, at his own pleasure, be in conformity 
 with the action of aU these qualities—" all these unite to con- 
 stitute sanity " (it is said) ; " the absence of any one of them 
 makes insanity." 
 
 XXXni. If the above statements be admitted as true, then 
 Carlton Gates was evidently not sane ; in other words, he was 
 insane ; for — 1. His senses did not " bear truthful evidence," 
 nor was his understanding "capable of receiving that evi- 
 dence." For example, his mother invariably had treated him 
 with the utmost forbearance, kindness, and affection ; aU her 
 acts he interpreted as manifestations of neglect, abuse, and 
 enmity. He was not capable of truly interpreting her con- 
 duct, as he always had been before. 2. His reason, such as 
 it was, did not draw proper conclusions from the truthful evi- 
 dence exhibited to him. His conclusions were all false, un- 
 reasonable, and unfounded, and therefore justify the inference 
 that he was destitute of sound reason and understanding. 
 3. It is also manifest that his " moral sense " did not distin- 
 guish the " right and wrong " of his thoughts, or of the testa- 
 mentary acts growing out of them, and, therefore, that he pos- 
 sessed no real freedom of the mtII ; in other words, was 
 insane. 
 
 XXXIV. I repeat, the symptoms and phenomena manifested 
 in the case of Carlton, so far as known and testified to, justify 
 the conclusion that there was present physical disease of the 
 brain, which insanity always presupposes, and to that extent 
 as to prevent perfect freedom of thought and action. 
 
 XXXV. It is very possible that physiology may not, for 
 many years to come, furnish the complete data of a positive 
 mental science ; but it is not too much to say that it has already 
 
TO THE SANITY OF CABLTON GATES. 221 
 
 advanced sufficiently far to overthrow the data of a false psy- 
 chology, resting solely on self-consciousness. That the brain 
 is the organ or instrument of the mind is now generally con- 
 ceded ; and that with each display of mental power there are 
 correlative changes in the material substratum — the brain — 
 that every phenomenon of mind is the result, as manifest 
 energy, of some change, molecular, chemical, or vital, in the 
 nervous elements of this organ, is also admitted. We need 
 not here enter into a consideration of the real nature of mind ; 
 it is enough to know that it is most certainly dependent for its 
 every manifestation on the brain and nervous system, and sci- 
 entific research is daily disclosing more clearly the relations 
 between it and its organ. Mental power is but an organized 
 result, matured by insensible degrees in the course of Ufe, and 
 as much dependent on the nervous structure as the function 
 of the hver is on the hepatic structure. So well estabhshed is 
 this proposition that physiologists no longer seek for proof 
 that the brain is the organ of the mind, but rather to investi- 
 gate the conditions of its healthy activity, and the pathological 
 evidence of the disease in the various forms of mental derange- 
 ment or impairment. Those pathologists who have devoted 
 the most attention to this department of science tell us that 
 they have not failed to discover, invariably, pathological 
 changes in the brain where intellecf,ual disorder has existed in 
 madness, and even in that form of insanity called melancholia, 
 and also in extreme old age. Whatever may be said by the 
 pure psychological school of philosophers, the world is in- 
 debted to physicians and physiologists for the only true phi- 
 losophy of mind, namely : that, instead of being a simple 
 entity — an independent source of power, and self-sufficient 
 cause of causes — ^it is dependent on a material organ for all 
 its manifestations. 
 
 XXXYI. If this be so, it is very evident that when physi- 
 cians, from disordered mental manifestations, infer the exist- 
 ence of cerebral disease, it is nothing more nor less than a 
 pure induction from weU-known established facts and princi- 
 ples. It is not a deductive process of reasoning at all, as 
 assumed by some philosophers, but one of simple induction ; 
 
222 A MEDICO-LEGAL OPINION BELATIYE 
 
 and, having established the fact of the existence of cerebral 
 disease, they may surely go on to point out its consequences, 
 as revealed and illustrated by the pathological history of such 
 cases. The process does not vary at aU from that pursued in 
 regard to any other important organ of the body — the heart, 
 the lungs, liver, or kidneys — ^persistent disordered function 
 points to a physical lesion, and this, in turn, demonstrates what 
 were the nature and cause of the functional derangement. 
 This has, indeed, been called "reasoning in a circle;" but it 
 arises from the very nature of the case, and must be so, if 
 there is any reasoning whatever. It is true that the phenom- 
 ena, as regards mental soundness and capacity, are objective to 
 the physiologist as well as others, to be determined by obser- 
 vation and the usual mode of inquiry ; but the physiologist 
 and pathologist are alone qualified to draw any correct con-, 
 elusion whatever in regard to the nature or extent of cerebral 
 disease. It is true that " physicians are not necessarily meta- 
 physicians ;" if they were merely such, they would be no bet- 
 ter judges in respect to questions of sanity or insanity, cere- 
 bral health or cerebral disease, than any other persons ; in 
 short, it would be quite absurd to call them in as experts in 
 any case involving these questions. Any other opinions would 
 be equally as valuable and reliable. The pure psychologist, 
 who relies entirely on the psychological method of self-con- 
 sciousness in investigating mental phenomena, who regards 
 the mind as an entity, acting independently of a material 
 organism, and aims to discover the laws of the human mind 
 by contemplating it in itself, must confess that, if his theory 
 be admitted in insanity, the mind itself is diseased, and if dis- 
 eased it may perish like the body. To such a conclusion 
 must the psychologist inevitably arrive, who rejects the re- 
 ceived doctrine of the dependence of mind on a material 
 structure for its earthly manifestations. When these psychol- 
 ogists overlook the physical structure and functions of the 
 body in their study of the human mind, they remind us of the 
 story of the philosopher who, whUe he gazed upon the stars, 
 fell into the water ; for if he had looked down he might have 
 seen the stars in the water, but looking aloft he could not 
 
TO THE SAMITY OF CAKLTON GATES. 223 
 
 see the water in the stars (Lord Bacon, "De Augment. Scient.," 
 b. ii.). 
 
 JTIDICIAL DECISIONS IN SIMILAIl OE ANAIOGOTJS CASES. 
 
 XXXYIL As the legal bearings of the case belong more 
 especially to the learned and able counsel employed by the 
 contestants of the wiU, it will not be necessary for me to enter 
 upon them to any great extent. During the last quarter of a 
 century, there have been several decisions in the English and 
 American courts, both in criminal and civil cases, especially 
 in such as relate to wiUs, based on the now recognized princi- 
 ple that delusion is a true test of insanity ; and these decisions 
 have now the force and authority of common law. 
 
 XXXVIII. "Where there is no direct evidence of the 
 deceased's state of mind at the time of the act done, recourse 
 must be had to the usual mode of ascertaining it in such cases 
 — which is, looMng at the act itself. The agent is to be inferred 
 ratioual, or the contrary, in such cases, from the character 
 broadly taken of his act. Testamentary dispositions that con- 
 flict with tlie natural distributions of property, and the hnoion 
 and expressed intentions of the testator, are to he held, as sufficient 
 evidence of unsound mind." [Carlton had made a wiU aheady, 
 giving aU his property to his mother.] (Sir John Nichol in 
 " Addams's Ecclesiastical Reports," 74.) 
 
 " I cannot but think that a mental disorder operating on 
 partial subjects should, with regard to those subjects, be at- 
 tended with the same effects as a total deprivation of reason" 
 (Pothier on " Obligations," Appendix 24). 
 
 " When a man sufters under a partial derangement of intel- 
 lect, if the act done bears a strict and evident reference to the 
 existing mental disorder, we cannot see why the law should 
 not interpose a Kmited protection ; and stiU. less, why courts 
 of equity should deny their aid in such cases " (Paris & Eon- 
 blanque, " Med. Jurisprudence," p. 30). 
 
 ENGLISH CASES — CASE I. 
 
 XXXIX. In the case of Dew v. Clark (" Addams's Ecclesi- 
 anstical Reports," 79), the existence of monomania is recognized 
 
224 A MEDICO-LEGAL OPINION EELATIVE 
 
 on the ground of delvMon, and its operation on the understand- 
 ing, in controlling the civU acts of an individual. The testa- 
 tor, Scott, had conceived a violent antipathy against his 
 daughter, without any real or adequate cause, which was 
 declared to be solely the offspring of delusion in a disordered 
 mind ; and his will, which cut her off from all participation in 
 his estate, was set aside on that ground alone. 
 
 CASE II. 
 
 XL. See case of White v. Wilson (13 Vesey's Eeports, 88). 
 Here the testator, in a state of delirium, in fever, received a 
 draught from the hands of his brother, and conceived the4dea 
 that it was intended to destroy him ; which belief continued 
 after his recovery, and became so controlling, that, in conse- 
 quence, he disinherited his brother in his will ; a verdict was 
 obtained in the Common Pleas against the will, but resulted 
 afterward in a compromise. " No one," says Ray, comment- 
 ing on this case, "would be hardy enough to aflSrm that 
 Greenwood's mind was perfectly rational and sound, and, as 
 his insanity displayed itself on all topics relating to his brother, 
 every act involving his brother's interests, to go no further, 
 ought, consequently, to have been invalidated " (" Med. Juris- 
 prudence of Insanity," p. 239). 
 
 (Esquirol has related a case of a very similar kind, where a 
 person conceived an antipathy against his brothers, sisters, 
 and other relations, who, he believed, were seeking to destroy 
 him ; under the influence of this delusion, he made testamen- 
 tary dispositions, and Esquirol, being consulted respecting 
 their vahdity, gave it as his opinion that the testator was 
 laboring under insanity. The will was consequently set aside, 
 (" Annales d'Hygiene PubHque," 111, p. 370.) 
 
 XLI. An elderly' lady was excessively penurious and eccen- 
 tric, very irritable and quarrelsome. She conceived the in- 
 sane delusion that her brother had joined the CathoUcs, to 
 whom she felt a strong aversion, and in consequence disinher- 
 ited him. The will was consequently set aside (Wharton and 
 StiUe, "American Medical Jurisprudence," p. 20). In this 
 case Lord Brougham denied the existence of monomania or 
 
TO THE SANITY OF CABLTON GATES. 225 
 
 partial insanity, and maiatained that, the mind being " one 
 and indivisible, and if unsoimd on one subject, provided that 
 unsoundness is at all times existing on that subject, it is quite 
 erroneous to suppose such a mind really sound on other sub- 
 jects ; it is only sound iu appearance " (Waring v. Waring, 6 
 Moore, P. C. Cases, 349). " It ' may therefore be considered 
 as the present law of England," says Wharton, p. 23, " that a 
 person partially insane is incompetent, so far as the making 
 of wills or contracts is concerned." 
 
 XLII. It is quite unnecessary to quote English decisions 
 in criminal cases. The principle, however, which has been 
 recognized in all the recent cases is that — 
 
 1. " Any species of insane delusion exempts from punish- 
 ment the perpetrator of an act committed under its influence." 
 
 2. " The behef, unfoimded in fact, that a party is in imme- 
 diate danger of his Mfe from another, may be such a delusion ; 
 or, the behef that taking the hfe of another is the appropriate 
 remedy for a minor though imagined evU, may be also an 
 insane delusion." 
 
 3. " That, therefore, homicide, under such a delusion, is not 
 liable to punishment." * 
 
 AMERICAN DECISIONS. 
 
 XLIII. The various decisions of American courts are well 
 summed up as follows, by Judge Sergeant, of Philadelphia, 
 before the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, in the case of 
 Boyd V. Eby (8 W., 70), 1839 : 
 
 " The only question in such a case is, whether the testator 
 was under a delusion, tliough tJiere be iut a partial insanity ; yet 
 if it be in relation to the act in question, it is well settled it will 
 invalidate contracts generally, and defeat a loill which is the 
 direct offspring of this partial insanity." 
 
 * By the term "punishment," as here used, is to be understood such pun- 
 ishment as is inflicted on persons of sound mind. It is essential, however, 
 to the policy of the present more humane mode of treatment of the insane, 
 that, in all cases where a party is acquitted on ground of insanity, strict con- 
 finement should be directed, in such » way as will exempt the community 
 from any probable recurrence of such delirious outrages. 
 
 1.5 
 
226 A MEDICO-LEGAL OPINION EELATIYE 
 
 XLIV. Judge King, also of Philadelpliia, in the case of 
 Leeoh v. Leecli, 11 Pa. L. J., 179, then closing a judicial 
 career of twenty-seTen years' duration, remarked as fol- 
 lows: 
 
 " A monomaniacal delusion, inveterately entertained by a 
 testator against those who would otherwise have been the 
 natural objects of his bounty, and shown to be the reason 
 which has excluded them from it, and to have had no other 
 existence except in the distempered imagination of the testa- 
 tor, would invahdate a wiU made under such influence. And 
 for the very plain reason that a will made under the sugges- 
 tion of such an insane delusion is not what the law requires a 
 win to be, the product of a mind capable of reasoning rightly ; 
 for although the law recognizes the difference between general 
 and partial insanity, yet, if the will has been made under the 
 influence of such partial insanity, and as the product of it, 
 it is as invalid as if made under the effects of an insanity never 
 so general." 
 
 XLV. I would refer also to the case of The American Sea- 
 men's Friend Society and others, appellants, v. Hesters, Hop- 
 per and others, respondents (Tiffany, N. Y. Eeports, Appeals, 
 vol. vi., p. 619). 
 
 The opinion of the Court of Appeals in this case was ren- 
 dered by Judge Denio (December, 1865), affirming the follow- 
 ing principles, and the decree of the Surrogate and the 
 Supreme Court rejecting the will : 
 
 1. The true test of insanity affecting testamentary capacity, 
 etc., aside from cases of dementia, or loss of mind and intel- 
 lect, is mental delusion. 
 
 2. A person persistently believing supposed facts, which 
 have no real existence, against aU evidence and probability, 
 and conducting himself upon the assumption of their exist- 
 ence, is, so far as such facts are concerned, under an insane 
 delusion. 
 
 3. If a testator at the time of making his will is laboring 
 under any such delusion in respect to those who would 
 naturally have been the objects of his testamentary bounty, 
 and the Court can see that the dispository provisions were or 
 
TO THE SANITY OF OAELTON GATES. 22'i 
 
 a 
 
 might have been caused or affected by such delusion, such in- 
 strument is not to be deemed to bo his will. 
 
 In this case, the testator beheved that aU his relatives were 
 set against him, and had conspired together, and were endeav- 
 oring to Vill him by the administering of chloroform, or some 
 other means. His physician testified that he considered the 
 deceased a monomaniac in respect to his family and relations. 
 
 XLYI. The same principles were affirmed by a decision of 
 the Supreme Court of the State of New York, in the case of 
 Stanton and wife, appellants, v. Wetherwax and others, re- 
 spondents (April, 1853 — " Barbour's Supreme Court Eeports," 
 vol. xvi., p. 259). 
 
 Judge Grridley, after quoting as authority Sir John Nichol 
 in the celebrated case of Dew v. Clarke (3 Ad., 79 ; "English 
 Ecclesiastical Reports," vol, i., p. 441) — see above case already 
 referred to — proceeds to say that " the testator was partially 
 insane, and something more than a monomaniac, for he was 
 under a strong delusion. On more than one subject a mono- 
 maniac may make a vaHd wUl, where the provisions of the 
 win are entirely unconnected with, and of course uninfluenced 
 by, the particular ddusion. But, where there is good reason 
 to beHeve the will is the offspring of that particular ddusion 
 which has seized his mind and controls its operation, the rule 
 is otherwise. A wiU thus made, under the influence of a 
 powerful delusion, which has not only impaired but perverted 
 his judgment and understanding in relation to subjects con- 
 nected with the provisions of the will, so as to exercise a con- 
 trolling influence in the disposition of his property, is not the 
 wiU of a testator of sound mind. His miad is unsound quoad 
 the very subject on which he is called to exercise its powers 
 ia making the wiU " (p. 262). 
 
 The decision of the Surrogate of Herkimer County was 
 reversed, and the will declared null and void. 
 
 XLVn. The most recent case bearing on the question of 
 monomania, as affecting testamentary capacity, is that lately 
 brought before the Surrogate of Orange CoTmty, N. Y., in the 
 matter of proving the last will and testament of John C. 
 Calhoun. I need not give the particulars of this interesting 
 
228 A MEDICO-LEGAL OPINION EELATIVE 
 
 case, as they are, doubtless, well known to tliis court ; in 
 many respects they bear a striking resemblance to those of 
 the present case, but the proof of delusion and insanity in the 
 testator is far less strong. It will suflSce for my present pur- 
 pose if I quote briefly from the opinion of his Honor Gilbert 
 O. Hulse, Esq., Surrogate ; an opinion equally honorable both 
 to his head and heart : 
 
 " I wiU first consider the question whether the testator was 
 so far unsound in mind that the wiU is invahd for that reason. 
 He was not an idiot or a lunatic, but it is said that he was 
 afflicted with a form of insanity known as monomania. Mono- 
 maniacs are those persons who are insane upon some one or 
 more subjects, whether it relate to one or more persons or 
 things, and are apparently sane upon all others. Such per- 
 sons are competent to make a will, unless the subject of their 
 infirmity it involved in the making of it. The behef in the 
 existence of mere illusions or hallucinations, creations purely of 
 the imagination, such as no sane man would believe in, is unequiv- 
 ocal evidence of insanity. The persistent belief of a person in sup- 
 posed facts, lohich really have no exis tence except in his imagina- 
 tion, and who acts on such belief, proves him, so far as such acts 
 are concerned, to he acting under a morbid delusion. Such a 
 delusion is partial insanity. When seen it apypears that tJie will 
 is the direct offspring of such partial insanity, it must be regarded 
 as invalid, though the general capacity of the testator is unim- 
 peaclied." — Newburgh Journal. 
 
 The win was not admitted to probate ; partly on the ground 
 of monomania, undue influence, and partly on the fact that the 
 testator entirely disinherited aU his relatives, and gave aU his 
 property to a Dr. Jones, with whom he had been acquainted 
 only a few months. 
 
 XLVni. George Moore, of Kentucky, made his will in 
 April, 1822, and shortly afterward died. The vahdity of the 
 win was disputed on the ground of unsoundness of mind in 
 the testator. It was shown that, about twenty-four years 
 before his death, he had a dangerous fever, during which he 
 contracted a strong hatred against his brothers, who he 
 imagined intended to injure or destroy him, although they 
 
TO THE SANITY OF CARLTON GATES. '229 
 
 liad attended Mm through his illness, and never gave any 
 cause for his suspicion. This antipathy continued until the 
 day of his death, with a single esception, when he made a will 
 in their favor, which he subsequently canceled. The Court, 
 in its decision, said " that he cannot be accounted a free 
 agent in making his will, so far as his relatives are concerned, 
 although free as to the rest of the world. But, however free 
 he may have been as to other objects, the conclusion is irre- 
 sistible that this pecuhar defect of intellect did influence his 
 acts in making his will, and for this cause it ought not to be 
 sustained " (" Little's Eeports," 371). 
 
 XLIX. The case of Madame Jumel, decided by the Supreme 
 Court of New York, in 1866, is another case in point. This 
 weU-known lady died several years since, leaving the bulk of 
 a large estate to various ecclesiastical and charitable institu- 
 tions, and disinheriting her relatives. This case was brought 
 to trial before the Supreme Court of New York city (1866). 
 It was shown in evidence that the testatrix was very old, and 
 that she was subject to delusions of various kinds ; among 
 others, she conceived the idea that several of her relatives 
 were trying to poison her, and she refused to take food which 
 they gave her. 
 
 The Court charged that, if the testatrix was of unsound 
 mind on account of these delusions, she was not capable of 
 making a will. 
 
 The jury found that she was of unsound mind when she 
 made the will ("Supreme Court Eeports," 1866). 
 
 L. James C. Johnston, of North Carolina, died in 1865, ex- 
 cluding his natural heirs, by his wiU, from any participation 
 in his estate, and the whole of his property was devised to 
 persons in no way connected with him, and with whom he had 
 never been intimate. The testator had labored under mono- 
 mania for several years, having occasional paroxysms of delir- 
 ium, but possessing a good degree of self-control; without 
 any apparent cause, he conceived a violent prejudice against 
 his son and other relatives, toward whom he manifested the 
 utmost hatred. The will was justly considered unnatural and 
 motiveless, the result of delusion and monomania, and was 
 
230 A MEDICO-IiEGAL OPINION BELATIVE 
 
 accordingly declared null and void. * " Insanity in its Medico- 
 legal Eelations," by William A. Hammond, M.D., New York. 
 1866 ; also, " Opinion Eelatiag to the Testamentary Capacity of 
 James C. Jolmston, of North Carolina," by the same, 1866. t 
 
 LI. The case of Morrison v. Smith, " Bradford's Surrogate 
 Beports," vol. hi., p. 209, presents some points worthy of notice 
 in this connection. 
 
 The decedent, a short time after the execution of his will, 
 was coimnitted to the huiatic asylum, after an examination by 
 a physician, who found him insane, and laboring under a 
 delusion that some of his children were spurious. He was 
 exceedingly cautious on the subject of the delusion, and care- 
 ful not to betray it to the examining physician untU the latter 
 succeeded in gaining his confidence. He had been melan- 
 choly for a length of time, and his depression of spirits had 
 been greatly increased by the recent decease of his wife. 
 Within a few days of the date of the execution of the wiU, he 
 had become suddenly violent at night, to such an extent as to 
 require physical restraint ; and about the same time he gave 
 indications of the delusion in respect to his children. Held, 
 that a will made very near the time of these developments, 
 unequal in its provisions, and favoring the only two members 
 of the family privy to it, one of whom was present when the 
 instnictions were given, when the draft was submitted, and when 
 the instrument was signed, and both of them had been the de- 
 cedent's agents, and had possession of his estate, needed more 
 than the formal proof of the factum ; and, the evidence faUing 
 to show affirmatively the soundness of the decedent's mind at 
 the time of the transaction, probate was denied. 
 
 The will in question was executed on the ith or 5th Janu- 
 ary, 1853 ; on the 21st of the same month he was committed 
 to the lunatic Asylum at Bloomingdale. Dr. Brown testified 
 that he was laboring under that chronic form of insanity called 
 
 * This is an error ; the will was sustained by the verdict of an ignorant 
 jury, several of whom could not read or write. — Editor. 
 
 f Dr. Lee has fallen into the mistake of regarding the two titles mentioned 
 as indicating separate hooks. The one is a general title of the subject, the 
 other refers to its special application. — Editor. 
 
TO THE SANITY OF CARLTON GATES. 231 
 
 melancholia — a form of disease which does not ordinarily 
 supervene with a violent paroxysm ; that his present state of 
 mind (21st January) had existed about five months ; that he 
 disavowed the identity of his children, and that he was sup- 
 posed to indulge suicidal propensities. And yet Dr. Gray 
 and Dr. Kelley, his physicians, who were intimately acquaint- 
 ed with him, the Kev. Mr. Evans, etc., testified to his sanity — 
 Dr. Gray, in a certificate dated January 7, 1853, and Dr. 
 Kelley, in a certificate dated January 6, 1853. The latter 
 states that " the said John Morrison is of sound mind and 
 intellect, and in full possession of aU the faculties of reason 
 and intelligence." And Dr. Gray states that " said Morrison 
 is in a sound state of mind and capable of managing his 
 affairs." The E.ev. B. Evans visited him on the 4th, 9th, and 
 16th of January, and discovered no signs of " irrationality." 
 
 The Surrogate, Mr. Bradford, very justly remarks, in con- 
 nection with this case, that " there are cases on record where 
 the subject has for a length of time defied every effort to make 
 him convict himself of irrationahty, yet, when the key was 
 discovered, instantaneously disclosed his delusion. So, here, 
 the decedent's cautiousness and craftiness were more than a 
 match for the physician's experience and shrewdness, until 
 the secret spring was found and touched, and then he laid 
 bare his miud." As to the witnesses Drs. Gray and KeUey, 
 and Bev. Mr. Evans, adduced to prove the rationality of the 
 decedent, their attention was not directed to any special examin- 
 ation of the case. How little reliance can be placed upon casual 
 observation is illustrated by the fact that, even after the 9th 
 of January, and when the decedent was undoubtedly insane, 
 the Rev. Mr. Evans spent some time in conversation with him, 
 loithout discovering any symptoms of derangement (pp. 113, 
 225). 
 
 LIE. In the case of Hopper, already referred to above. 
 Judge Brown, for twenty years an eminent Justice of our 
 Supreme Court, remarked before the Court of Appeals (p. 
 690): 
 
 " If a careful examination of the evidence taken before the 
 Surrogate results in showing that Charles Hopper, upon some 
 
232 A MEDICO-LEGAL OPINION RELATIVE 
 
 subjects, and indeed generally, had mind and memory, sense 
 sufficient to know and comprehend ordinary transactions, 
 still it will also result that, upon the subject of his wife and 
 his other relations, those who would naturally have been the 
 objects of his care and bounty, and who would have succeeded 
 to his estate, he was a maniac, given to the grossest insane 
 delusions. The instrument proposed cannot be regarded as 
 his will, because upon such a subject he was incapable of 
 expressing or forming an intelligent will. It is the result, not 
 of a clear, unclouded intellect, having an intelligent compre- 
 hension of the relation of the things with which he had to 
 deal, but the result of a delusion which controls the judgment 
 and misleads the understanding in relation to the subjects 
 on which it is acting. A monomaniac may make a valid will 
 when its provisions have no connection with the particular 
 delusion, and there is no reason to think they are influenced 
 by it. But when, as in this case, the delusion relates to the 
 persons who would, in the natural and usual course of things, 
 become the objects of the maker's care, solicitude, and bounty, 
 and, especially, upon whom the law would cast the inheritance 
 of his property, the instrument must be regarded as invalid to 
 pass the estate, because it does not express the will of a tes- 
 tator of sound and disposing mind." 
 
 LIII. These cases could be multiplied, if there were any 
 necessity for so doing. In regard to criminal cases, where 
 insanity, characterized by delusion, has existed. Chief -Justice 
 Shaw, of Massachusetts, has clearly laid down the law in the 
 case of Eogers, who was tried for murdering his keeper in the 
 State Prison (American Law Journal, No. 3, 128, N. S.). 
 
 " The conduct may be in many respects regular, the mind 
 acute, and the conduct apparently governed by rules of pro- 
 priety, and, at the same time, there may be insane delusion, by 
 w^hich the mind is perverted. The most common of these 
 cases is that of monomania, when the mind broods over one 
 idea, and cannot be reasoned out of it. This may operate as 
 the excuse for a criminal act in one or two modes : either the 
 delusion is such that the person under its influence has a real 
 and firm behef of some fact, not true in itself, but which, if it 
 
TO THE SANITY OF CAELTON GATES. Zoj 
 
 were true, would excuse Ms act ; as where the behef is, that 
 the party killed had an immediate design upon his hfe, and 
 under that belief the insane man killed him in supposed seK- 
 defense." 
 
 And " secondly, where some violent outburst occurs, which, 
 taken in connection with former acts, indicates that the will 
 was OTerborne. The questions for them to decide were, 
 whether such a delusion existed in the mind of the accused ; 
 whether he did not act under an insane but firm belief that 
 the deceased was going to shut him up with some dangerous 
 design, or not for a slight punishment ; whether the facts in- 
 dicate that the deed was done at a moment when the delusion 
 was uncontrollable." 
 
 The same principles were laid down by the Superior Court 
 of Connecticut, in the case of Abbott, indicted for killing his 
 wife in 1841 ; also by the court on the trial of Mercer for the 
 murder of Heberton, in New Jersey, April, 1843. (In some of 
 the recent trials of murder, some new principles of medical 
 jurisprudence have been laid down, if not by courts, by lawyers 
 and juries ; as in the case of Cole, who was declared to have 
 been sane the moment before the act was committed, as well 
 as the moment afterward ; but that he was utterly insane 
 when he committed the murderous act, and on this principle 
 he was acquitted.) 
 
 (After repeated sittings of the court, continued from time to 
 time through a period of nine months, the will was declared 
 invalid, on the ground of the insanity of the testator.) 
 
DOES THE LAW DEAL UNFAIELY 
 
 QXJESTIOI^S OF IN^SA-lSriT Y P 
 
 By J. V. CAMPBELL. 
 
 Lawyers are proverbial for doing most of their quarreling 
 vicariously, and for letting assaults upon their profession, and 
 mistakes concerning its general conduct, vindicate or correct 
 themselves. And hence there are many fallacies afloat, con- 
 cerning the manner in which certain topics are treated by the 
 bar and by courts ; some of which mislead the whole com- 
 munity, and some are favorite grievances of but a part of it. 
 There is no subject on which there has been less real 
 appreciation, or more indiscriminate censure, on the part 
 of some writers, than the supposed treatment of insan- 
 ity by legal authorities, and the alleged disregard of the 
 favorite novelties of some psychologists. Inasmuch as the 
 only way in which the rights and liabilities of men are en- 
 forced at aU is by means of legal proceedings, it would be 
 singular if lawyers and judges should not aim at being informed 
 on such subjects ;.and it may not be too much to suggest that 
 their habits and opportunities might be expected to keep them 
 reasonably well informed concerning the manifestations of 
 human conduct. If it would be irrational for them to disre- 
 gard any genuine light on such matters, it is for the same 
 reason irrational to make sweeping accusations of neglect, or 
 
 * Bead before the Society, December 8, 1870. 
 
QUESTIONS OF INSANITY. 23£ 
 
 obstinacy in shutting their eyes to that light. Many of these 
 charges and complaints are the result of ignorance concerning 
 the law's dealings. 
 
 It is true, that in the course of justice no great regard is 
 paid to the nice distinctions between various kinds of mental 
 incapacity. There is no occasion for doing so, because each 
 case must always stand on its own facts, and one decision 
 upon a question of fact can never be a precedent for another. 
 When the question arises whether, in the given case, the men- 
 tal condition of any person is or was such as to lead to a par- 
 ticular conclusion, it is of no special consequence how the 
 abnormal state is named, if full weight is given to its qualify- 
 ing force. 
 
 One of the principal difficulties we meet, in the practical 
 treatment of these subjects, is the confounding together of 
 mental incapacity for certain legal purposes, and mental 
 unsoundness in a more absolute sense. Witnesses called upon 
 the stand to testify concerning capacity, often take it upon 
 themselves to disregard aU but the inquiry whether idiocy or 
 insanity exists in the case on trial, when there is no occasion 
 whatever to examine into either of these conditions. 
 
 There are two classes of inquiries under which most inves- 
 tigations into mental conditions may be ranged : 
 
 First. — Questions of civil competency. 
 
 Second. — Questions of criminal capacity. 
 
 The sanity of witnesses so rarely comes in question as to 
 give rise to no serious difficulty. 
 
 Questions of civil competency may arise, not only where the 
 person concerning whom inquiry is made is supposed to be 
 idiotic or crazy, but also where his faculties, physical as well 
 as mental, are so weakened by disease, or pain, or drugs, as to 
 render him unfit for any business requiring thought and steady 
 attention. Unfitness for many civil acts may exist, wherever 
 there is not strength enough to enable a person to act, at the 
 time and under the circumstances, as a free agent, or active 
 intelligence enough to comprehend the particular business in 
 hand ; although there may be other acts, where no urgency 
 or compulsion operates against free agency, or simpler deal- 
 
23G DOES THE LAW DEAL UNFAIRLY 
 
 ings entirely within his comprehension, where his competency 
 would not be disputed. In other words, some acts may be 
 vahd and binding, and others not— though substantially con- 
 temporaneous — because the former are simple and spontane- 
 ous, and the latter are more complex, or result from such 
 influences as may overcome a feeble person, while one in fuU 
 vigor would not yield to them. 
 
 It is quite plain that any attempt to confine inquiries in 
 civil matters to mental unsoundness, in its general and abso- 
 lute forms, would leave out a large class of most important 
 cases, relating to wiUs and contracts, where, with no complete 
 incapacity for every pui-pose, there may be an unfitness under 
 surrounding circumstances to do the act in question. 
 
 Courts have not generally held that such qualified incapacity 
 must necessarily require the testimony of scientific witnesses 
 or experts. It happens, however, in many such cases, that 
 the person whose acts are in qiiestion has been laboring under 
 disease, and subjected to medical treatment. Then, of course, 
 his attending physician may render the most valuable ser- 
 vices by giving the results of his careful investigation. But 
 in other cases, and to some extent in these, the capacity to do 
 certain acts, under the circumstances, must usually be as 
 easily determined by other intelligent persons as by the sci- 
 entific. And when experts are questioned, they are too often 
 led to answer concerning the existence of general unsoundness 
 — which they can see does not exist — when, had their atten- 
 tion been called to the ability of the patient, in his weak or 
 nervous state, to do the complicated and important business 
 under consideration, they would have shown that he could not 
 have done it freely or intelhgently. 
 
 It is also a very common thing for persons advanced in life, 
 or cut off from close family ties, to be beset by interested and 
 insidious parasites, who wish to influence them in making 
 their last wiUs, and yet have sagacity enough to know that 
 their influence must be kept concealed. A time arrives when 
 pain seems to have become quieted, and the mind appears 
 more than usually tranquil, as if unconscious of the burdens of 
 the suffering flesh. During this interval of apparent clearness 
 
WITH QUESTIONS OF INSANITY? 237 
 
 and freedom from disturbing influences, wills are often made, 
 utterly at variance with all antecedent probabilities, ignoring 
 known attachments, and sometimes violating the most obvious 
 social duties. But, so far as it can be shown, there has been 
 no undue solicitation ; and, on the trial, the witnesses usually 
 declare the testator's mind to have been sound, and his intel- 
 ligence clear. The will is therefore almost uniformly sustained 
 as the deliberate act of a person in fuU mental vigor, who 
 must be presumed to have had good reasons for his peculiar 
 disposal of that which he had a full right to control. Such 
 cases are frequent enough to cause much speculation at the 
 bar ; but the general result has been so uniform, that few 
 lawyers, however convinced of the real character of the testa- 
 mentary document, advise their chents to carry the litigation 
 beyond the decision of the Court of Probate. 
 
 Every one who has had to do with such cases, must feel 
 that many of them can only be accounted for on the hypothe- 
 sis that there are forms of disordered action which are quite 
 apt to escape detection. Such deviations from all ordinary 
 standards of sanity deserve more attention than any of the 
 text-writers have yet given them. And they exemplify the 
 evils of neglecting close observation, merely because there is no 
 necessity for active medical treatment. For there have been 
 instances brought to the knowledge of many legal practition- 
 ers, where the mind of the sick man had so completely fol- 
 lowed that of some one who had assumed to record his wishes, 
 that he appears to have done spontaneously and readily, if not 
 actively, what was never in fact suggested by himself. And 
 the very precautions used to make his condition easier, have 
 beyond doubt enabled many frauds to be consummated in 
 perfect security. 
 
 When such cases come up in courts, it is commonly impos- 
 sible to obtain any fuU or satisfactory testimony. The sick 
 person is not allowed to be disturbed by needless conver- 
 sation ; and none of those tests are permitted to be appUed, 
 which are resorted to in other cases to determine the mental 
 condition. It rarely happens that any attempt is made to try 
 the soundness of the sick man's memory, even concerning the 
 
238 DOES THE LAW DEAL UNFAIRLY 
 
 very matters in hand. And in many instances tlie testament- 
 ary proceedings are conducted in such a private and ostensi- 
 bly confidential way, that the person conducting them may, if 
 dishonestly disposed, do very much as he pleases without any 
 danger of detection. 
 
 The developments in court often show that at such times 
 the testator appears almost or altogether passive ; exhibits no 
 strong marks of love or dislike ; manifests no special anxiety 
 about his affairs ; and shows no concern about death. The 
 apathy extends to all subjects. The miser forgets his avarice, 
 the ties of kindred are not felt, and ambition ceases to regard 
 honors and position. Men who in health were noted for 
 punctilious prudence in aU their affairs, make their wills merely 
 because somebody suggested it, and seem to have no care or 
 zeal in the matter themselves. How far wills made under 
 such circumstances can be said to emanate from the testators, 
 or how much they have had to do with the preparation, can 
 never be discovered, except through the medium of witnesses 
 whose disclosures of facts discrediting the instruments would 
 operate to their own condemnation. 
 
 When persons in apparent health become rapidly and un- 
 accountably changed in nature and disposition, so as to lose 
 their prominent characteristics, there are means of determin- 
 ing, without much difficulty, how far the change denotes insan- 
 ity. It is certainly worthy of consideration, how far persons 
 who, having apparent control over then* faculties, manifest a 
 similar change during the quiet and calm decline of mortal 
 weakness, are really in a fit condition to dispose of their 
 affairs, when they show no interest in the present or future 
 of themselves or others, and Avhen, if left alone, they would 
 have made no testamentary arrangements at all. 
 
 It often appears on the trial of contested wiUs, that a testa- 
 tor, who has never during health signed a paper without care- 
 ful personal inspection, has omitted (although perfectly able 
 to do so) to attempt any personal reading or examination of 
 the document presented for his signature. Such persons often 
 sign these instruments, disposing of all their affairs, upon a 
 single reading of the draughtsman, and on the first draught, 
 
WITH QUESTIONS OF INSANITY? 239 
 
 without inqnky, suggestion, or amendment. And it also 
 comes out, by no means seldom, that, although Uving for 
 some time after the signing, and retaining their faculties 
 apparently unchanged, they make no further allusions to their 
 wills ; and do not seem to reflect upon them, to see whether 
 there may not have been errors or omissions, and never seek 
 to read them or hear them read. The paper drawn and pre- 
 sented is signed without parley or discussion, and then dis- 
 missed from thought as if of no consequence whatever. 
 
 The death of most of these persons, within a brief period, 
 renders it impossible to determine whether the appearances of 
 capacity were reliable or delusive. But sometimes there is a 
 recovery or amendment entirely unlooked for. In these rare 
 instances it certainly has happened (and no one can tell how 
 often), that the testator has had no recollection of having 
 made any wiU at aU ; or has had an erroneous idea of the 
 tenor of that of which he retains a partial recollection. A 
 case is mentioned of a gentleman supposed to be hopelessly 
 iU, who of his own accord sent for his soKcitor, and deliber- 
 ately dictated and then executed a will, without the least sus- 
 picion in his nurses, medical attendant, family, or lawyer, that 
 he was in any degree incapable of acting discreetly. But 
 after his recovery, upon accidentaRy finding this will in his 
 desk, he would not believe that he had made it, as he had no 
 recollection of it, and it was contrary to his settled intentions. 
 Had he died without finding it, no one would have disputed 
 it, as it was supposed to have been so carefully and reflective- 
 ly settled upon as to preclude any possible chance for doubt- 
 ing its correctness. And in this case the thing was not done 
 in a corner. Every one supposed him to be in the full enjoy- 
 ment of his faculties. Sir Henry Halford mentions a very 
 similar occurrence, where he detected the insanity after the 
 will was executed, although he failed to do so before. 
 
 The disposition of all tribunals is to sustain wills if possi- 
 ble ; and there is no doubt that very many are upheld which 
 should not be. As aU courts and juries must base theu- action 
 upon the proofs before them, and as in most of these cases, 
 and in probably all that are sharply contested, these proofs 
 
240 DOES THE LAW DEAL UKFAIELY 
 
 are largely furnislied by scientific witnesses, the defects in 
 justice are not chargeable to the law, but axe chiefly due to 
 imperfect observation, and to the erroneous inferences drawn 
 by the observers. 
 
 In many instances where death appears to be imminent and 
 inevitable, and no further professional aid is available, the 
 duties of medical men may call them elsewhere ; and it is 
 assumed that there is no occasion for continued critical obser- 
 vation by any one. But unhappy experience has shown that 
 mental irregularities will baffle anything but the closest scru- 
 tiny, and are often detected by subsequent conduct, when not 
 suspected at the moment. And when the peace and security 
 of families may depend upon the state of mind of a testator, 
 the materials for arriving at a true restilt should be sought 
 with the most conscientious and impartial care. 
 
 While writers on medical jurisprudence have spent much 
 time and done good service in explaining the phenomena of 
 mental disorders, there is very little intelligent discussion 
 concerning the efi'ect of sickness and bodily decay in operat- 
 ing on the wiU, the attention, or the active understanding. 
 And there is seldom any more than an allusion to those quieter 
 forms of dehrium, which are so deceptive to an ordinary ob- 
 server as not to excite his attention at the time, and which 
 may not be noticed at all, unless subsequent conduct leads to 
 a recoUection of inconsistencies, only to be explained as the 
 result of aberrations. 
 
 Until more attention is given to these very perplexing cases, 
 we must continue to have a multitude of controversies, in 
 which neither gainer nor loser will ever be clear in his own 
 mind upon the justice of the legal decision made, and upon 
 which the community wiU never come to a final agreement. 
 The law must always be powerless where testimony is not 
 such as to command confidence. There can be no well-settled 
 popular knowledge upon the tendencies of different diseases 
 or injures to affect unfavorably the power to conduct the 
 affairs of Hfe, and to render persons, though not insane, very 
 liable to mistake, forgetfulness, fraud, or imposition. Yet 
 there must be many cases where, under peculiar circum- 
 
WITH QUESTIONS OF INSANITY? 241 
 
 stances, these tendencies may be quite worthy of considera- 
 tion. Where there is actual fraud, the power of the victim to 
 detect and resist imposition can never be an unimportant ele- 
 ment in the transaction. Where there is no suspicion of mis- 
 conduct, the law can pay little heed to mere differences in 
 intelligence, and will not enter on unprofitable discussions 
 among men whose fuU natural capacity remains. But where 
 this has been impaired in any way, there may often be room 
 for scrutiny. We may fairly presume that medical men have 
 not failed to notice any of the phases of disease ; but those 
 who have attempted to write for the instruction of other pro- 
 fessions, have rarely thrown much light upon any mental dis- 
 turbance, or weakness, short of imbecihty or actual aber- 
 ration. 
 
 It is somewhat singular that in the popular miad, and to a 
 great extent among learned men, questions of mental condition 
 are usually supposed to refer to criminal responsibility. And 
 more complaint has been made of the operation of sup- 
 posed legal rules in this direction, than when they apply 
 to civil transactions. It is very often said, by persons regard- 
 ing themselves as experts on mental disorders, that courts 
 ignore some classes of insanity, and hold men charge- 
 able who should not be deemed capable of criminal responsi- 
 bOity. If there be any such rules of law they are certainly 
 wrong. But, when we look at the facts, it wiU be found the 
 administration of justice is not so imperfect as is supposed. 
 Every one familiar with practice knows that, while many civil 
 acts are sustained when they should be set aside, insane per- 
 sons are not very often convicted, and comparatively few really 
 guilty persons are acquitted as insane. There are some cases 
 of homicide where juries strain for an acquittal, and where a 
 very small amount of evidence, bearing on the sanity of the 
 prisoner, has ostensibly furnished the grounds of his discharge. 
 But no one really imagines that the jury believed him insane. 
 When the popular feehng excuses the homicide, the sympathy 
 of a jury will lay hold of any pretext for mercy. The law is 
 not responsible for this ; and the finding of a jury can never, 
 in criminal cases, be regarded as creating or perpetuating 
 16 
 
242 DOES THE LAW DEAL UNFAIRLY 
 
 any legal rule. It is the facts and not the law that in these 
 anomalous cases must be bent to meet the occasion. 
 
 It is true that cases have arisen in times past, and some- 
 times arise now, when reaUy insane persons have been pun- 
 ished. But a careful investigation of these will usually show 
 the verdict to have been fully up to the current opinion on the 
 subject, and not to have startled professional men or people 
 generally. Indeed, it is very well known that Lord Erskine, 
 when at the bar, did more to elucidate the whole subject of in- 
 sanity, in its bearings on crime, than had then been done by 
 any professional writer to whose works the pubMc at large had 
 access. Juries are always at liberty to acquit upon any proof 
 in the case that comes home to their consciences, and they 
 rarely lean against any merciful view which is made to appear 
 reasonable to them. If they disregard evidence of insanity, it 
 is only because it is contradicted, or plainly unrehable ; and 
 no sensible man can properly be asked to beHeve what the 
 evidence on which he is called to act does not convince him 
 of. Nor can it be justly regarded as a fault, in courts or juries, 
 not to be in advance of the age in which they live. But a 
 very small portion of the ideas which conflict with the general 
 sense of the community are indicated by the future as genuine 
 advancements in knowledge ; and the administration of justice 
 would soon fall into contempt, if every new theory that is 
 broached should be followed before it is proved. JSx post facto 
 wisdom is a very cheap and worthless commodity, and he is a 
 very fortunate prophet indeed, the tithe of whose predictions 
 are verified by results. 
 
 Great fault has been found with the rules laid down by some 
 of the old law-writers on the subject of insanity. If taken as 
 the sum and limit of the knowledge applied in their day, there 
 would be reason to criticise them, although it might then be 
 said with equal force that they were not at all behind the 
 medical science of their time. The great lawyers of the six- 
 teenth and seventeenth centuries were behind none of their 
 contemporaries in science. But when they laid down princi- 
 ples or rules to be applied in legal trials, they are not to be 
 understood as attempting to exhaust the subject. Lord Hale's 
 
WITH QUESTIONS OF INSANITY? 243 
 
 celebrated canon, that no person of less understanding than 
 an ordinary child of fourteen should be held responsible, has 
 been a favorite subject of criticism with some -writers. But 
 they have grossly misapprehended him, when they supposed 
 he regarded that bald statement as an universal test. He had 
 been very cautious in his remarks previously, and had dwelt 
 upon the difficulty of defining the line between responsibility 
 and irresponsibility, and the necessity of guarding against 
 inhumanity on the one hand, and too great an indulgence to 
 great crimes on the other. And when he says the best meas- 
 ure he can think of is the one referred to, it is evident from 
 the whole context that he means, by taking the age of four- 
 teen instead of the ordinary condition of men, to give an illus- 
 tration broad enough to include all those cases of immaturity, 
 as well as of obHquity of judgment, which render persons non 
 compotes in the eye of the law, and not to make mere maturity 
 of intellect alone the test. The cases he refers to negative 
 any such idea. And the term "imderstanding," which he 
 used, was then, as it has often since been, applied to include 
 all the mental conditions, and not merely intellectual progress. 
 There is certainly some feHcity in his illustration as applied to 
 some eases ; for the reason why children are held irrespon- 
 sible, is not because of any lack of intellect, or sense of right 
 or wrong, but because their judgments are imperfect, and they 
 lack the power of completely appreciating their responsibili- 
 ties. No one would think of trusting them with the manage- 
 ment of their own affairs at an early age, or of judging them 
 as adults are judged. The brightest school-boy, superior as 
 he is in learning and acquired knowledge to an uneducated 
 person of very ordinary intellect, is not regarded as liable to 
 the same censure for misconduct. The immature mind lacks 
 balance, and a man who does not fail in intellect, and yet 
 ordinarily acts with no more judgment than a young child, and 
 can not do better, could not properly be held sane. Childish- 
 ness is a very common indication of insanity; and while the 
 latter varies indefinitely in the modes of its manifestation, the 
 poverty of language makes it difficult to furnish any term 
 which will cover all of its phases. Fortunately the law, as 
 
244 DOES THE LAW DEAL UNFAIKLT 
 
 already intimated, need not be precise in this matter; for 
 juries are not, by sensible judges, charged in technical phrases 
 on any subject ; and every case stands upon its own facts, and 
 upon their peculiar significance. Different as are their posi- 
 tions and capacities, the insane are nevertheless held exempt 
 from punishment, as children are held exempt, simply because 
 they are unable to realize their responsibilities and govern 
 their conduct accordingly. And although the inabihty may 
 and does come from different causes, and exists ia different 
 degrees, it is nevertheless the inabihty that excuses in both 
 whenever it appears. 
 
 It may be remarked, ia passing, that the same fallacy has 
 been resorted to in attempting to determine when this free- 
 dom of both from responsibility ceases, and has done infin- 
 itely more mischief in the case of children than in that of the 
 insane. It has too often been said that a knowledge, that a 
 thing is wrong involves legal guilt and legal responsibility ; 
 and many unfortunate children have been punished as crim- 
 inals on this wickedly absurd dogma. A child knows most 
 Climes to be wrong — ^unless he is grievously neglected or very 
 stupid — at a very early age indeed, and certainly before he is 
 seven years old. Yet we all know that a child of foiyteen, 
 with the judgment of a very ordinary man, must be precocious 
 in the extreme, if such precocity is possible at all. The pseudo- 
 philanthropy which has been so busy in building children's 
 prisons, and shutting up for longer periods than would be 
 allotted to burglars and robbers those who ought not to b? 
 held to any legal responsibUity at all, is a nearer approach tp 
 barbarism than can be feared from any possible treatment of 
 those who are supposed to have unjustly lost the exemption 
 due to insanity. 
 
 The use of such an illustration by Lord Hale is to be under- 
 stood, Kke all other legal remarks, as confined where it belongs ; 
 for, as already hinted, courts do not instruct juries by theoreti- 
 cal or technical statements. And there is no reason to beUeve 
 that any jury has ever been misled by the abuse of this sup- 
 posed rule. No such case has got into the books, and none is 
 referred to by authors on medical jurisprudence. 
 
WITH QUESTIONS OF INSANITY? 2-15 
 
 In this conuection it is to be remarked, that many writers 
 seem to forget that insanity is no new thing, and that the 
 various freaks which it occasions have been as common for 
 centuries as they are now. Undoubtedly our well-regulated 
 insane asylums have enabled much light to be thrown on the 
 more obscure causes of aberration ; but even here there is 
 reason to believe we have not always given credit to the past 
 for its real knowlege. Human nature is the same everywhere, 
 and the metaphysicians and philosophers of old were as 
 acute as any of our fellows. Solomon was wiser than Buckle, 
 and Plato than the small philosophers who hash up his cold 
 fragments. Dr. Bucknill has shown that Shakspeare had not 
 only noted every variety of mental disease (which he might 
 have done without recognizing its true character), but appre- 
 ciated it, and was not unlearned as to its treatment. Sir 
 Henry Halford, one of the most accomplished of all men ia 
 this field, not only acknowledged his obligation to Shakspeare 
 for hints which enabled him to detect insanity where he had 
 not been able to do so without them, but by his familiarity 
 with the elegant learning of the ancient classics, was enabled 
 to find similar clearness and accuracy in their delineations of 
 madness. Dr. Johnson said of Goldsmith that if he went to 
 China, and found a wheelbarrow there, he would fetch it home 
 as a novelty. Our generation is a vsdse one, but the finding 
 of mare's nests is not peculiar to any age of civilization. The 
 course of the Nile is not the only discovery which has been 
 made more than once. 
 
 Too much stress is laid upon wrong verdicts, as indicating 
 mistaken views. As already stated, an acquittal is often really 
 had on different grounds, when this defense has been set up. 
 But verdicts of acquittal or conviction are seldom given 
 without the best evidence accessible, and in the doubtful 
 cases, the result of which is oftenest criticised, there has 
 usually been skilled evidence on both sides, and the conflict 
 has been professional. But criticism on litigated facts can 
 never be made with entire confidence by any one who has not 
 been present through the trial. The entire testimony can 
 never be reproduced as it appeared there. Even a steno- 
 
246 DOES THE LAW DEAL UNFAIRLY 
 
 graphic record of it will not present the witnesses themselvea 
 to view, nor can any process explain how much testimony was 
 tlirown out by a juror as not convincing to his miad. And in 
 many cases the appearance of the prisoner himself, which 
 may be of great service in applying such testimony, is not to 
 be suppUed by any description. The case criticised may be 
 a very different thing from the case decided. The contradic- 
 . tions of experts are among the most serious obstacles met with 
 in the admiuistration of justice. Nor ia these cases is it 
 school against school, but brethren in belief are as wide apart 
 as others. And when we remember the time spent in proving 
 that Hamlet was insane, and that he never was iasane, we 
 may fairly acquit the law of any serious responsibility in cases 
 where the doctors differ. JS^on nostri tantas componere lites. 
 There is one circumstance generally lost sight of in discussing 
 erroneous acquittals. In most of our States, as in England, it 
 is provided by law that when an acquittal is on the ground of 
 insanity, it shall be so stated, in order that care may be taken 
 for the safe custody of the lunatic. But acquittals based on 
 this express ground are almost unknown. The accused gets 
 off on the benefit of miscellaneous doubts ; and insanity is but 
 a makeweight, and not the absolute occasion of his discharge. 
 When Oxford was acquitted on the express ground of insanity, 
 on an indictment for the capital offense of shooting at the 
 Queen, the English Parliament, with rare good sense, cut off 
 a whole possible crop of such lunacies, by removing the melo- 
 dramatic element from the crime, and making such attempts 
 punishable by whipping; since which that form of insanity 
 has not appeared. And the acquitted lunatic himself is said 
 to have suggested in his own case that whipping would have 
 been the proper remedy, instead of a trial for a state offense. 
 It is a mistake to suppose that the law has ever undertaken 
 to lay down rules as to what shall be considered as insanity. 
 It holds no one guilty whose acts are not those of a responsi- 
 ble agent, and shuts out no proof which can possibly throw 
 Hght on the state of the accused. Any person who is found 
 in the unhappy condition of one whose conduct is not imder 
 his control, is held unfortunate and, not criminal. The only 
 
WITH QUESTIONS OF INSANITY? 217 
 
 attempt ever made to elicit rules for the instruction of juries 
 on the subject of insanity, was made by the House of Lords, 
 after the trial and acquittal of McNaughton, who was indicted 
 for the homicide of Mr. Drummond, whom he had mistaken 
 for Sir Robert Peel. The insanity of that prisoner was genu- 
 ine ; but the frequency of the defense had created some 
 uneasiness, and the judges were asked to explain how the sub- 
 ject should be dealt with on trial. Those who gave replies, 
 did it with the explanation that until a case was presented 
 requiring instructions on its own circumstances, there could 
 be no safety in laying down rules at all ; and no one could be 
 expected to act upon abstract propositions which might not 
 bear the test of experience. The rules they laid down exem- 
 plified the wisdom of their caution, and were so unsatisfactory 
 that they have never been received without material allow- 
 ance. When a judge is called upon to charge a jury in the 
 presence of the evidence on which they are to act, there is 
 much less danger of mistake ; and inasmuch as the facts are 
 entirely in the hands of the jury, and the existence of insanity 
 is purely matter of fact, the chances of their being misled by 
 any supposed legal niles are reduced to a minimum. Errors 
 will occur, but it is not easy to see how any course can be found 
 whereby they can be entirely avoided. There are veiy few 
 cases, indeed, where the existence of insanity is not, upon the 
 evidence, a question of plain common sense. Nor can there 
 be very many instances where any rule not intelligible to com- 
 mon minds would be safe or even tolerable. The evils which 
 would ensue from destroying the functions of any tribunal, by 
 compelling or allowing it to act without reference to its own 
 understanding, would be worse than anything that could be 
 imagined as Kkely to flow from possible mistakes on the sanity 
 of those who diifer from their sane neighbors in no percepti- 
 ble degree. In aU human affairs appearances are facts, and 
 we must act upon them. And jf one appears sane, so far as 
 any intelligible tests can discover, his insanity is fully as 
 improbable as that of any one else who believes in it, without 
 being able to justify the behef. 
 It has ssometimes been charged that courts ar>> in the habit 
 
248 DOES THE LA.W DEAL UNFAIELT 
 
 of rejecting the idea of moral insanity. But this notion is 
 entirely unfounded. If a person is not able to subject his 
 conduct to the control of reason, no court has ever distin- 
 guished between the insanity which manifests itself in a sub- 
 version of the moral qualities, or the affections, and that which 
 appears chiefly in the form of disordered intellect. Judges as 
 well as physicians have questioned whether insanity of any 
 kind did not render the whole being unrehable, and subject to 
 eccentric and disordered action. But no one has ever rejected 
 any form of insanity. 
 
 There is certainly no great leaning among courts towards 
 accounting for every species of gross misconduct, on the 
 theory that it is insanity which should make its perpetrator 
 irresponsible. And it is thought by many if not most jurists, 
 that, in the absence of any perceptible disease, there is nothing 
 to take such moral obhquities out of the field of common ex- 
 perience into that of psychological science. When the ques- 
 tion before a jury is, whether a given act is voluntary or 
 involuntary, the result of wickedness or of some uncontrollable 
 impulse without aim or motive, there is not usually much 
 room for scientific teaching. Yet even here the law is not 
 dogmatic, and allows experts to give any light in their 
 power ; and if their experience or observation can reaUy aid 
 the decision, it wUl have all the force which the appearance 
 and capacity of the witnesses command. Even the starthng 
 theory of instantaneous and momentary insanity, lasting just 
 long enough to commit a crime, and never appearing before 
 or after, has not been shut out, and those whose enlightened 
 consciences, or whatever may have stood in the room of con- 
 science, ventured to receive it, were not compelled to reject it. 
 No one doubts that absence of motive may leave no other 
 explanation for an d.ct than that it was the act of a madman. 
 But if a shoulder-hitting buUy should, without any cause, 
 assail a stranger, we should have as little hesitation in laying 
 it to his wicked brtftahty. The general disposition to do mis- 
 chief without adequate cause is usually recognized as maUce, 
 and not insanity, and society would not be materially bene- 
 fited by entirely rejecting the old definition. When the cir- 
 
WITH QUESTIONS OF INSANITY? 249 
 
 cumstances all come out, the nature of the act will be discov- 
 ered by means of them, but not without. There have been 
 acquittals ia all ages, where moral insanity has been recog- 
 nized as a sufficient excuse. But when it is attempted to 
 make sensible men beUeve that wanton rascaUty is misfortune, 
 they are justly incredulous. Volumes of dissertations would 
 not persuade us that when a man had for years consistently 
 swindled others, and never blundered into a mistake against 
 himself, he can find any treatment for his unhealthy mind 
 more desirable than the quiet air and orderly life of a State 
 prison. And it has rarely been found that when he has been 
 sent there the decision was unfortunate. 
 
 And yet the field is open. If such doctrine is unsound, and 
 if insanity should be so far extended as to include even most 
 of our normal acts, the law will admit the evidence for what it 
 is worth. If the expert can convert judge and jury, there is 
 no law to prevent their conversion in any given case. There 
 is nothing to save the law but the common sense of its minis- 
 ters, and it makes no provision for saving them from the 
 seductive tongue of the psychologist. It does not even con- 
 fine theorizing, although perhaps it should, to those who have 
 had personal experience in treating insanity, and who may be 
 deemed, therefore, worthy of credence. It has no nice scales 
 for weighing men of science, whether truly or falsely so called ; 
 and each one who has assumed the learned robes, may take 
 the stand and approve himseK wise or otherwise by his testi- 
 mony. 
 
 If there is any ground for complaint, therefore, it is not that 
 the law excludes truth or theory, but that it does not exclude 
 humbug and ignorance. It is better that the doors should be 
 left open, for experience will rectify errors, and may profit by 
 discoveries. But no complaint is more groundless than that 
 insanity, of whatever nature, cannot be allowed for sufficiently 
 in any court of justice. 
 
EOCELLUS S. GUERNSEY. 
 
 Me. Guernsey was born in Otsego County, N. Y., in 1836. 
 He commenced the study of the law at seventeen years of age, 
 and was admitted to the bar in the City of New Yoik in 1859, 
 wliere he immediately commenced and has since contiuned its 
 practice. 
 
 He united with the Medico-Legal Society in 1872, and lias 
 since remained a member. For many years he was librarian 
 of the Society until he made his liome in the suburbs, which 
 interfered with his attendance at the meetings. Mr. Guei'neey 
 is a close student, an ardent lover and collector of books, and 
 has a superior collection of catalogues and works on social sta- 
 tistics, biographies, and works of reference to the student. His 
 library is especially rich in American law trials and speeches 
 of lawyers. 
 
 lie is agreeable in manners, strongly attached to his friends, 
 a careful student of "metaphysics" and the natural sciences, of 
 which he is very appreciative and fond. He is a prolific, for- 
 cible, logical writer, ever careful to fortify his statements and 
 argument with facts, authorities, and precedents, and never 
 writes upon a subject until he lias thoroughly studied and mas- 
 tered it in all its details. 
 
 In the Medico-Legal Society he has done valuable work on 
 important committees, and was a very efficient aid and co-worker 
 with the chair during the administration of the writer of this 
 sketch. He is a staunch friend, a courteous and manly op- 
 ponent, and has the respect and 'Confidence of the bar, of the 
 city, and of a large circle of friends. The most important of 
 his legal essays have been : " Law Reform in Pleadings in the 
 United States and Elsewhere " (1873), " Legal Bibliography " 
 (1874), " Municipal Law and its Relation to the Constitution of 
 
EOCELLUS S. GUERNSEY. 
 
 Man " (1874), " Examination of Titles to Land in England and 
 the- United States" (1875), " Mecliaiiics' Lien Laws, lielating to 
 New York City " (1873), "Key to Story's Equity Jurispru- 
 dence" (1875). 
 
 Mr. Guernsey has, howev^er, acquired more notoriety by his 
 M-ritings on medico-legal subjects. 
 
 His paper read before tlie Medico-Legal Society' in 1872, en- 
 titled "Juries and Physicians on Questions of Insanity," at- 
 tracted great attention and discussion at liome and abroad, 
 and led to important discussions in the body and to various 
 important papers by prominent members on the same topic. 
 
 In September, 1875, he read before the Society a paper en- 
 titled " Penal Laws lielating to Suicide in Ancient and Mod- 
 ern Times;" in February, 1880, a paper on "The Municipal 
 and Ecclesiastical Law of Burial Places in England and the 
 United States." That part of this paper upon " The Owner- 
 ship of a Corpse before Burial " was published as an appendix 
 to the fourth volume of "Eedfield's New York Surrogate Ke- 
 ports." 
 
 In April, 1882, he read a paper before the body, entitled 
 " The Analj-sis and Classification of Medico-Legal Sciences." 
 In June, 1887, he read a paper before the Medico-Legal Society, 
 entitled " The Mental and Physical Capacity of Man in the 
 Rapid Expressing, Keceiving, and Recording of Language," 
 which created gi'eat interest. 
 
 Mr. Guernsey contributed a paper to the New York Histor- 
 ical Society in March, 1888, on " The History of New York 
 City in the War of 1812," and in December, 1888, to the Mili- 
 tary Service Institution at Governor's Island, N. Y., on " The 
 Fortifications of New York City and Haibor in the "War of 
 1812-1815," and in June, 1885, to the Shakespeare Society, 
 on " The Burial of Ophelia," treating on insanity, suicide, and 
 the ecclesiastical laws of burial in Shakespeare's time. lie is 
 announced for a paper, at the June International Congress of 
 Medical Jurisprudence in New York, on the " Human Facility 
 and Power of Transmitting and Recording Language." 
 
 0. B. 
 
THE PLEA OF INSANITY 
 
 CRIMil^^i:. C ^ S E s 
 
 Bt JAMES J. O'DBA, M.D., of New Toek.* 
 
 Title vii., § 2, of the Eevised Statutes of the State of New 
 York, enacts as follows : " No act done by a person in a state 
 of insanity can be punished as an offence ; and no insane per- 
 son can be tried, sentenced to any punishment, or punished 
 for any crime or offence, while he continues in that state." 
 
 What is to become of the practical eificacy of our laws, if 
 sane criminals, aided by counsel and encouraged by the prev- 
 alent weak humanitarian sentiment, can escape the just pun- 
 ishment of their crimes by taking refuge in the plea of insan- 
 ity ? Is not the increasing tendency to this action an offence 
 against the fundamental principles of social and poHtical 
 life? 
 
 To such, indeed, as can be influenced by the inflated lan- 
 guage of Lord Brougham, recently quoted to a jury by Ee- 
 corder Hackett, that " an advocate, in the discharge of his 
 duty, knows but one person, and that person his client;" that 
 to save him, he " must not regard the alarm, the torments, the 
 distraction which he may bring upon others;" and that, 
 " separating the duty of a patriot from that of an advocate, 
 he must go on, reckless of consequences, though it should be 
 
 * Bead before the New York Medico-Legal Society, 1870. 
 
PLEA OF INSAJStlTY IN CKIMINAL CASES. 251 
 
 his unhappy fate to involve his country in confusion ; " to 
 those, I say, who subscribe to such doctrine as this, the false 
 assertion of the plea of insanity in criminal cases can be only 
 a venial offence, if any offence at all. 
 
 But I hope such is not a part of the morahty of the eminent 
 legal profession of this great city. Deplorable, indeed, would 
 be the result to the interests of our social fabric if this opinion 
 of Lord Brougham's should have the effect of encouraging 
 legal men to introduce the serious and important plea of 
 insanity into criminal trials as a piece of mere legal strategy ; 
 for they would therein conspire to defeat the only legitimate 
 end of practical jurisprudence, namely, the assertion of law 
 in the interest of the common weal, by the punishment of 
 crime. It is as hostile to this end to permit a sane criminal 
 to escape beneath a false plea of insanity as it would be to 
 punish an insane person regardless of the degree of his mental 
 alienation. 
 
 Two recent criminal trials — those of Cole and McFarland — 
 have drawn pubHc attention to the plea of insanity. Reason- 
 ably or unreasonably, there is a widespread suspicion that it 
 has been used in these trials as a means of sheltering two 
 criminals from the consequences of their great crimes. Such 
 a suspicion is in no way novel or pecuhar to our own country. 
 One, in many respects similar, pervaded England, about thirty 
 years ago, after the trial of Oxford for firing at the Queen, 
 and of McNaughton, for killing Mr. Drummond, secretary to 
 Sir Robert Peel ; and though, possibly, it may be as ground- 
 less here as events proved it to have been there, its wide dif- 
 fusion in this country demands serious reflection, and is a 
 sufficient reason for the inquiry to which I will now proceed 
 to draw your attention. 
 
 But, first, I wish to prevent misapprehension of the scope 
 and object of this paper, by stating at once that its purpose is 
 to deal chiefly with the following points of the plea of insanity : 
 
 1. The close resemblance between the extreme of anger and 
 a temporary fit of emotional insanity. 
 
 2. The means proposed to juries for distinguishing between 
 these resembling states. 
 
lo-A PLEA OF INSANITY 
 
 3. The reforms wliicli may be urged to guard the plea of 
 insanity from abuse. 
 
 I purposely avoid any direct reference to the evidence on 
 which McFarland was pronounced insane, because, though 
 not convinced of its sufficiency, I believe the reopening of the 
 subject would only serve the vicipus purpose of prolonging a 
 discussion conducted from the beginning in an unkind, unjust, 
 and partisan spirit. The press and public of this country will, 
 doubtless, learn to discuss important social problems on their 
 own merits. I trust that the time is at hand when the bitter 
 partisan spirit is to be as successfaUy eliminated from social 
 and political as it has been from scientific discussion. 
 
 A brief historical outline of the subject wiU. not be out of 
 place. 
 
 The method used by courts of law to determine the exist- 
 ence of insanity in a given case has made Httle advance since 
 the time of Lord Hale, more than a hundred years ago. He 
 /admitted a distinction between partial and total madness, but 
 disallowed that the former constituted any exemption from 
 legal punishment. To him, and to the juries of his time, it 
 seemed clear that such immunity could be granted to those 
 only who were " totally deprived of understanding and 
 memory." 
 
 Not only was this view scientifically incorrect, it was in- 
 adequate to meet the requirements of particular cases. The 
 consequence was that many people suffered the extreme pen- 
 alty of the law, who, in our own day, would be acquitted on 
 the ground of insanity. Among such was one Arnold, whose 
 attempt to assassinate Lord Onslow created a great excite- 
 ment at the time. The evidence at the trial was conclusive as 
 to his insanity. It was proved that he had led a strange, soli- 
 tary kind of a life for many years ; that he was beset by the 
 delusion that Lord Onslow sent devils into his resting-place 
 at night, who " constantly plagued and bewitched him . . . 
 so that he could neither eat, drink, nor sleep." But because 
 these and similar facts failed to estabUsh that he was 
 " totally deprived of his understanding and memory," he was 
 not pronounced insane by the court. 
 
IN CBIMINAL CASES. 253 
 
 Some time later it became eAddent that there was a species 
 of madness which did not involve the tuiiole mental powers. 
 It was conceded, for example, that the monomaniac might be 
 as insane in his way as the maniac ; and it was ruled that, if 
 the alleged crime had been committed under the influence of 
 an insane delusion, and its connection luith this delusion were 
 established, the accused should be held to be irresponsible. 
 
 But, simultaneously with this advance, we note an unfor- 
 tunate concession to the old conception of insanity in the 
 judgment of the court at the trial of Hadfield. It was there 
 declared that the delusion must ie of such a nature as to justify 
 the criminal act. 
 
 Chief- Justice Shaw, of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, 
 repeated this interpretation in the following words spoken at 
 the trial of Rogers for the murder of Charles Lincoln, Jr. : 
 " The delusion must be such that the person under its influ- 
 ence has a real and firm belief of some fact, not true in itself, 
 but which, if it were true, would excuse his act " — a decision 
 according to which an acquittal would depend, not on the 
 causative relation between the delusion and the act, but on 
 the mere character of the delusion itself. 
 
 Many -writers have dissented from so specious a judgment. 
 With his usual lucidity. Dr. Bay has shown how a delusion may 
 acquire ascendency over the mind of the monomaniac suffi- 
 cient to influence his whole conduct ; how an imaginary insult, 
 which would be trifling if real, assumes in the insane mind a 
 significance altogether unbearable. "When a person," he 
 remarks, " is so insane as to imagine that another is disturb- 
 ing his peace by spells and incantations, is it strange that, at 
 the same time, his notions of right or wrong should be so con- 
 fused that he thinks himself justified in sacrificing his dis- 
 turber ? " 
 
 Aside from this error, however, the trial of Hadfield, which 
 took place in 1800, marks an important advance in the science 
 of criminal jurisprudence. He was indicted on a charge of 
 high treason, for firing on George III., in Drury Lane Theater. 
 A soldier by profession, he had been dismissed from the army 
 for insanity supposed to have been caused by severe wounds 
 
251 PLEA OF INSANITY 
 
 receiTed in battle. His mental derangement was of an inter- 
 mitting character, the exacerbations occurring in the spring 
 and summer. During these seasons he had extravagant ideas, 
 and among others the predominant one that he was the 
 Saviour of the world. For some days previous to his attempt 
 to kill the king, he was unusually violent, threatening even to 
 dash out his child's brains in obedience to a fancied command 
 from Heaven. Being in the theater when the king entered, 
 he rose with the crowd, took dehberate aim at the royal per- 
 son, and fired. "When put under arrest, his conduct was calm 
 and deliberate. He did not deny the act, but excused it by 
 saying that having long desired death, and being unwilling to 
 commit suicide, he sought by killing the king to have his wish 
 gratified. At the ensuing trial, his coimsel, Lord Erskine, 
 who ably defended him, laid down the foUovidng propositions, 
 the court assenting : 
 
 1. That it is the reason of a man which makes him account- 
 able for his acts, and that, without the use of his reason, he 
 cannot be held guilty of crime. 
 
 2. That it is unnecessary that reason should be entirely sub- 
 verted. 
 
 3. That a total loss of memory and reason is not required to 
 constitute insanity. 
 
 4. That where hallucinations are proved to exist, the deed 
 for which the accused is put upon trial must be the immediate 
 offspring either of the hallucinatiog, or of the disease of which 
 the hallucination is a symptom. 
 
 Twelve years later, on the trial of Bellingham for the assas- 
 sination of Mr. Spencer Percival, Prime-Miaister of England, 
 a new legal test of insanity was introduced. The presiding 
 judge. Lord Mansfield, explained that the question for the 
 jury to decide was, whether the accused had sufficient under- 
 standing to distinguish good from evil, right from wrong. 
 
 Thus a new test was established. And, despite the fact 
 that, twelve years previous, the fallacy of the "right and 
 wrong " test had been ably exposed by Lord Erskine, it has 
 ever since been the gauge of an insane act. I wiU specify a 
 few of the many authorities who, since then, have unreservedly 
 
IN CBIMINAL CASES. 255 
 
 adopted this test. Mr. Chitty, in his " Medical Jurisprudence," 
 p. 354, writes : " In practice, to prevent the jury being embar- 
 rassed by any technicalities respecting the import of this term 
 insane, the substantial question presented to the jury in this 
 and all cases, whether of alleged idiocy, lunacy or insanity, 
 either ia general or monomania (that is, delusion confined to 
 a particular subject), is, whether, at the time the alleged crim- 
 inal act was committed, the prisoner was incapable of judging 
 between right and wrong, and did not then know he was com- 
 mitting an offence against the laws of God and Nature ?" 
 
 In the case Bex v. Oxford, Lord Lyndhurst charged that 
 the question for the jury to decide in reference to the prison- 
 er's alleged insanity was, " Did he know that he was commit- 
 ting an offence against the laws of God and Nature ? " 
 
 In the case of Abbot, tried before the Superior Court of 
 Connecticut, for the murder of his wife, in 1841, the same test 
 was recommended to the jury. Finally, not to weary you by 
 too many parallel cases, the same tests were substantially 
 recommended to the juries who tried Cole for the murder of 
 Hiscock, and McFarland for the murder of Bichardson. " I 
 will restate," said Judge Hogeboom, " that the foundation of 
 all responsibility for crime is sanity or soundness of mind, 
 that is, a sane mind in the sense in which I explained it to 
 you in the original charge — the possession of reason, ability 
 to discriminate between right and wrong in regard to the par- 
 ticular transaction, a degree of consciousness and intelligence 
 that enables a party to appreciate the quality and nature of 
 the act in which he is engaged." .... 
 
 " In using the phrase ' state of insanity,' " said Recorder 
 Hackett, "I am to be understood throughout as meaning, 
 thereby, the state under which a man is not accountable for 
 an alleged criminal act, because he does not know that the 
 act he is committing is unlawful and morally wrong, and has 
 not reason sufficient to apply such knowledge and to be con- 
 trolled by it." 
 
256 PLEA OF INSANITT 
 
 From this brief historical outliae of the plea of insanity, let 
 me pass at once to the subject matter in hand. 
 
 A law is a command set by a political superior to a person 
 or persons in a state of habitual subjection to its author.* 
 All such persons, not of unsound mind, and not below the age 
 of discretion, are subject to the law and are amenable to the 
 sanction or punishment entaUed by its Tiolation. This rule 
 includes even those who violate a law through ignorance of 
 its existence, it being necessary that the State should assume 
 aU its subjects who are sane and mature to have knowledge 
 of the law. 
 
 There is therefore one class of the community not amenable 
 to law — ^the insane. 
 
 Regarding the insane from a medico-legal point of view, in 
 relation to their legal responsibility, I would divide them into 
 the following classes : 
 
 1. Idiots and the demented. 
 
 2. Maniacs affected in their intellects whoUy or partially. 
 
 3. Maniacs affected in their emotions wholly or partially. 
 This division is merely intended to serve the purpose of the 
 
 present inquiry. I acknowledge the evU of arbitrary distinc- 
 tions, and fuUy indorse the wise words of Dr. Maudsley, that 
 " there is a strong tendency not only to make divisions in 
 knowledge where there are none in nature, and then to impose 
 the divisions on nature, making the reality thus conformable 
 to the idea, but to go further than that, and to convert the 
 generalizations from observation into positive entities, and 
 then to permit these creations to tyrannize over the thoughts. 
 A typical case of madness might be described as one in which 
 the disorder, commencing in emotional disturbance and eccen- 
 tricities of action — in derangement of the effective life — passes 
 
 * " Lectures on Jurisprudence, or the Philosophy of Positive Lair," by 
 the late John Austin, of the Inner Temple, Barrister-at Law. London, John 
 Murray, 1869. 
 
IN CEIMINAL CASES. 257 
 
 thence into melaucliolia or mania, and, finally, by a further 
 declension, into dementia. The necessity of describing differ- 
 ent forms of insanity under difterent names should never lead 
 to a neglect of the real relations which they have to one 
 another, as different stages of deviation from that mental hfe 
 which we agree to regard as ideal or typical." * 
 
 The first of the groups just given, and so much of the second 
 as includes maniacs affected in their whole intellects, are 
 manifestly within the provisions of the statute for the insane. 
 Their featui'es are so plainly marked that a jury can have 
 very little difficulty in determining their irresponsibiUty. 
 From the medical point of view, also, there can be Httle or no 
 hesitation in their diagnosis. The law, therefore, being known 
 and the fact determined, the appUcation of the former to the 
 latter is easy. But we encounter our first difficulty when we 
 have to deal with alleged criminals, who are declared to be 
 afflicted with partial intellectual or with emotional insanity. 
 For, at the very outset, there is a discordance of opinion on 
 this subject between law and medicine. Courts of law and 
 jurists, as a class, regard the whole subject of moral or emo- 
 tional insanity with disfavor. Here, I think, legal prejudice is 
 at fault. But whatever the explanation may be, the fact 
 remains that, as Judge Edmonds said on the trial of Khne 
 for murder, in May, 1845, " The law, in its slow and cautious 
 progress, stiU lags far behind the advance of true knowledge." 
 
 In his charge to the jury who tried this case, Judge Ed- 
 monds remarked : " If some controlling disease was in truth 
 the acting power within him which he could not resist, or if 
 he had not a sufficient use of his reason to control the pas- 
 sions which prompted the act complained of, he is not respon- 
 sible." As a historical point of much interest, it is well to 
 mark this as the first occasion on which the plea of emotional 
 insanity was recognized in the law courts of this State. But, 
 continues the learned judge, by way of salutary caution, " we 
 must be sure not to be misled by a mere impulse of passion, 
 an idle, frantic humor, or unaccountable mode of action, but 
 
 * Eeynolds' " System of Medicine," Art. " Insanity." 
 
258 ' PLEA OF INSANITY 
 
 inquire whether it is an absolute dispossession of the free and 
 natural agency of the human mind." We cannot but admire 
 this first enlightened effort to impress upon a jury the impor- 
 tant fact so familiar to alienists, that the emotional centers 
 and faculties, are susceptible of a degree of derangement 
 amounting to insanity. By the caution given in the same 
 breath, he clearly holds to the distinction between this state 
 and the impulse of intemperate rage, and points to the danger 
 of confusing the one with the other. Indeed, in this close 
 resemblance between emotional insanity and the " mere im- 
 pulse of passion," lies the difficulty which courts of law 
 experience in determining whether the given case is defined 
 by the ambiguous and unsatisfactory rules laid down for dis- 
 tinguishing between sane and insane conduct. " The rule is 
 known," as Mr. John Austin remarks, in speaking of the diffi- 
 culty of applying general principles to individual cases, " and 
 so is the given species, as the Roman jurists termed it ; the 
 difficulty is in bringing the species under the rule ; in deter- 
 mining, not what the law is, but whether the given law is 
 applicable to the given facts." 
 
 It is the duty of the medical expert witness to examine the 
 facts, and to base on them such logical inferences as the exist- 
 ing state of mental pathology wiU permit. That part of the 
 question which comprises whether the given law is applicable 
 to the given facts is, very anomalously, left to an unscientific 
 jury to determine. We wiU see presently by what materials 
 and method they try to determine it. Meanwhile, we have 
 yet to examine some of the points of analogy between emo- 
 tional insanity and certain stages and forms of what is con- 
 ventionally called healthy feeling and emotion. 
 
 1. Emotional insanity is a disordered state of the emotional 
 centers, evinced on the affective side by morbid impressions, 
 on the effective side by extravagant, illegal, or immoral acts. 
 In an unequivocal case these two factors — ^morbid sensibility 
 to impressions and explosive action — ^go together, and indicate 
 a profound mental derangement. The act alone wiU not indi- 
 cate it ; for the fact that a man has committed homicide in a 
 rage is no more proof of insanity, than the observation that 
 
IN CRIMINAL CASES. 259 
 
 he eats liis dinner when hungry. A truly insane act can gen- 
 erally be traced to a morbid impression, whether delusion, 
 haUucination, or feeling, exaggerated above aU proportion to 
 its exciting cause. Sometimes, however, this connection can- 
 not be estabUshed. There are cases where we miss the guid- 
 ing hght of hallucination, and have to trust entirely to that 
 general anarchy and exaggeration of the emotions which the 
 insane have in common with ill-disciplined minds in general. 
 These are the cases so difficult to distinguish from sanity, that 
 even the experienced medical expert sometimes feels puzzled 
 in their presence. 
 
 " There are only three ultimate modes of mind," says Mr. 
 Alexander Bain, in speaking of the state of the feelings and 
 emotions among the sane, " feehng, vohtion, and intellect. 
 Vohtion is action under feehng ; its differentia, therefore, is 
 active energy for an end, which is a distinctive and well- 
 defined property. Intellect has three constituents — discrim- 
 ination, similarity, and retentiveness— all clearly definable. 
 The precision attaching to volition and to intellect gives a 
 precise negative definition to feeling. Thus, any mental state 
 not being action for an end, and not regarded as discrimina- 
 tion, agreement, or retentiveness, must be viewed as feel- 
 ing."* 
 
 He proceeds to show how feeling may subdue volition and 
 overpower the intellect. He indicates as an evident fact that 
 "painful feehngs have a power to detain and engross the 
 mind. This is contrary to the working of pain as such, which 
 is to repel whatever causes it ; we shut the ears to discord, 
 and turn the eyes away from a dizzying sight. But the mere 
 fact of our being excited by a painful idea retains it in the 
 mind ; we cannot banish it, although we wiU to do so ; the 
 very attempt often increases the mental excitement, which is 
 to increase its permanence." t 
 
 Further on, the same author remarks : " What we call a 
 state of feeling or emotion is a transitory outburst, from a per- 
 
 * Bain ; " Mental Science." New York, p. 220. 
 \ liOc. cit. 
 
260 PLEA OF INSANITY 
 
 manent condition approaching to indifference. There is every 
 variety of mode as respects both degree and duration. A 
 feeble stimulus can be continued longer than a powerful one ; 
 ■whUe every intense display must be rendered short by exhaus- 
 tion. Practically, the moment of culmination of feeling or 
 passion, is the moment of perilous decisions and fatal mis- 
 takes. . . . The interpretation of human character, the 
 understanding of men and their motives, will grow with the 
 improved knowledge of the feelings. Not merely the emo- 
 tional character as such, and the conduct or voluntary actions, 
 whose motives are the feelings, but also much of what seems 
 purely intellectual tendencies, may derive elucidation from the 
 present subject. The intellectual forces are in all men to some 
 extent, and in many men to a great extent, swayed by emotion." 
 
 Of aU the emotions, that which is qualified by the word 
 irrational, or the emotion of anger, hatred, and revenge, is 
 most deserving of present consideration. It is a cause of 
 much crime ; it hes nearest to insane frenzy, and it gives 
 strong support to a plea of insanity. There are two states of 
 anger — the sudden and the dehberate. Those who become 
 suddenly angry have inflammable emotions ; they are easily 
 excited beyond control. Popularly they are known as " quick- 
 tempered people." The outburst being generally transitory 
 and harmless, does not inspire much terror, besides that the 
 infirmity of character is often redeemed by warm and gener- 
 ous impulses. 
 
 Dehberate auger, on the contrary, partakes of the nature of 
 revenge. " The mind considers aU the circumstances of the 
 injury, as well as the measures and the consequences of retah- 
 ation. There is imphed in revenge the need of retaUation to 
 satisfv the feehngs of the offended person. According to the 
 amount of the injury, and to the exacting disposition of the 
 injured party, is the demand for vengeance. When men have 
 been injured on matters that they are deeply alive to — plun- 
 dered, cheated, reviled, deprived of their rights — ^their resent- 
 ment attests the magnitude of their sufferings, the value that 
 
 they set on their own inviolability," * 
 
 * Bain ; Op. oit., p. 264. 
 
IN CEIMINAL CASES. 261 
 
 Persons harboring deliberate anger or revenge are very 
 prone to criminal acts, and, for the time, closely verge upon 
 insanity. The avenger tracks his foe, watching his move- 
 ments every day, all the while absorbed in the one intense 
 desire to be even with him. Finally, seizing the opportunity 
 when the latter is unmindful of his danger, he deals him the 
 fatal blow. It is to be noted that, prior to the deed, the emo- 
 tion of revenge has produced notable changes in the nervous 
 manifestations of the aggressor. He is become absent-minded, 
 because he has withdrawn his attention from all other pursuits 
 to concentrate them on this. It has left him nervous, restless, 
 sleepless, appetiteless, by lowering the general tone of his 
 system. It has been the cause of his manifesting such indi- 
 cations of insanity as incoherent talk, hallucinations, and illu- 
 sions, through that morbid cerebration which is occasioned 
 by the habit of brooding over a " sea of troubles." We know 
 that long and anxious concentration of thought on any subject 
 will derange the equipoise of the mind, and produce incoher- 
 ent ideas and fantasies of imagination. It is only necessary 
 to refer to the hves of the early fathers of the wilderness, or 
 to any standard work treating of apparitions and their causes, 
 for ample proof of this statement. 
 
 It is not necessary that I should dwell on the close analogy 
 between the state now described and emotional insanity. The 
 point of chief practical importance is the difficulty of always 
 distinguishing them. If, as is acknowledged, the medical 
 expert himseK, with all his advantages of training and experi- 
 ence, finds some difficulty at times in determining the line 
 which separates the sane from the insane mind, how impossi- 
 ble it is for unqualified jurymen to solve this problem. Upon 
 this subject, however, I shall have more to say presently. 
 
 But, before examining the criteria with which juries are fur- 
 nished to enable them to distinguish between emotional insan- 
 ity and the culmination of that deliberate anger and revenge 
 with which it is now commonly identified, I will briefly advert 
 to certain popular errors on the subject of insanity in relation 
 to criminal responsibihty. 
 
 You are aware of the popular distinction between murder 
 
262 PLEA OF INSANITY 
 
 committed in cold blood and in the heat of passion. The 
 name is legion of those who now believe that the latter state 
 is in itself sufficient evidence of a temporary fit of insanity ; 
 and there are stiU a few experts who encourage this belief by 
 teaching that it is possible for an iadividual to pass in a 
 moment from the sane into the insane state, and then back 
 again to a condition of mental soundness. It is quite proba- 
 ble that no injury against the person is ever committed except 
 under the influence of fear or revenge, or delusion inducing 
 fear or revenge. So that, if this be true, and the reasoning 
 above alfuded to be admitted, then every one who commits a 
 crime must have been insane at the moment. And if all 
 insane people are judged irresponsible to the law, no criminal 
 should be punished. Evidently this argument would prove 
 too much. 
 
 The same behef prevails in reference to a class of criminal 
 acts becoming very common in this country. You are aware 
 of the popidar conviction that no one commits suicide except 
 under the influence pf insanity. The verdict of coroners' 
 juries, " Died by his own hand in a fit of temporary insanity," 
 though sprung from a humane motive is injurious by lending 
 indiscriminate countenance to this belief. The conclusion is 
 really not warranted. There are many historical examples 
 which contradict it. Any one may convince himseK of this 
 by recalling the circumstances of a few of the many suicides 
 narrated in history. Those mentioned by the historian Taci- 
 tus answer veiy well, for his narrative sets forth the premedi- 
 tation and the calm deliberation which accompanied and 
 distinguished them. But as a striking refutation of the popu- 
 lar impression, I cannot do better than cite from another 
 source the instance of Cato the Younger, who, having under- 
 taken the defense of Utica, in Africa, during the great civil 
 war between Pompey and Csssar, and having abandoned the 
 hope of successfully defending the garrison, retired to spend 
 the night reading Plato's " Phsedo," and in the morning killed 
 himself by a stab in the breast. One of the greatest of Eoman 
 scholars, Cicero, excused the act, on the ground, not indeed of 
 insanity, but of consistency. "But it became Cato," he 
 
IN CEIMESAL OASES. 2G3 
 
 observes, " who had by perpetual perseverance strengthened 
 that inflexibility which nature had given him, and had never 
 departed from the purpose and resolution he had once formed 
 to die rather than to look on the face of a tyrant." * 
 
 II. 
 
 I come now to the criteria with which juries are furnished 
 as means of distinguishing between a sane and an ins'ane act. 
 I have to examine these critically, with the object of learning 
 what, if any, value can be attached to them. 
 
 1. The so-called free agency of a man is asserted to be a 
 test of his sanity. It is reasoned that only sane men are free 
 agents ; that if a man be insane he is not a free agent ; that, 
 not being a free agent, he has no power of determining his 
 conduct, and that, deprived of this latter faculty, he ought not 
 to be held legally accountable for his deeds. The mistake in 
 this train of reasoning is caused by the use of the expression 
 " man is a free agent," without a clear and precise compre- 
 hension of its meaning. If the word " free " has any perti- 
 nency at aU as an expression quaUfying human conduct, it can 
 only mean this : man is free, inasmuch as he is not determined 
 by a power external to himself. If I were made the im- 
 conscious, imwilling, or dissenting instrument to accomplish 
 another's evil desire, I would not be a free agent in the tran- 
 saction, and I could not be held legally or morally accountable 
 therefor. But if I commit the deed of my own choice, I am 
 reaUy " free," since nothing usurps or opposes the action of 
 my will, and my wiU is the last mental determination imme- 
 diately preceding what I execute. But, if by the expression 
 " free agent " is meant that I enjoy an absolute freedom to do 
 or to reft-ain, then it has no meaning, for my will is not free in 
 this sense, because it necessarily follows upon that one of the 
 two opposing motives which determines it to act. " Liberty," 
 
 * " Cicero's Offices," b. i., p. 56. Bohn's Ed. 
 
•164: PLEA OF INSANITY 
 
 says Hobbes, in the tract on " Liberty and Necessity," " is the 
 absence of all the impediments to action that are not con- 
 tained in the nature and intrinsical quaUty of the agent ; as, 
 for example, the water is said to descend freely or to have 
 liberty to descend by the channel of the river, because there 
 is no impediment that way ; but not across, because the banks 
 are impediments. And, though the water cannot ascend, yet 
 men never say it wants the liberty to ascend, but the faculty or 
 power, because the impediment is in the nature of the water, 
 and intrinsical. So, also, we say, he that is tied wants the 
 liberty to go, because the impediment is not in him but in his 
 hands ; whereas we say not so of him that is sick or lame, 
 because the impediment is in himself." Since, therefore, the 
 absence of external restraint or compulsion is what reaUy con- 
 stitutes free agency, all men, be they sane or insane, whose 
 conduct is the result of their own volition, are free agents. 
 That is, they are left at Hberty to follow the bent of their own 
 desires and impulses. I think, however, it would have been 
 better had this obscure question of free will been left in the 
 domain of speculative philosophy to which it properly be- 
 longs. 
 
 2. The legal test for distinguishing between a sane and 
 insane act is thus clearly and forcibly set forth by Judge 
 Hogeboom, in his charge to the jury at the trial of Cole. 
 " The law, in determining a person's responsibihty for or 
 immunity from crime, appUes a very simple and easily com- 
 prehended test, and it is this : Did the accused party under- 
 stand the nature of the act in which he was engaged, so as to 
 understand whether it was right or wrong ? ... (If so), 
 then he is responsible to the laws of his country, is bound to 
 obey them, and is punished for their violation." That part of 
 the sentence, " understand the nature of the act so as to under- 
 stand whether it was right or wrong," may mean one of three 
 things. It may mean each individual's standard of right and 
 wrong, which could hardly be, since there is no unvarying 
 concordance of judgment among mankind on questions of 
 right and wrong ; or it may mean right or wrong according to 
 the moral standard of the day ; or, finally, legal right or wrong, 
 
IN CRIMINAL CASES. 205 
 
 in relation to legal sanctions. I take it to mean this last, 
 because no legal sanction or punishment is incurred where no 
 positive law is transgressed. But, as a test of insanity, it is 
 not reliable, the insane having been known to commit crimes 
 (under the influence of delusion, let me observe) with fuU 
 knowledge that what they were about was both legally and 
 morally wrong. Many recorded cases of homicidal mania 
 indicate that the maniac had a very keen appreciation of the 
 criminal character of his act. We are assured, on excellent 
 authority, that individuals in fuU possession of the knowledge 
 of right and wrong, " have imbrued their hands in the blood 
 of the innocent, frequently in that of their own wives and 
 children, simply because they felt that they must destroy." * 
 
 Incredible though this may seem, it is supported by such 
 ample and direct testimony that it cannot be reasonably 
 doubted. Let us take, for example, the case of Henrietta 
 Cornier, tried in France in 1825. She was twenty-seven years 
 of age, of a gentle and cheerful disposition, and very fond of 
 children. Previous to entering the service of Madame Four- 
 nier, a marked change had occurred in her disposition. She 
 had become moody, and melancholy, and, upon one occasion, 
 had attempted suicide. " On the 4th of November," the nar- 
 rative goes on to say, " her mistress went out to walk, having 
 instructed her to prepare dinner as usual, and to buy some 
 cheese at Dame Belon's shop in the neighborhood. She had 
 often been there before, and had always displayed great fond- 
 ness for the Dame's httle daughter, an infant of niaeteen 
 months. On this occasion, having induced the mother to 
 allow the child to accompany her, she hastily brought it to 
 her mistress' house, laid it across her own bed, and, with a 
 large kitchen! knife, severed its head from its body. The 
 mother coming to inquire for her child, Henrietta answered, 
 ' Your child is (lead.' The officers of justice who were sum- 
 moned to the scene found her sitting on a chair near the 
 child's body, gazing upon it, the bloody knife lying near her, 
 and her clothes stained with gore. She made no attempt to 
 
 Dean ; " Medical Jurisprudence," 
 
266 PLEA OF INSANITY 
 
 deny her guilt. She even detailed all the circumstances of 
 the tragedy, displaying no feeling of grief or remorse, and 
 replying, when questioned, 'I intended to kill the chUd.' 
 She acknowledged that she had no particular reason for the 
 deed, saying that the impulse to shed blood had" taken posses- 
 sion of her mind, and that she was obliged by her destiny to 
 doit."* 
 
 There are no data here to show that this girl labored under 
 any delusion ivith respect to the nature of the deed. True, judg- 
 ing from her conduct for a while previous, her insanity is 
 evident enough; but as regards the bearing of her insane 
 state upon her legal responsibility, it is well to remember the 
 rule that an insane person is exempt, "Not because he is 
 insane, but because it is inferred from his insanity that, at the 
 time of the alleged wrong, he was not capable of unlawful 
 intention or inadvertence." t 
 
 The insane imptdse to commit an act, the criminal nature 
 of which is at the same time well known„is well illustrated in 
 another example. " A young man, twenty-one years old, lost 
 his father at an early age, and never evinced much love for 
 his mother. When eighteen years old, he began to shun 
 society, and felt a strong desire to commit murder. Some- 
 times, when embracing his mother, his face would flush, his 
 eyes sparkle, and he would cry out, ' Mother, save yourself, I 
 am forced to kill yon.' " :|; 
 
 On the other hand, history is fuU of murders committed by 
 political and religious fanatics, in whom, so far as it is possi- 
 ble to judge, there was no evidence of insanity, and yet they 
 did not regard their terrible crimes as either morally or legally 
 wrong. Brutus believed he was acting a good and noble part 
 in slaying Julius Osesar, whom he regarded as a selfish despot. 
 His is the excuse of every man who wreaks vengeance with 
 his own hands, under a mistaken notion of the pubHc neces- 
 sity. "With consummate art Shakespeare makes him say : 
 
 * Dean ; " Medical JurisprudeDce." 
 
 f Austin ; " Lectures on Jurisprudence." 
 
 i Dean ; " Medical Jurisprudence." 
 
IN CEIMINAL CASES. 267 
 
 " If there be any in this assembly, any dear friend of Caesar's, 
 to him I say that Brutus's love to Caesar was no less than his. 
 If, then, that friend demand why Brutus rose against Caesar, 
 this is my answer, not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved 
 Rome more. Had you rather Caesar were Hving, and die all 
 slaves, than that Caesar were dead to live.aU free men ? 
 . . Who is here so base that he would be a bondsman ? 
 . . . . Who is here so vile that will not love his country ? 
 If any, speak ; for him have I offended. I pause for a reply." 
 Ajid, when all the assembled citizens answered, "None, 
 Brutus, none," Brutus replied, " Then none have I offended." 
 
 EavaiUac did not believe he was doing wrong in assassinat- 
 ing Henry IV. of France ; nor did Charlotte Corday, when she 
 plunged a dagger into Marat ; nor yet Booth when he shot 
 President Lincoln. 
 
 If the rule of not knowing the right from the wrong of an 
 act has so many exceptions, its force is destroyed, and it 
 ceases to be reliable. 
 
 I proceed now to consider a test, which, used chiefly of late, 
 seems to have exercised a good deal of influence over the 
 minds of jurymen. It may be called " the insane frenzy " 
 test. It is expounded as follows by Judge Hogeboom, in the 
 charge aheady aUuded to : 
 
 "An insane impulse leaving the mind incapable of exer- 
 tion, holding the individual incapable of exercising his 
 miud, so far as I have defined it to you, exempts him from 
 responsibility, and if, under the influence of such a want 
 of mind, the prisoner commits the act, whether you call it an 
 insane impulse or anything else, it exempts him from respon- 
 sibility. Mere impulse, whether you call it irresponsible im- 
 pulse or not, does not excuse if it be the impulse of excited 
 passion arising from revenge, from resentment, from intention 
 to do an act which is wrong, or a crime, and the prisoner is 
 aware of it. Whether he is impelled to it by pecuHarities of 
 temperament, by a nervous disposition, by excited feeling, or 
 anything of that sort, will not excuse him from responsibility." 
 
 It is not too much to say of this labored definition, that, as 
 a test of insanity, it has no practical value whatever. In fact. 
 
268 PLEA OP INSANITY 
 
 it leaves the whole question where it was before. For how 
 are you to distinguish between insane impulse and mere impulse, 
 or the impulse of mere excited temper ? Understand the pre- 
 cise meaaing of impulse. It is a sudden volition, a wiU to act 
 without proper immediate consciousness of the nature, quality, 
 or consequences of the act. This is impulse. But, according 
 to Judge Hogeboom's explanation, it must also be insanity. 
 
 However, conceding for the moment that mere impulse is 
 distinguishable from insane impulse by the presence of the 
 element consciousness, what is this consciousness we are 
 speaking about, and how is it to be proved and made a legal 
 test ? Which of the following is meant by consciousness as 
 here applied: to know you are committing a deed; or to 
 remember its nature, i. e., if it be right or wrong, or to deliber- 
 ate on the time, means, and circumstances of its doing? Of 
 aU these meaniags, that of knowing the right or wrong of the 
 deed is the only one applicable. For every waking man 
 knows when he is doing something unusual, and many 
 undoubtedly mad men deUberate patiently on the time, 
 means, and circumstances favorable to success. 
 
 Before any practical value can be attached to the test of 
 consciousness, it should not only be clearly defined what hav- 
 ing consciousness means, but we should be informed how it is 
 cognizable in another. If it means a special inner sense, by 
 which the facts of existence are presented to each individual's 
 inner self; it is useless as a test of insanity. For we, jurymen 
 or others, who are asked to pass upon it, cannot enter a man's 
 mind, and there study its operations. "We have but two ways 
 of knowing the fact consciousness. In ourselves we know it 
 by introspection, in others by observation. And by observa- 
 tion I mean the noting of such points as (a) points of expres- 
 sion in the eye, the features in general, the voice, the muscular 
 system ; (b) points of conduct, as the individual's bearing and 
 relation to others ; (c) points indicating the " course of the 
 thoughts " — or, the sum of the two preceding, with whatever 
 other acts indicate the consciousness of the individual.* Oon- 
 
 * Bain ; " Moral Science." 
 
IN CRIMINAL CASES. 269 
 
 sequently, we have only one way of learning another's con- 
 sciousness ; and, to ask us to pronounce upon this is to require 
 that we should declare not his consciousness, but our own mere 
 impression thereof. 
 
 The truth is, a sane man in a fit of passion is as Hkely to be 
 unconscious of what he is doing as an insane man in a frenzy. 
 If an insane man is held unaccountable for a crime, on the 
 ground that at the time of its committal he was unconscious (to 
 use the expression) of what he was doing, many undoubtedly 
 sane murderers should be acquitted on the same ground. But 
 the ground seems to me altogether untenable.* 
 
 in. 
 
 It would, therefore, seem that the insane quality of an act 
 is no trifling question to be settled by the application of some 
 
 * The great novelists and poets, who, it will be conceded, are the most 
 accurate dissectors of the human passions, are never guilty of the blunder of 
 attempting a distinction between mere impulse and insane impulse, on 
 the ground of the presence or absence of consciousness. If the reader will 
 look into the powerfully dramatic poem entitled " A Last Confession," in the 
 volume of fine poetry lately from the pen of Mr. D. G. Bossetti, he will find 
 the passage, which I here quote for its apt illustration of this point : 
 
 " ' Take it,' I said to her the second time, 
 ' Take it and keep it.' And then came a fire 
 That burnt my hand ; and then the fire was blood, 
 And sea and sky were blood and fire, and all 
 The day was one red blindness ; till it seemed 
 Within the whirling brain's entanglement 
 That she or I or nil things bled to death. 
 And then I found her lying at my feet, 
 And knew that I had stabbed her, and saw 
 The look she gave me when she took the knife 
 Deep in her heart," etc. 
 
 Here the frenzy of passion and the loss of consciousness are coeval. Con- 
 sciousness does not return for some time, as may be inferred from the line — 
 " And then I found her lying at my feet." 
 
 But the poet sets up no plea of temporary insanity for the hero of his 
 wonderful poem, based on the ground of want of conciousness at the time 
 he killed his mistress. 
 
270 PLEA OF INSANITY 
 
 simple, common-sense rule. It is, on the contrary, a very in- 
 tricate question, and can be rightly reasoned out by those 
 only whom a special training has fitted for the task. 
 
 The medical expert, to whom is committed a very impor- 
 tant, though too subordinate, share in this task, acquires his 
 knowledge of the mental state of a given individual in two 
 ways, both of which he must combine when the diagnosis is 
 difficult, though only one may be essential when it is easy. 
 That is, he acquires this knowledge through his study of the 
 workings of the sotmd and of the unsound mind. If the in- 
 sane state of an individual be clear and unmistakable, he 
 recognizes it through his previous acquaintance with insanity ; 
 but, if it be ill-defined, and so mixed up with indications of 
 sound mind as not to bear oh its face its own distinctive mark, 
 he must combine his knowledge of healthy with his knowledge 
 of morbid psychology. From this consideration it is therefore 
 evident how ill-judged it is to submit so important and diffi- 
 cult a question to the decision of twelve men who do not 
 necessarily know anything about it, and who — doubtless there 
 may be exceptions — are unfamiKar with the scientific method 
 of examining and sifting evidence. And, furthermore, so long 
 as the plea of insanity is submitted to unquahfied juries, it 
 will be possible to use it successfully for sinister purposes and 
 to the detriment of the public interest. Whether or not the 
 public is quite justified in the suspicion with which it now 
 regards tliis plea is a point which I shall not attempt to deter- 
 mine. But there is undoubtedly a general impression abroad 
 that a criminal's chances of acquittal depend now, in some 
 cases, on the ingenuity of counsel in constructing a fanciful 
 and highly sensational plea of " insanity pro tern." 
 
 The desire for a reform which shall surround the plea of 
 insanity with safeguards such as are demanded by its dignity 
 and importance, has been long felt, and of late much intensi- 
 fied. Two measures of reform are indeed needed. One should 
 cause the plea of insanity to be entirely removed from our 
 courts of oiiginal jurisdiction ; the other should provide a new 
 method of calling medical testimony. 
 
 The first is urged in a recent message from Governor Alcorn 
 
IN CRIMINAL CASES. 271 
 
 to the Legislature of Mississippi. " I propose," he says, " ia 
 order to separate questions of insanity absolutely from ques- 
 tions of taking human life, that your honorable bodies alter 
 our criminal law substantially as follows : That in charges of 
 murder, manslaughter, or assault with intent to kill, if the 
 question of insanity should be raised before the committing 
 magistrate, that magistrate, if he hold that the proof has 
 shown a presumption of insanity, coupled with a presumption 
 of murder, manslaughter, or assault with intent to kill, shall 
 order the commitment of the accused to the county jail, or 
 other place of safe keeping, to await his examination before 
 the chancery court of the county in which the crime shall 
 have been alleged to have been done." He shall be held 
 there deprived of the right of habeas corpus, being incompetent 
 to make a bond or to take an oath. Then, after a fixed pre- 
 hmiuary form, the accused is to be brought before the Chan- 
 cery Court to have his sanity or insanity pronounced upon. 
 If it be decided here that he is not insane, he is to be deprived 
 of the right to make this plea : " the trial for murder, man- 
 slaughter, or assault with intent to kUl, shall go forward to the 
 exclusion of that plea." But, in the event of the decision 
 being in favor of his insanity, the court " shall order his duress 
 in a ward or wards to be set apart for the restraint and 
 safekeeping of the dangerous insane in the lunatic asy- 
 lum." 
 
 I think these are the chief points in this important docu- 
 ment, bearing on our present subject. Let us examine them 
 somewhat in detail. 
 
 It may be asked at the outset whether it is proper to separ- 
 ate questions of insanity absolutely from questions of taking 
 human Kfe. In other words, whether, when the plea of insan- 
 ity is urged, it should be made a separate and special issue, 
 requiring a separate and special trial. The answer wiU depend 
 on our previous decision as to the objects soiight to be at- 
 tained by this separation. It seems to me these objects are 
 as follows : 1. To facihtate the end of justice by preventing 
 the plea of insanity from being brought forward as a piece of 
 legal strategy; 2. To save unnecessary waste of time and 
 
272 PLEA OF raSANITY 
 
 means by overruling tho necessity for a trial where the plea 
 of insanity is substantiated. 
 
 The question may, howeYor, be put, whether it is desirable 
 that the defence should be deprived of the privilege of encum- 
 bering the proceedings of a criminal trial with the plea of 
 insanity merely for the sake of economy, and of the end of 
 justice. The answer depends in great measure on the view 
 we take of the purpose of a trial. If it be the purpose of a 
 trial to facilitate the acquittal of the prisoner, the plea of 
 insanity should be urged in all cases by any imaginable means 
 admitting it, for this is the surest way of procuring an acquittal. 
 Again, if it be the purpose of a trial to insure the condemna- 
 tion of the prisoner, this plea should be unconditionally ex- 
 cluded. But if, as everybody holds, it be the purpose of a 
 trial to arrive at a just decision on all the ascertainable facts 
 of the case, the plea of insanity should be taken out of our 
 circuit courts, and passed upon separately. For it is necessary 
 to determine, first of all, the point of insanity ; because, if the 
 accused be insane, he cannot be put upon trial (ia this State, 
 at least, according to the statute) for the act alleged against 
 him ; and, if he be sane, he ought not to be allowed to use the plea 
 of insanity as a refuge from the legal consequences of his act. 
 
 I am aware that this argument is met, though not answered, 
 by serious objections, not the least among which is that it 
 aims at depriving the subject of a right, viz., the right to set 
 up whatever plea he deems best for his own interest, and to 
 have it passed upon by a jury of his peers. To this I answer, 
 that it certainly does deprive him of this right ; but that, 
 inasmuch as the right is derived from the government, that is 
 to say, from the common consent of the governed, and is con- 
 ferred for the sake of the general weal, and not for the good of 
 individuals as opposed to the general weal, it follows that the 
 government can rescind this right, and, moreover, should do so 
 when used against the public safety. In this conclusion I am 
 supported by the high authority of Mr. John Austin, who ex- 
 presses himself as follows in the able work aheady cited in 
 this paper : 
 
 "The rights which a government confers, and the duties 
 
IN CEDONAL CASES. 273 
 
 which it lays on its subjects, ought to be conferred and im- 
 posed for the advancement of the common weal, or with a 
 view to the aggregate happiness of aU the members of the 
 society." 
 
 The right now in question, and our correlative duty to 
 respect it, are conferred and enjoined by government for the 
 advancement of the common weal, but, in the event of its 
 being used to the injury of the same, the government may 
 either temporarily withdraw it, or take such precautions as 
 will insure it from abuse. 
 
 The objection which I find against Governor Alcorn's mes- 
 sage is its incompleteness. It makes no mention of a very 
 essential reform — ^the abandonment of the customary way of 
 procuring and examining medical expert witnesses. Without 
 this the change it contemplates would have httle or no effect. 
 It would still perpetuate the mistake of allowing experts to be 
 employed for various politic reasons, and of thus inducing 
 them to range themselves as rivals on opposite sides of a con- 
 test. This radical error has, no doubt, contributed more than 
 anything else to depreciate the character and influence of 
 medical testimony. And it affords one of the chief reasons 
 why first-class authorities in evidence are able to depict medi- 
 cal evidence, and with too much truth, in terms siich as the 
 following : 
 
 " It is often quite surprising to see with what facility and to 
 what an extent their views can be made to correspond with 
 the wishes or interests of the parties who call them. They 
 may not wilfully misrepresent what they think, but their judg- 
 ments become so warped by regarding the subject from one 
 point of view, that, even when conscientiously disposed, they 
 are incapable of expressing a candid opinion." 
 
 The words, " their judgments become so warped by regard- 
 ing the subject from one point of view," clearly reflect the 
 result of the present injurious system. The radical fault is in 
 this system, not in medical men or medical testimony. Unre- 
 flecting people are apt to jump to the conclusion that the 
 defect rests with medical men, and taunt the profession with 
 the siUy expression, " doctors differ," as if it were a fact that 
 
274 PLEA OF INSANITY 
 
 doctors differ any more than divines, or lawyers, or politicians, 
 or the general lay body. No doubt medical testifiers make 
 mistakes, but they are of the same character as the mistakes 
 of all testifiers who are ranged on opposite sides of a disputed 
 question — mistakes from that overzeal so likely to lead one to 
 forget the cause of justice and truth in an exciting contest for 
 victory or success. Behind the professional presence, with its 
 prestige of cultiare and high social position, lives the man with 
 his faults and imperfections ; with his blurred and limited 
 view of things ; with his greater susceptibility to warm emo- 
 tion than to cool reflection ; with his tendency to espouse a 
 cause through sympathy often, often also through self-interest. 
 These faults are not professional : they are human — the medi- 
 cal witness shares them with the human race. But, in my 
 judgment, they are greatly encouraged by our objectionable 
 rule of allowing each side to. appoint its own medical testi- 
 mony. 
 
 What, now, is the remedy ? Should we adopt the expedient 
 of employiiig a medical commissioner to sit with the judge ? 
 This would be a good innovation so far as it goes, but it would 
 not be a remedy for the evil complained of. It seems to me 
 that the only satisfactory reform would be such as should deal 
 mainly with the present mode of caUing medical expert testi- 
 mony. And the desired change might be partial or complete. 
 
 A partial change would consist in the coiu:t appointing some 
 medical witnesses and the defence others. The witnesses so 
 appointed should meet and make their examination of the 
 case in presence of each other. They will thus start from a 
 common ground. This is one advantage of a consultation. 
 Another, and a by no means trifling one, is that anything of 
 importance which might be omitted by one can be suppHed 
 by the other. Subsequently, they should reason out their 
 conclusions separately, or, still better, together. So much 
 being accomplished, each should furnish a written report of 
 his opinion to prosecution and defence. These reports will 
 constitute the data of their evidence, and on them they are to 
 be sworn and examined as to their opinions. In addition, a 
 commissioner might be associated with the judge for the 
 
IN CRIMINAL CASES. , 275 
 
 purpose of assisting him on medical questions. This plan 
 would correct some of the evil, by introducing unity and 
 organization into medical evidence ; and unity and organ- 
 ization would give medical evidence a force, a precision, and a 
 certainty, such as it cannot lay claim to at present. 
 
 A complete change would consist in the court appointing 
 all the medical testimony. Medical experts would then be 
 commissioners selected by the court to examine into the genu- 
 ineness of the plea of insanity. As a companion to the reform 
 advocated by Governor Alcorn, I am of opinion that this 
 would be the more effectual improvement of the two. A sim- 
 ple majority of such commissioners might be sufficient to de- 
 cide the mental state of the accused. 
 
 Only when some such measure is adopted wiU medical evi- 
 dence be entitled to rational confidence, and the medical 
 expert be placed in the true position of a candid, unbiased 
 inquisitor, conducting a line of inquiry in presence of the 
 case, and delivering his opinion of its character, without con- 
 cerning himself with the intrigues of the defense or with the 
 sentiments of the public. 
 
SECTS IN MEDICINE 
 
 By JOHN C. PETERS, M.D* 
 
 So much has been said about sects in medicine of late that 
 I have been induced to search the teachings of history on 
 this poiat, and will endeavor to give them divested as far aa 
 possible of all prejudices or mere opinions. 
 
 The first and most important result of this research seems to 
 be, that, although many sects and systems have arisen and flour- 
 ished like parasites around and upon mediciue proper, yet it 
 has never been sectarian. It has always been inclusive, 
 varied, and cathohc enough to embrace withia itself all rational 
 systems, and all useful discoveries. The foundations of medi- 
 cine are so broad that the most brilliant discoveries of its 
 scientific votaries, the humblest additions of the common man, 
 and the successful results of the merest accident naturally 
 take their place in its archives in strict proportion to their 
 truth and usefulness. It resists nothing which is in accord 
 with reason or enlightened experience, and profits even by 
 the teachings of its bitterest enemies. 
 
 An impartial consideration of the doctrines, theories, and 
 practices of physicians of all ages and of the present times, wiU 
 convince us that there is only one true art of healing, which 
 rests on the broadest and most comprehensive laws ; but we 
 aU know that there have been, and probably always will be, 
 
 * Read before the Society, 1870. 
 
ON SECTS IN MEDICINE. 277 
 
 many systems; for they are always very fragmentary and 
 transient, merely marking the spirit of inquiry in some one or 
 more directions, or the degree of knowledge, enthusiasm, or 
 foUy which is prevailing among some members of the profes- 
 sion at one particular time. Systems are merely the expression 
 of the hopes, prejudices, or ambitions of either honest or de- 
 signing, but always more or less bigoted or short-sighted men, 
 who become so infatuated with the discovery of some partial 
 or apparent truth that they deceive themselves and their fol- 
 lowers into the belief that no greater truths have ever been 
 discovered before, or ever will be again. Instead of making 
 simple additions to science, system makers think it necessary 
 to endeavor to subvert everything which has preceded them 
 La order to make place for some fledgeling of their own. 
 
 The thoughtful student of medical history must soon be- 
 come convinced that the whole art of medicine never has and 
 never can exist in one exclusive system. Each has always 
 claimed to be the only true one ; but it has always been super- 
 seded sooner or later by another making the same arrogant 
 pretensions. This process has prevailed from the earliest 
 ages, and doubtless wiU continue tiU the end of time; for 
 there are always some minds which never can be fortified 
 against the fascination of ingenious, but wonderfully narrow 
 and contracted theories, by observing the fleeting character 
 and puny proportions of those which have already gone down 
 under the relentless ordeals of time and experience. 
 
 Because the human body contains blood, fluids, and humors, 
 some factious physicians became exclusive humoralists ; be- 
 cause we have bones, muscles, and other sohds, some became 
 sohdists, and excluded the fluids from all except a very subor- 
 dinate place in the human system ; because many chemical 
 operations take place in the animal economy, some adopted 
 exclusively chemical notions; and so on ad infinitum. But 
 these systems, however important and imposing they may 
 have been, or still seem, are the veriest froth which has ever 
 floated on the surface of any art when compared with the vast 
 sum of aU the discoveries which long lines of able anatomists, 
 physiologists, surgeons, chemists, and practical physicians 
 
278 ON SECTS IN MEDICINE; 
 
 have made in every age and century. No systems, either 
 ancient or modem, have ever carried the largest, much less 
 the best part of the profession with them, however much it 
 may have adopted from them. Amid all the changes of 
 systems, and the greatest aberrations of the schools, a con- 
 tinuous stream of solid advancement is broadly manifest ia 
 every age. As Hufeland correctly says, the sense of true art 
 has always been preserved in the minds of numerous indivi- 
 duals, and there has ever been a church of genuine physi- 
 cians, who have been guided by reason and experience, 
 who have ever thought and willed the same things, who have 
 ever understood and always wUl understand each other 
 through all the changes of ages, customs, and languages. 
 Thus Hippocrates and Galen are regarded as marking the 
 two greatest epochs in the early history of medicine. But 
 Hippocrates (B. C. 460) was merely the scion of a family 
 which had followed the pursuit of medicine for fully 300 
 years, and had preserved many manuscripts and produced 
 numerous celebrated physicians. Much that is attributed to 
 him is but the accumulated knowledge of his predecessors, 
 which feU into his hands by right of descent, and gave him 
 facilities which could not be obtained by others till after 
 parchment and papyrus came into free use in Europe. 
 Although Hippocrates was the contemporary of Socrates, 
 Plato, Xenophon, Pericles, Herodotus, Thucydides, Pindar, 
 iEschylus, Euripides, Sophocles, Aristophanes, and Aristides, 
 and fully their equal in natural abihty and acquirements, yet 
 he simply gave expression and embodiment, power of perpe- 
 tuity and progress to the wisdom, experience, and aspirations 
 of the best part of the profession which had preceded him. 
 
 Again, Galen (A. D. 131) is supposed to mark another great 
 era in scientific medicine. But the 250 years precediQg 
 him were times of greatest activity in the study and prac- 
 tice which we find in the history of the art. In the very 
 years that he lived there were no less than six one-sided 
 sects of doctors, viz., the Dogmatics, who rehed upon their 
 pure reason, imagination, or internal consciousness about 
 disease and its treatment ; the pure Empirics, who rested 
 
ON SECTS IN MEDICINE. 279 
 
 upon experiment alone, to the exclusion of all reasoning, and 
 almost of judgment and common sense ; the Methodists, who 
 treated disease in an extremely arbitrary and so-called 
 methodical manner ; the Pneumatics, who adopted exclusive 
 vital or ethereal notions ; the Episynthetics or Eclectics, or so- 
 caUed GoncUiators, who strove to harmonize all the conflicting 
 systems and theories. The regular profession never came 
 under the controlling influence of any of these sects, but pur- 
 sued a wise and unobtrusive course, fully recognizing the pre- 
 dominating absurdity of all these extreme notions, and the 
 partial value of some of them.- Anatomy, physiology, materia 
 medica, therapeutics, hygiene, pathology, and the philosophy 
 of medicine were making gigantic strides, so that Galen's code 
 reaUy possessed no great originaUty, being made up from the 
 discoveries and doctrines of all his predecessors. Theory, or 
 sect, or system could no more mislead such men as Hip- 
 pocrates, Aretseus, Baglivi, Sydenham, Haller, or Boerhaave, 
 and many others, than a will-of-the-wisp can seduce a travel- 
 er who carries a torch, and well knows the road he is on. 
 
 The great glory of the true and rational profession of medi- 
 cine, which has continued from that time to this, is, that there 
 were no sects in it, and we may also say, there never has 
 been, nor ever wiU be ; there being no occasion for them. 
 There is place in it for every real improvement, but not to the 
 exclusion of all others ; there is allowance made for every 
 reasonable difference of opinion, but not for the domineering 
 preponderance of any one ; every new and rational, or even 
 plausible remedy, whether vegetable, mineral, or animal, 
 always was and is warmly received. This is evidenced by the 
 recent histories of the introduction of oxygen gas, chloroform, 
 bromide of potash, chloral, carboHe and lactic acids, the phos- 
 phates, and scores of others ; but there is no room for universal 
 panaceas. Every new and really useful instrument, Hke the oph- 
 thalmoscope, laryngoscope, and many others, is almost immedi- 
 ately adopted, by hosts of scientific, skilKul, industrious, gener- 
 ous and honorable men. Every size and form of dose, from the 
 smallest within the range of common sense and sound experi- 
 ence, are not only tolerated but advocated; whUst the largest, 
 
280 ON SECTS m medicine. 
 
 which excessive suffering or real danger to life seem abso- 
 lutely to call for, are often given with a cautious boldness, 
 which sometimes savors of hesitation and reluctance. While 
 the principles of scientific and rational medicine are well fixed 
 and founded, they are so broad and cathoUc that no rational 
 remedy or procedure for the cure of disease is excluded; so 
 that it is exceedingly difficult for a generous-minded, reason- 
 ably unselfish, honorably ambitious, moderately prudent, and 
 fairly learned and skiUful physician to overstep the ethics and 
 traditions of his profession. This can only be done by a 
 bigoted and exceedingly enthusiastic devotion to one real or 
 apparent truth, to the exclusion of myriads of others ; or by 
 an open resort to quackery. 
 
 At the present time we have the female medical sect ; the 
 water-cure or hydropathic sect ; the movement-cure, or gym- 
 nastic sect ; the herbahst, or botanic sect ; the mystic, demo- 
 niac, clairvoyant, or spiritual sect; and the homoeopathic. 
 The counterparts of these have prevailed from time to time, 
 and from the earhest ages. 
 
 It may be, perhaps, hazardous to discuss these matters in 
 any assembly, and stOl more so here, for Plato teUs us that it 
 is a great sign of an intemperate and corrupt commonwealth 
 where lawyers and physicians do abound. 
 
 The best class of the present female medical sect has not 
 essayed to introduce new theories or new remedies into the 
 practice of medicine, but is merely trying to learn and prac- 
 tice the art as they find it among the best modern physi- 
 cians. But it would not be a whit more absurd if it assumed 
 that women only should practice medicine, and all males 
 shoTold be excluded, than it is for the botanic physicians, or 
 modem herbalists, to rely entirely upon vegetable remedies ; or 
 for the hydropathists to use water only in the treatment of 
 disease ; or for homoeopathists to rely exclusively upon infini- 
 tesimal- doses, or the law similia similibus. 
 
 In the earliest ages the obstetric art was in the hands of 
 females ; but before the Christian era several works were 
 written by competent physicians for the use of midwives and 
 nurses. Among these we may select that of Mosohion, who 
 
ON SECTS IN MEDICINE. 281 
 
 wrote a very concise treatise in 152 short sentences, or so- 
 called chapters, in which he explained the whole mechanism 
 of ordinary labor ; the correct management of nursing women 
 and of babes ; the most common child-bed diseases, such as 
 puerperal haemorrhages and metrites, and even displacements 
 of the uterus. He was an accomplished obstetrician, and 
 some of his views are stiU worthy of attention ; for he was a 
 good observer, bound to no sect or theory, while he reasoned 
 and prescribed with much skill and judgment. 
 
 In the time of the Emperor Oonstantine the Great, the 
 Empress FlacUla watched over the hospitals, attended to the 
 proper preparation of the food, to the cleanhness of the per- 
 sons, beds, and wards of the sick, also visited them daUy, 
 and even prescribed for many. 
 
 In the celebrated school of Salerno, in the 7th century, 
 
 females were admitted as students of medicine, and some of 
 
 -. them distinguished themselves, not only in their practice, but 
 
 by their medical writings, among whom we may mention : Con- 
 
 stantia, Calenda, AbeUa, Bebecca, Trotha, and Merourialis. 
 
 In the feudal times, as is well known, it was not uncommon 
 for knights who had fought for their ladies, to commit the 
 care of their wounds to the objects of their worship, who 
 took good care always to be possessed of ointments of 
 great repute, as weU as charms and amulets of supposed 
 healiag virtue, in addition to their own tenderness and 
 personal attractions. Thus armed with potent balms and 
 stimulants, they always rivaled their aged mothers and ordi- 
 nary nurses ; and at times even the priests and doctors, not 
 only in the assiduity of their attentions, but in their real suc- 
 cess. 
 
 In the time of Queen Elizabeth, however, aU this was 
 changed ; for, when simdry poor and probably ugly old 
 women, applied to the Eoyal College of Physicians and Sur- 
 geons for permission to employ their small talent in minister- 
 ing to the cure of diseases and wounds by means of certain 
 herbs and simples ; in the application whereof they boastfully 
 stated that God himself had given them special knowledge ; 
 this was firmly and peremptorily refused, on the grounds, 
 
282 ON SECTS IN MEDICINE. 
 
 1st, that it was a fraud and blasphemy to assert that Provi- 
 dence had especially favored old women rather than the 
 learned members of the Eoyal College ; 2d, that their knowl- 
 edge, whatever it might be, had either been gained by com- 
 mon-place experience, or else was very much clouded by 
 mystery and exaggeration ; and hence was either of little or 
 no special importance, and was more or less of a pretension and 
 fraud. 
 
 At a later time, female practitioners rose to such celebrity 
 that the physicians of Edward VI. of England were dismissed 
 by order of his Council, which placed him in the hands of a 
 confident woman, who promised to restore him quickly to 
 health ; but aU his bad symptoms, which had been skillfully 
 held in abeyance, soon returned in a violent degree, and he 
 quickly died. 
 
 Cotta, in 1612, issued a warning to sick people against con- 
 sulting what he impudently called petticoat practitioners,- 
 whom he advised to prescribe rules for the correct manage- 
 ment of themselves, rather than physic to their friends. 
 
 Up to comparatively modem times, cookery books were 
 supplemented with various medical prescriptions, and armed 
 with these and many old family receipts for various diseases 
 many good women diversified their daily occupations by con- 
 cocting medicines for their servants and dependents; and 
 many a Lady Dorel of Kent and Lady Tailor of Huntingdon 
 thought they knew of numerous precious medicines to heal 
 wounds, cure colics, improve the sight, and reUeve sore 
 legs. 
 
 The late revival of the study of medicine by females is too 
 well known to require comment here ; and it remains to be 
 seen if it will be subjected to the same transitions which has 
 always marked its histoiy in former times. Then the major- 
 ity of female practitioners were ignorant and pretentious ; 
 hence they were necessarily overshadowed by the resistless 
 advance of science. 
 
 The water cure is supposed to be a modem discovery ; but it 
 was used in the very earliest ages in the temples of Esculapius, 
 against various febrile, inflammatory, and surgical diseases, 
 
ON SECTS IN MEDICINE. 283 
 
 and was recommended by many of the earliest medical writers, 
 including Hippocrates, Galen, and Avicenna. Thus, before 
 the 1st century, Cardanus boasted that he could cure all dis- 
 eases with cold water alone. Antonius Musa cured the 
 Emperor Augustus with cold water, and kiUed the amiable 
 Marcellus with the same harsh means, in the time of St. Luke. 
 Heliodorus used light surgical dressings, the free application 
 of tepid water, and moist compresses. Cassius used cold 
 water freely, both internally and externally, in fevers. Imme- 
 diately after the introduction of gunpowder, cold water was 
 used freely to reheve the supposed bum of the wounds. In 
 the middle ages the barber-surgeons and bath-keepers were 
 formidable rivals of scientific physicians and surgeons. 
 
 In the 15th century wounds were duly washed with fair 
 clean water, covered with a soft hnen rag, and opened once a 
 day to cleanse off purulent and other matter. If they needed 
 stimulating, linseed oil and turpentine were apphed ; if they 
 required astringents, Armenian bole, fuUers' clay, or weak 
 solutions of alum or sulphate of zinc were employed. When 
 this was not satisfactory to the pubhc, quackish men Hke 
 Paracelsus applied compUcated and disgusting salves to the 
 weapon which had caused the wound, but treated the in- 
 jury itself in the above judicious and simple manner. Dr. 
 Fludd, Sir Kelemn Digby, Valentine Greatrake, and many 
 others descended to the same impostures, but filched the 
 above wise procedures from the profession which they out- 
 raged and abused. 
 
 In the 18th century, Sir John Floyer and Dr. Baynard, in 
 England, resorted to bathing almost exclusively in chronic 
 diseases, as did Hoffmann and Hahn on the Continent. In 
 1797, Dr. James Currie published highly favorable reports of 
 the effects of water in many diseases. But the distinctive 
 toater-cure, or hydropathy of modem times, owes its origin to 
 an ignorant SUesian peasant, Vincent Priessnitz. At various 
 times he sprained his wrist, crushed his thumb, and broke his 
 ribs, in the treatment of which he relied on cold wet com- 
 presses. He noticed that when water had been applied for a 
 long time, and the skin become thoroughly macerated, that 
 
284 ON SECTS m MEDICINE. 
 
 , pimples, boils, and rashes were apt to come out, and was thna 
 led to frame for himself a crude humoral pathology for aU 
 diseases, and a theory of the elimination of all morbific matters 
 through the skin ; or by flushing the liver, stomach, bowels and 
 kidneys with enormous quantities of water. He tried to pre- 
 vent further morbid accumulations by a severely regulated 
 dietary regimen. His water treatment was unquestionably 
 too incessant and severe, and some of his patients succumbed 
 to this, to excessive exercise, and to food that was too plain 
 and too light, aided by insufficient bed and body clothiag; 
 while others only escaped with their lives from a pecu- 
 liar vital tenacity which many apparently delicate persons 
 often exhibit, especially when buoyed up by the enthusiasm 
 which is excited by boundless promises, and equally bound- 
 less abuse of all other medical practice. The exclusive use 
 of water in disease must be regarded in the same light as 
 that of any patent pUl, syrup, or mixture. The hypochon- 
 driac, the valetudinarian, the hysterical, and the self-indulgent 
 may receive some benefit, which however is generally tempo- 
 rary ; self-limited diseases will of course recover, though in a 
 less proportion than when under a more varied and scientific 
 treatment ; and this is about all that can be said of it, although 
 Captain Claridges and Bulwers, in their "Confessions of a 
 Water-patient," will always do much to render it popular. 
 
 The originator of the movement cure was Herodicus of 
 Thrace, who is stated by Hippocrates to have killed some of 
 his patients with sub-acute internal inflammations by the 
 severity of his exercises, and to have brought on ruptures, 
 rheumatisms, pleurisies, lumbago, and numerous myalgic suf- 
 ferings in others. 
 
 The advantages of properly regulated exercise are so fuUy 
 admitted that we need only say that the attempt to form an 
 exclusive sect for the treatment of all diseases, including can- 
 cer, consumption, etc., by the movement cure, is only a trifle 
 more absurd than to treat them with water alone. Physicians 
 cheerfully admit the occasional advantages of these methods, 
 and have picked out some useful hints from the excessive, 
 exclusive, and often dangerous procedures of their advocates. 
 
ON SECTS IN MEDICINE. 285 
 
 As regards tlie Botanic sect, all primitive medicine is almost 
 necessarily herbal or botanic, as it still is among rude nations 
 like the Indians and Tartars. Civilization must have made 
 considerable advances before mineral and chemical prepara- 
 tions can be apphed to the cure of disease. It is easy for the 
 common man to pick up a plant and make some random trials 
 with it ; and it is equally easy for him to exaggerate all its 
 virtues ; but to obtain mineral remedies metallurgy must be 
 understood, and some progress must have been made in 
 chemistry. 
 
 Vegetable remedies have never been neglected in the regu- 
 lar profession ; for it has always been admitted that the 
 indigenous remedies of every country are well worthy of atten- 
 tion. 
 
 PamphiUus, in the reign of Ptolemy Philometer, was the 
 author of a treatise on medicinal herbs, which he described 
 in alphabetical order, and admits that he had collated largely 
 fi'om the Egyptian Hermes or Thot. 
 
 The elder Heras and Attains the 2d were actively engaged 
 in the cultivation and administration of medicinal herbs. 
 Plutarch tells us that their botanical gardens were filled with 
 hyosciamus, hellebore, conium, aconite, colocynth, colchicum, 
 and many other active plants ; which were collected at proper 
 seasons, their juices expressed, and fluid extracts made, or 
 tinctures prepared with wine; while the roots, leaves, and 
 seeds were dried and preserved for future use. Hippocrates 
 (450 B. C.) used 300 vegetable, 150 animal, and only 36 min- 
 eral substances in his practice. Dioscorides, in the reigns of 
 Claudius and Nero, recommended 700 vegetable and 168 
 animal substances. Melampus noticed that goats were purged 
 with hellebore, and 200 years before the Trojan war, and long 
 before the Christian era, advised it in melancholic and bilious 
 disorders. Antonius Musa, according to Phny, owed his first 
 success in Home to the use of lettuce or lactucarium for mor- 
 bid vigilance and sleeplessness in the Jlniperor Augustus. 
 Galen, in the decline of. life, used the same remedy for the 
 sleeplessness of old age, and correctly informs us that the 
 young and tender plants are inoperative. Musa also used 
 
286 ON SECTS IN MEDICINE. 
 
 the speedwell, or modern leptaadra, or so-called Culver's 
 physic, and recommended it in no less than forty-seven differ- 
 ent diseases. Apulius Celsus wrote a treatise on medical 
 herbs, which is still extant. Philomenus used assafcetida in 
 coUc, nervousness, convulsions, and even in tetanus, in the 
 time of Nero. Archigenes used castor and musk in the reign 
 of Trajan. Antyllus, in the reign of the Emperor Valerian, 
 treated asthma -with inhalations or suffumigation of the fames 
 of aristolochia and clematis, sprinkled over burning coals. 
 Conium was better known in the time of Socrates than ever 
 after, until the time of Baron Storck in the 18th century. 
 The sect of Essenes paid particular attention to vegetable 
 remedies, 150 B. C. Archigenes used opium for pain, diar- 
 rhoea and dysentery, in the 1st century. Aretseus of Cappa- 
 docia used cantharides for blisters in the 1st century, previous 
 to which the juice of euphorbium or milk-weed had been relied 
 upon. Many virtues were attributed to sambucus, or elder. 
 Alexander of TraUes, Oribasius, and ^tius used colchicum in 
 rheumatism and gout ; and Cselus Aurelianus gave it mixed 
 with pepper, ginger, cinnamon, and aniseed, to prevent its 
 prostrating effects ; and with scammony to increase its purga- 
 tive properties. He says the gouty people who took it walked 
 almost immediately. Male fern was used by Galen against 
 tape worm, yet the so-called secret was sold to Louis XV., 
 for a very large sum. The rapid extension of the Grecian 
 army under Alexander the Great was the means of introduc- 
 ing many new vegetable remedies, so that at one time it was 
 said that the smallest sore coidd not be treated, except by 
 some herb brought from the Eed Sea. Pliny the Elder, 
 A. D. 23, wrote five books on the medicinal uses of plants. 
 Buffius of Ephesus wrote a treatise on the use of vegetable 
 purgatives, including hellebore, colocynth, colchicum, aloes, 
 scammony, gamboge, and others. Priscian was the author of 
 a work on indigenous medicinal plants. In the 3d century, a 
 medical poem was v^ritten in seventy-seven sections, each of 
 which was devoted to the therapeutic virtues of some particu- 
 lar plant. iEtius, in the 6th century, wrote a large treatise 
 on medicinal plants. The Arabians introduced manna, cassia, 
 
ON SECTS IN MEDICINE. 287 
 
 senna, rhubarb, musk, nutmeg, campbor, and nux vomica into 
 practice. Theopbrastus, who inherited the manuscripts, etc., 
 of Aristotle, speaks of a vegetable poison which could be 
 moderated in such manner as to kill in two or three months, 
 or as many years. This was prepared from aconite, a plant 
 which people were forbidden in those early times to have in 
 their possession, on pain of death. 
 
 In the 11th century, a book on therapeutics was written, in 
 six volumes, in which it is stated that the principal difficulty 
 of the author was the multiphcity of the vegetable remedies, 
 both indigenous, Saracenic and Greek, which were in common 
 use ; especially as the early herbalists, hke the modem, 
 ascribed almost incredible virtues to every herb of the 
 field. 
 
 Before the invention of printing, manuscript books, written 
 on papyrus or parchment, were necessarily in the hands of 
 the few; but, from the year 1554 to 1561, no less than 32,000 
 copies of Dioscorides' great work on the Materia Medica were 
 printed and sold. 
 
 Caius Plinius, under Vespasian, wrote fifteen books on 
 botanic Materia Medica, and, unlike the modern botanic 
 physicians, was opposed to compUcated prescriptions, but like 
 them preferred indigenous to foreign remedies. HerophUus 
 of Alexandria, long before the Christian era, said that the 
 plants which we are constantly treading under our feet are 
 possessed of many distinctive and powerful properties, which 
 can be made either dangerous or useful according to the skill 
 and intelligence with which we employ them. Angitia of 
 Colchis used many herbs, especially in angina or sore throat, 
 which derives its name from her. An Arabian physician, Ebu 
 Barthai, wrote a gi-eat book in which he describes no less than 
 1400 medicinal plants. Matthiolus, in A. D. 1501, left several 
 works, pi-incipaUy relating to the medicinal virtues of plants, 
 and wrote a commentary on the great work of Dioscorides, 
 illustrated with many plates. 
 
 The discovery of America in 1492 was followed by the addi- 
 tion of a long list of new vegetable remedies, and the well- 
 known dangerous fault of attributing too many and too great 
 
288 ON SECTS IN MEDICINE. 
 
 Tirtues to one and the same plant was fallen into, especially 
 as regards sarsaparilla, sassafras, guaiac, and even ipecac an:l 
 Peruvian bark. 
 
 From 1760 to 1771, Baron Storck, President of the facultj 
 of Mediciae at Vienna, and physician to the Empress Maria 
 Theresa, distinguished himself by a long and assiduous course 
 of experiments upon the sick and healthy with various narcotic 
 vegetables, such as aconite, pulsatUla, coniam, hyosciamus, 
 stramonium, colchicum, and others ; and certainly has the 
 merit of fixing the attention of practitioners on these active 
 and useful plants from that time to the present. 
 
 Thus it win be seen that almost every remedy relied upon 
 by the homoeopathic and botanic sects has been known from 
 the earhest ages, and equally good and even much better ones 
 have been in constant use before and since the commence- 
 ment of the Christian era. 
 
 If the true profession can learn something from the some- 
 what practical water, movement, and botanic sects it has 
 always been utterly at variance with the supernatMral or clair- 
 voyant, and with the so-called spiritual or demoniac sects. 
 The regular profession has been in a constant struggle and 
 opposition to these from the earliest ages. 
 
 The Egyptian priests who were charged with the preserva- 
 tion of the votive tablets which contained the earliest records 
 of medical practice, in the temples, seized upon them, and at- 
 tempted to control exclusively the treatment of the sick, under 
 the pretense that disease and pestilence were always the result 
 of the anger of the gods and demons ; and that it belonged to 
 their functions to make propitiation. But, even in the very 
 precincts of the temples there were always true physicians, 
 who maintained that no disorder was more the result of divine 
 or demoniac wrath than another; that they all originated 
 from natural causes, and from infringements of the laws of 
 nature, and principally from the neglect of personal and pub- 
 Uc hygiene ; from improper diet, clothing, uncleanliness of 
 persons, houses, streets, cities ; or from improper drainage of 
 lands and places ; also very frequently from excess of food and 
 drink, and deficient exercise. These true physicians likewise 
 
ON SECTS IN MEDICINE. 289 
 
 maintained that therapeutics was not the invention of special 
 spirits, demons, or gods, but was the natural result of the slow, 
 careful and difficult experience of skilled and thoughtful mor- 
 tals. They declared that it was useless to sleep in the temples 
 merely to dream dreams and consult oracles, but it was wise 
 to depend upon the observations and reflections recorded on 
 the votive tablets, and gained in the actual management of 
 disease. They beheved and taught that medicines were not 
 given to appease the anger of irritable or maUgnant spirits, 
 (demons), or so-called gods, but had been scattered broadcast 
 over the earth by the Creator to remove the inevitable conse- 
 quences of man's misfortunes, ignorance, and folly ; and that 
 it only required the industrious and inteUigent exertion of 
 man's powers of body and mind to discover their uses. In 
 the very earhest ages, and in the very precincts of the temples, 
 these " real doctors " believed and taught that true " profes- 
 sional piety " consisted not in the sacrificing of hecatombs of 
 bulls, nor in burning piles of incense and fragrant herbs, but 
 in ascertaining for oneself and in teaching others the mistakes 
 of sick mortals, the true laws of health and hygiene, and some- 
 thing of the goodness, power and wisdom of the Creator, who 
 had abundantly suppUed every hving creature with what was 
 best and most convenient for its use, and who sustained all 
 by his bounty. They taught that the problems of the true 
 physician are very simple, yet very difficult. He meets with 
 distress, pain, and disease everywhere, and the remedies are 
 spread broadcast over the world, vsdthin the reach of every 
 hand, and trodden under every foot. But how to apply them ? 
 i^imply with an humble, inteUigent, observant and honest 
 spirit. The whole practice of mediciae originally rested 
 entirely upon pure observation, and the records on the votive 
 tablets were open to all. There was no mystery, no conceal- 
 ment, no unwarranted pretensions, no exaggeration, and very 
 soon a prodigious quantity of facts were accumulated, and 
 some correct principles were quickly advanced. The greatest 
 difficulty was to contend with the credulity and superstitions 
 of the age, which after aU were not greater perhaps than they 
 now are. It is to the credit of real physicians that few or no 
 19 
 
290 ON SECTS IN MEDICINE. 
 
 supernatural cures have ever been attributed to those who 
 appHed themselves honestly and industriously to the study 
 and cure of disease. They have always remained steadfast 
 against the illusions of magic, witchcraft, astrology, mesmer- 
 ism, etc., and a broad and continuous stream of progressive 
 and scientific medicine can easily be traced amidst the preva- 
 lence of the greatest charlatanry, bigotry, superstition, and 
 creduhty in the populace. They remained firm when Pytha- 
 goreans, Cabalists, Gnostics, and Essenes all dipped in the 
 mysterious and lucrative practices of superstitious exorcisms, 
 amulets, charms, etc. 
 
 They had to contend with the Emperor Vespasian, who 
 pretended to cure blindness with his spittle, paralysis and 
 enlargement of the liver and spleen by the touch of his royal 
 toe. Against Appolonius, who claimed to raise the dead. 
 Against the devotion to magic by the Emperors Titus, Aure- 
 Uus, and Severus. Against those like Marinus, who by long 
 fasting and constant prayer thought they had received the 
 power of expelling all diseases. Against aU Europe, which once 
 descended to the absurdity of Egyptian and Persian idolatry, 
 in the reverence paid to amulets, taUsmans, charms, and an 
 unreasoning belief in relics, in the delusions of astrology, and 
 the credulity and imposture of the royal touch. Against the 
 apparently miraculous effects of absurd ceremonies ; for in 
 times of pestilence a dictator was elected for the sole purpose 
 of driving a nail into the wall of the temple of Jupiter, and 
 the effect was palpable and instantaneous, for while, the popu- 
 lace imagined that they had propitiated an offended demon, 
 or so-called god, their faith diminished their susceptibility to 
 disease by appeasing their own fears. It required a long 
 course of discipline, gained by the frequent recurrence of pes- 
 tilential diseases, to eradicate this and other absurd proce- 
 dures, for even the great Pericles wore amulets about his 
 neck ; and Aristides the Just placed confidence in soothsayers. 
 He was the dupe and victim of knavish men for ten successive 
 years ; he was alternately purged, vomited, and blistered ; 
 made to walk barefoot under a burning sun in summer, and 
 in winter he was directed to bathe his emaciated body in an 
 
ON SECTS IN MEDICINE. 201 
 
 icy river ; finally, lie was ordered to lose 120 pounds of blood, 
 and this opened his eyes. This reminds us of some of the 
 pranks of modern spirits. Cato the Censor relied on the divin- 
 ing rod and incantations to reduce dislocations of the hip, and 
 advised cabbage in all diseases. Even Popes Benedict 9th, 
 John 20th, and the 6th and 7th Gregories openly avowed 
 their belief in sorcery. Also King Pyrrhus, the Emperors 
 Hadrian and Vespasian, and Mahomet believed in the royal 
 touch. In the 11th century (A. D. 1026), Edward the Confes- 
 sor revived this practice, and was followed by Philip the 1st 
 of France and St. Louis ; whilst James 1st even essayed to cure 
 the hopelessly blind. Charles the 2d touched 82,107 cases 
 in twenty-one years, or nearly 4,400 per year, and was fol- 
 lowed by Henry 7th, the queens Elizabeth and Anne, and by 
 George the 1st. These illustrious persons, commencing with 
 enthusiasm, credulity and superstition, finally descended to 
 the imposture of forcing their sergeant surgeons to select 
 those cases only which presented signs of recovery ; but soon 
 these men, led by Drs. Becket and Wiseman rebelled against 
 this degradation of their art ; still it required several genera- 
 tions to teach the monarchs of England, by the adverse influ- 
 ence of numberless failures, how to emancipate themselves 
 from the degrading duty of maintaining the fanatical ceremony 
 of the royal touch. Finally, even the glamour of majesty 
 itself could no longer inspire amazement enough, and the cus- 
 tom was abandoned when time physicians had rendered it 
 ridiculous in the eyes of all men. At one time European phy- 
 sicians had to contend with 7,000 interpreters of dreams. 
 Even the learned and pious Erasmus once attributed his 
 recovery from a dangerous illness to the intercession of St. 
 Geneveva, to whom he addressed an ode ; although he was 
 regularly attended by William Cope, the most skillful physi- 
 cian in Paris. At another time he abandoned the Saint and 
 Dr. Cope, and reHed upon the quack Paracelsus, who nearly 
 killed him. Wesley attributed his cure to a brown paper 
 plaster of egg and sulphur, and not at all to Fothergill's prC' 
 scription of four months' repose from his labors, living in the 
 country, milk diet, and horse exercise. Sir Christopher Wren 
 
292 OS SECTS IN MEDICINK. 
 
 dreamed of dates, ate them freely, aod supposed that thej 
 cured him of pain and disorder in his kidneys. Bishop Hall, 
 one of the most learned and amiable men of his time, said 
 that " old wives and the stars were his counselors ; charms 
 were his physicians, aaid a httle hallowed wax an antidote to 
 every ill." Lord Bacon thought that three grains of nitre 
 taken every morning would prolong life beyond its natural 
 period, but died at sixty-six, although he had persisted in this 
 practice for thirty years. 
 
 Practical physicians had to contend with credulous astrolo- 
 gers and laymen of education, who parceled out the face of 
 the heavens into twelve divisions or houses with as much pre- 
 cision as if they were laying out a Dutch garden ; and appor- 
 tioned the principal planet in each division as the lord of the 
 house. It seemed of no consequence that some projected 
 their lines in one direction, and others in another, so that the 
 houses became mixed, and the lines crossed each other ia a 
 complex and arbitrary way as in a kaleidoscope or Chinese 
 puzzle., Mars and Saturn in conjunction were gravely stated 
 to cause pestilential disease. Lead colic was attributed to a 
 new star which had made its appearance in the constellation 
 Cassiopeia; and Astrology was the vulgar oracle which was 
 often consulted before a dose of medicine was given. S3^hilis 
 was supposed to have arisen from a peculiar conjunction of 
 Mars and Venus. Eruptions of Mount Vesuvius, earthquakes, 
 famine, the overflowing of the Tiber, the invasion of the Goths, 
 the plague which broke oiit in Egypt and was conveyed to 
 Constantinople, and from thence to Italy, all were attributed 
 to the presence of comets, and a peculiar arrangement of the 
 stars. 
 
 But by far the most formidable antagonist of the profession 
 was Paracelsus in the 15th century, and his influence is still 
 powerful at the present time, for he was the founder both of 
 the mesmeric and homoeopathic sects. His claim to be the 
 first of the magnetizers can scarcely be questioned, and from 
 his time there was a regular succession of mineral magnetizers 
 until Mesmer appeared and gave a new feature to the delu- 
 Bion. Paracelsus assumed that the magnet was the philoso- 
 
ON SECTS IN MEDICINE. 293 
 
 pier's stone, which could transmute metals, soothe all human 
 suffering, and arrest the progress of decay. He also used a 
 stone or crystal which he called asoth, said to contain mag- 
 netic properties, and to cure epilepsy, hysteria, and conrulsive 
 affections. He originated the weapon salve, which Parson 
 Foster says the devil himself gave to Paracelsus, he to Bap- 
 tista Porta, he to Dr. Fludd, he to Sir Kelemn Digby. Val- 
 entine Greatrake was next in order of the magnetizers ; then 
 Father Hell, a professor of astronomy, in 1771 and 1772 ; and 
 finally Mesmer in 1774, who became the founder of animal 
 magnetism and modern spirituaHsm. He opened most sump- 
 tuous apartments in Paris, and had the impertinence to apply 
 to Marie Antoinette for 500,000 francs in order to continue 
 his experiments at leisure, and wished a commission appoint- 
 ed by the Academy of Sciences to examine into the merits of 
 his system. The principal physicians of Paris, with Benjamin 
 Franklin, Lavoisier the chemist, and Bailly, the historian of 
 astronomy, were upon this commission, Mesmer only died in 
 1815, aged 81. 
 
 He was followed by the Marquis of Puysegur, who magne- 
 tized an elm tree ; and by the Chevalier Barbarin, whose 
 fanatical followers increased rapidly in Germany and Swe- 
 den. 
 
 In 1788, Dr. Marmaduc, in England, deceived 127 gentle- 
 men, ladies, surgeons, physicians, clergymen, members of Par- 
 hament, bishops, barons, baronesses, earls, dukes and duchesses. 
 Hannah More had sense enough to denounce them as demoni- 
 acal mummeries. 
 
 HoUoway and Loutherburg sometimes had 3,000 persons 
 crowded about their houses, waiting to gain entrance, at three 
 guineas a ticket. 
 
 In 1798 Perkins and his tractors came in vogue. 
 
 Drs. Haygarth and Falconer exposed him with wooden 
 tractors, and pubHshed a small volume " On the Imagination 
 as a Cause and Cure of Disorders, exempHfied by Fictitious 
 Tractors." 
 
 But Perkins was followed by the well-known Deleuze in 
 1813, who advised his followers to forget for a while all their 
 
294 ON SECTS m medicine. 
 
 knowledge of physics ; reject from their minds all objections 
 which might occur ; and not to attempt to reason for at least 
 six weeks. 
 
 Paracelsus also originated or revived the homoeopathic doc- 
 trine in the 15th century — ^he says the law contraria contrariis 
 curantur is false, and never did hold true in medicine — that a 
 hot disease had never been cured by cold remedies, nor cold 
 diseases by hot remedies. But it is weU done, says he, when 
 we oppose like to like. Know aU men that like attacks its 
 hke, but never its contrary. 
 
 He was too shrewd a quack and impostor to confine 
 himself to the law similia similibus — he used lead and other 
 cooUng and astringent remedies in fever ; adopted tartar 
 emetic from Basil Valentine, who had discovered it over 100 
 years previously ; carried the use of opium, which had been in 
 vogue from the 1st century onwards, to greater lengths than 
 it had ever been employed before ; and used mercury in the 
 most reckless manner, as it had just been noticed that workers 
 in quicksilver recovered from syphilis without other medica- 
 tion. 
 
 Hahnemann came under the influence of Mesmer in Vienna, 
 in 1777, and probably got his notions about potentizing and 
 magnetizing his remedies by rubbings and triturations from 
 him. The Tartar physicians, or Llama doctors, have long 
 superseded infinitesimal doses, as, if they do not happen to 
 have any medicine with them, they are by no means discon- 
 certed ; for they merely write the name of the remedy they 
 wish to give on a little scrap of paper, moisten this with the 
 saliva, roU it up into a pill, which the patient tosses down 
 with the same perfect confidence as he would aloes, assafoetida, 
 or any other remedy. To swallow the name of a remedy, 
 or to take the medicine itself, say the Tartar physicians and 
 patients, comes to precisely the same thing. If paper is not 
 at hand, the name of the drug is written with clay or chalk 
 upon a board, which is then washed off, and the patient swal- 
 lows the liquid. 
 
 How different from aU these mummeries were the first great 
 rules of the medical profession. It was at first merely 
 
ON SECTS IN MEDICINE. 295 
 
 assumed that remedies whicii have cured a giTen disease must 
 be equally efficacious iu identical cases, and may be very use- 
 ful iQ similar diseases. Thus far the best physicians of ancient 
 times had speculated very httle on morbid phenomena, or the 
 effects of remedies. They contented themselves with observ- 
 ing which medicines benefited or cured certain diseases, and 
 then employed them in similar cases. 
 
 The second therapeutic law was : There must be an essen- 
 tial, even if not evident, antagonism between the whole or part 
 of the aptions of the remedy and the disease ; and that the 
 curative virtues of the remedy nuist be in opposition, real or 
 direct, with the cause or principle of the disease. 
 
 The third therapeutic law was : The remedy must differ 
 in some essential manner from the action of the disease, and 
 that aU correct medical treatment is alterative. At first an 
 unhmited extension was given to the word contrary, so as to 
 include not oilly those things which are endowed with oppo- 
 site elementary quahties, as heat and cold, dry and moist ; but 
 also all thiags which differ among themselves in any way. 
 But it was proven that this was merely and illogicahy to 
 make it a synonym of the word di-fferent. Next it was easily 
 seen that as antagonism is merely the greatest degree of 
 difference, aU other and lesser degrees must also be oper- 
 ative in their spheres ; and although the best cures might take 
 place where the antagonism was absolute and complete, yet 
 that very good results might foUow when the antagonism was 
 only partial and incomplete. Next it was noticed that some 
 substances which closely resemble each other in their action, 
 hke the caustic alkahes and acids, often contain a radical dif- 
 ference or antagonism ; and finally it was admitted that all 
 resemblance includes some difference. Kenouard says, in his 
 " History of Medicine," p. 107, that from the very commence- 
 ment the law contraria contrariis curantur was not universally 
 adopted. Thus, in the book entitled "Ancient Medicine," 
 written before the time of Hippocrates, and which is one of 
 the most philosophic of the Hippoc ratio collection, several 
 paragraphs are devoted to the refutation of exclusive reU- 
 ance on this dogma. We there read: Diseases are some- 
 
296 ON SECTS IN MEDICINE. 
 
 times cured by contraries and sometimes by remedies which 
 are different, be the difference great or "slight. 
 
 This is an important point, for at a later period Galen again 
 assumed that diseases were only cured by tlieir contraries, 
 and Paracelsus and Hahnemann that they can only be cured 
 by their similars, and thus founded One-sided and exclusive 
 systems. 
 
 The honest and ancient physician was truly thankful for his 
 frame, his brain, and his senses ; thankful for every faculty 
 of his mind and body ; thankful for every vegetable, animal, 
 or mineral medicine ; thankful that the Creator had implanted 
 in so many substances reliable medicinal virtues, which could 
 be more or less easily ascertained ; thankful that he knew how 
 to use them in simplicity and honesty, without a weak and 
 meretricious rehance upon charms, mysterious ceremonies, 
 incantations, and mummeries; thankful that they could be 
 made to yield up their virtues, in simple decoctions or infu- 
 sions, or could be preserved in wine, oil, or honey. 
 
 At this early age many physicians would be bound to no 
 absolute and unchangeable code, but merely pledged them- 
 selves to act according to the best of their ability and 
 judgment — ^to abstain from whatever was manifestly deleteri- 
 ous, mischievous, or corrupt ; to give no deadly mediciae, nor 
 allow it to be given ; to produce no abortion, perform no cas- 
 tration, or useless mutilation ; effect or countenance no seduc- 
 tion ; divulge no secrets of his patients ; but pass his life in 
 the diligent and faithful practice of his art in purity and char- 
 ity to all. 
 
 True medical history is not the mere record of squabbles 
 between opposing sects, nor of varying and conflicting modes 
 of practice ; although doctors, like other mortals, often dis- 
 agree; but is the record of almost continuous progress. A 
 persistent stream of scientific medicine can be traced midst 
 the prevalence of the greatest charlatanry and bigotry ; and 
 there has never been a complete solution of the continuity of 
 medical truth and science. 
 
 Long before the time of Hippocrates the statues of the 
 Esculapian god were represented as a bearded and aged 
 8 ■ . 
 
ON SECTS IN MEDICINE. 297 
 
 man, indicative of experience and wisdom ; sometimes bare- 
 headed, sometimes crowned, as representative of the storms 
 and trials through which he had passed, or the victories 
 which he had gained ; sometimes erect, as the good physician 
 requires no support but an approving conscience and the 
 blessing of God ; sometimes leaning on his staff, around which 
 a serpent is seen winding in spiral folds, as emblematic of the 
 dreadful and poisonous influences which he could control for 
 the benefit of mankind ; sometimes the staff was knotted, to 
 indicate the difficulties of practice, and the hard blows which 
 he often had to inflict upon refractory patients and obstinate 
 diseases ; sometimes he is alone, as if the medical art was all 
 sufficient, but more frequently attended by Hygeia, robed in 
 white, as indicative of the purity, simpUcity, orderUness, and 
 cleanliness of hygienic rules. Not unfrequently a noble child 
 was placed between Esculapius and Hygeia, as representative 
 of that innocency, beauty, health, and fruitfuhiess which 
 Nature and Hygeia can alone bestow. Sometimes the genius 
 of medicine was represented sitting, pensive, alone, with its 
 fingers pressed upon its lips, as if admonishing its votaries to 
 soUtary study, deep thought, and cautious utterance ; some- 
 times a faithful dog lay at its feet, or a gallant cock was at its 
 elbow. Arrayed in aU these symboheal devices, how grandly 
 was the ancient idea of the true physician portrayed, viz., sage, 
 modest, pure, faithful at night, vigilant in the morn, courageous 
 and discreet at aU times, wise, fatherly, kindly, cleanly, and 
 abstemious — ^the true preventer and curer of disease and pes- 
 tilence. 
 
CAN CHLOROFOKM BE USED 
 
 TO 
 
 F^CILIT^TE HOBBERYP 
 
 By STEPHEN ROGERS, M. D.* 
 
 With the introduction of nitrous-oxide gas as a preventive 
 of human suffering during surgical operations; with the 
 demonstration, at a little later period, of a similar and even 
 superior property in sulphuric ether ; and with the discovery, 
 almost at the same time, of the stiU more potent anassthetic, 
 chloroform, medical science took a long and 'proud stride in 
 its race in the interests of humanity. Since the announce- 
 ment of the discovery of the virtues of vaccuiia by the immor- 
 tal Jenner, nothing has filled the world with wonder and 
 admiration like the announcement of the discovery of the 
 anaesthetics by Wells of Hartford, by Morton of Boston, and 
 by Simpson of Edinburgh ; and these grand discoveries have 
 ever since furnished themes for historians, sculptors, and 
 poets. Human suffering, and hitherto inevitable anguish, 
 were, to a vast extent, suddenly abolished, and humanity 
 rejoiced. 
 
 It has been said, and I will not venture to say untruly, that 
 the growth of human knowledge does not advance beyond the 
 reach of corresponding developments of the original propensity 
 to sin : hence, with the glories of the discovery of the anaes- 
 thetics just mentioned, arose the idea, among the ignorant and 
 
 * Read before the Society, January 8, 1871. 
 
CAN CHLOEOFOEM BE USED TO FACILITATE EOBBEEY? 20"J 
 
 •wicked, that the state of insensibility they produced afforded 
 the most agreeable facility for all manner of unlawful acts 
 which the instructs of self-respect and preservation would 
 oppose. This was more notably the track in which criminal 
 thought traveled, about the time of or soon after the intro- 
 duction of chloroform. 
 
 The fact, pubUcly proclaimed, that there had been discov- 
 ered a volatile and potent substance of a most agreeable odor, 
 a few breaths of -whose subtle vapor would put the strongest 
 man to profound sleep, was seized upon by the criminal mind 
 as the desideratum. But while — -as the lethal agents of crimes, 
 upon which the most thrilling newspaper romances were writ- 
 ten, and written in considerable numbers — ^these criminal ideas 
 of the use of narcotic vapors were widely practiced upon, their 
 apphcation to the narcotizing of persons upon whom robbery 
 or other crime was to be committed was comparatively rarely 
 made, a fact which holds good to the present day. 
 
 This disproportion between the cases in which an actual 
 attempt has been made to employ anaesthetics for criminal 
 purposes, more especially chloroform, and the reported cases 
 of such attempts, was long ago quit.e extensively commented 
 upon by the highest authority, in those days, in the world, at 
 least in England, where this substance was, and since has 
 been, almost exclusively used for surgical purposes. I allude 
 to the late Dr. John Snow, of London, who, early in 1850, or 
 a little more than two years after the discovery of the anaes- 
 thetic properties of chloroform, wrote that, "in two recent 
 cases of robbery, it has been asserted that chloroform was 
 used to render the victim insensible ; and, although no real 
 evidence has appeared of such having been the fact, yet the 
 statement has gained great publicity through the papers, and 
 even the sentences on the prisoners have apparently been 
 rendered more severe by the allegation." He further remarks : 
 " It is not difficult to understand how these reports of the 
 criminal use of chloroform first gained currency. The early 
 accounts of the use of this agent in surgery and midwifery, 
 which appeared in all the papers, contained a description of 
 its fruity odor, and its administration on a handkerchief," 
 
300 CAN CHLOBOFOKM BE USED 
 
 notliing being at tlie same time said of any disagreeable 
 property it might possess, or of any unpleasant phenomena 
 attending its administration, which would tend to caution 
 agaiust its indiscriminate arid unskilled employment. In 
 other words, the romantic aspects of anaesthesia were univer- 
 sally circulated, .and its reality allowed to quietly slumber 
 with the medical profession. 
 
 Hence, says Dr. Snow, " many persons, as I had experience, 
 entertained the opinion that it might be used for effecting 
 robberies." With this general imperfect acquaintance with 
 the action of chloroform, he thought of the following explana- 
 tion of some of the alleged cases of robbery while under its in- 
 fluence : It is reported in the papers that a person falls insensible 
 suddenly in the street, and that on coming to himself he thought 
 he recollected somethiag about a handkerchief being appHed 
 to his face, and therefore the insensibility, from which he had 
 just recovered, was attributed to chloroform. I quite agree 
 with Dr. Snow in the opinion that, if such a report as this 
 was anything more than the ingenious invention of the news- 
 paper reporter, it meant to say that the individual in question 
 had taken a fit of syncope or vertigo, the latter, perhaps, of 
 that more permanent variety of dizzy-headedness which is not 
 unfreqtiently met with in convivial persons, who sometimes 
 break the silence of the small hours of the night with melodi- 
 ous declarations of intention not to " go home till morning." 
 "These newspaper paragraphs, however," said Dr. Snow, 
 " are very suitable ones for quotation ; and, the idea having 
 gained general credence, it is probable that we shall often 
 hear of it from persons who have to account for being in dis- 
 reputable places and company, and who, being shy of the 
 usual excuse of having dined out, will have a recollection of a 
 handkerchief over their faces." The exactness with which 
 these early predictions of Dr. Snow have been fulfilled is well 
 known to most of the profession practicing since his time, and 
 the experiences of the law-officers, both in bis and in other 
 countries, fully attest the clear sagacity of their author. The 
 idea, however, took deep hold of the public mind, and grew 
 into such magnitude that, in 1851, about three years after the 
 
TO FACILITATE ROBBERY? 301 
 
 introduction of chloroform, tke subject of its crimuial use be- 
 came the theme of grave discussion in the British Parliament ; 
 Lord Campbell having in that year introduced his " Preven- 
 tion of Offenses Bill," one of whose provisions was the making 
 of " the unlawful administration or application of chloroform 
 and other stupefying agents felonious." The following para- 
 graph from Lord Campbell's speech, in advocacy of the adop- 
 tion of his biU, wiU perhaps convey the nearest to a correct 
 idea of the extent to which the pubhc mind in that day had 
 admitted the possibility of the felonious use of these narcotic 
 vapors, especially that of chloroform. 
 
 Notwithstanding the published warning of Dr. Snow that 
 the reported cases of criminal employment of chloroform were 
 generally unreliable and totally fictitious, indeed did not fur- 
 nish a single case of its successful criminal employment, Lord 
 Campbell said : " A most respectable physician has done me 
 the honor to write me a letter, in which he states that the fear 
 arising from the use of chloroform in this way is altogether 
 imaginary ; that no strong man who makes resistance can pos- 
 sibly be chloroformed. While I believe that is true of the 
 strong, I think that with those who are not strong, and not 
 able to resist, chloroform could be employed most effectively 
 for facihtating robbery. It has been said that a person thus 
 attacked might refuse to breathe, and thus not inhale the 
 vapor, or might turn away his head ; but suppose a handker- 
 chief, wet with the substance, is put to his face and held there, 
 the man must breathe. Lideed, it already stands on record 
 that, since the discovery of chloroform, persons have been 
 convicted, before competent courts, of using that article for 
 the purpose of robbery." It is obvious, from the tenor of this 
 address, that even at that time, while the whole subject was 
 comparatively new. Lord Campbell found himself obliged 
 to abandon the idea that chloroform had been or could be 
 used to facilitate robbery, without the knowledge of the 
 person taking it. This abandonment, however, has not been 
 general, but, on the contrary', the surreptitious application 
 of and unconscious inhalation of the narcotizing vapor of 
 chloroform for criminal purposes is still believed in by a very 
 
302 CAN CHLOKOT'OBM BE USED 
 
 large ntunber of our people, and the doctrine of its possibility 
 is still far too seriously regarded by our courts. 
 
 I have employed chloroform quite extensively for twenty- 
 one years ; have administered it to persons of all ages, from a 
 few days to seventy years, to the male and to the female, to 
 the weak and to the strong, to the drunk and to the sober, to 
 the sane and to the insane, to the sleeping and to those awake, 
 and I therefore regard myself as famUiar with its action on 
 the human subject in all conditions. This intimate and pro- 
 tracted acquaiatance with the subject, a result of a much 
 greater experience than Dr. Snow had when he wrote his 
 papers from which I have quoted, leads me to unhesitatingly 
 indorse his statements which were published more than a 
 score of years ago. " It," says he, " can be readily shown 
 that, were thieves and prostitutes to resort to the use of chlo- 
 roform in the public streets, in the manner we see alleged, the 
 attempt would only lead to their detection on the spot. The 
 sensation of pungency in the nostrils and throat that is caused 
 by this vapor, when in sufficient quantity to produce any effect 
 on the sensorium, is so great and pecuhar that no person can 
 take a single inspiration without being aware that he is inhal- 
 ing something very unusual. Chloroform, in fact, can never 
 be administered without the consent of the party taking it, 
 imless he be forced to take it, which is the case with children 
 who are not old enough to be reasoned with. If a child be 
 asleep when the process of inhalation is commenced, it nearly 
 always awakes before being made insensible, however gently 
 the vapor may be insinuated." 
 
 I will here remark that the real cause of this general dis- 
 turbance and waking of the person to whom chloroform is 
 being given during sleep, is not altogether from the pungent 
 impression of the vapor upon the respiratory membrane, but 
 is to be found in the fact that, if it be in sufficient concentra- 
 tion to produce anassthesia within any ordinary period, it ex- 
 cites temporary closure of the glottis, and arrest of respiration 
 fEoyal Medical and Chirurgical Transactions, vol. xlvii., p. 
 329). 
 
 This result is almost invariable in its ordinary use, and 
 
TO FACILITATE EOBBEEY? SOS 
 
 renders the temporary removal of the sponge or towel from 
 the face, in order to allow respiration to be resumed, and the 
 glottis time to become tolerant, a rule in practice. Of the 
 practical truth of these statements no one can entertain doubt 
 who has been much in the habit of using chloroform upon the 
 human subject, or in experiments upon animals. Place a 
 mouse, or rat, or rabbit, at the bottom of a tub, barrel, or 
 glass jar, and introduce the chloroform vapor. At the first 
 approach of this vapor, which is heavy and falls to the bottom, 
 the animal, whatever may have been its state of torpor before, 
 will at once flee from it, and by every, possible means seek to 
 extricate itself from the asphyxiating gas. This system of 
 displaciag the atmosphere of the room — ^in which the proposed ' 
 victim may be lying — by the heavy vapor of chloroform, has 
 not, as far as I know, often been attempted in criminal prac- 
 tice. I will allude to but two instances in which it is alleged 
 to have been practiced with success. 
 
 The first case is to the effect that a California hotel-waiter 
 has been accused, tried, and condemned to years of imprison- 
 ment, for rape committed, as is alleged, under the following 
 circumstances: A waiter-girl at the hotel slept in a small 
 room, and the alleged criminal, having learned from a drug- 
 gist that chloroform introduced into the room through the 
 keyliole, by means of a spray apparatus, would render the 
 girl insensible, proceeded to practice upon this assurance. It 
 is alleged that she was rendered insensible by that means, 
 and that the crime was committed. An empty bottle, labeled 
 chloroform, found in the accused's room, completed the cir- 
 cumstantial evidence. The totally absurd character of this 
 allegation is apparent to every one instructed and experienced 
 in the use and in the effects of chloroform. "We will suppose, 
 by way of Ulustratiou, that the occupant of such a room as 
 this girl is said to have slept in may be ansesthetized uncon- 
 sciously by the vapor of chloroform, thus introduced through 
 the keyhole — ^though I regard it impossible. But how is the 
 operator, especially if he be an ignorant hotel-waiter, without 
 the slightest knowledge of chloroform, to know when uncon- 
 sciousness is effected ? How is he to teU when the victim is 
 
304 CAN OHLOEOFOKM BE USED 
 
 ready for the breaking open of the door ? Would the most 
 skilled administrator of chloroform venture to fix the moment 
 that the occupant of any given room would be anaesthetized 
 by chloroform thus introduced into it ? Would he dare to 
 indicate the time which divides the period of unconsciousness to 
 all outward impressions and violence, or perfect anaesthesia, 
 fi-om that of fatal poisoning from chloroform ? Could he tell 
 the moment that it should be discontinued in order to avoid 
 this fatal consequence ? 
 
 I apprehend that such as could would be difficult to find. 
 
 It is therefore obvious that, if this hotel-servant committed 
 the crime alleged, under the circumstances sworn to, it must 
 have been brought about by a most extraordinary combina- 
 tion of accidents, leaving out the question how he himself 
 breathed, and consummated his crime, in the same atmosphere, 
 or rather chloroform-vapor, which rendered his victim insen- 
 sible, and kept her insensible for an indefinite time. 
 
 There are other considerations and physiological facts in- 
 volved in this history, which make it, to my mind, so im- 
 probable that I should need much more than circumstantial 
 evidence to convince me that there is a particle of truth 
 in it. 
 
 The second case comes to me upon the authority of the late 
 President of this Society, Mr. J. F. Miller, and, though the 
 crime alleged was not effected by chloroforming the human 
 subject, it is interesting, as showing the application of the 
 agent to facilitate robbery. The circumstance is stated as 
 follows : A watch-dog, having been shut up in a small room 
 which contained a safe, was rendered insensible and harmless 
 by throwing towels saturated with chloroform into the room 
 from a high window, and, after thus securing the dog, the safe 
 was robbed. The facts in evidence were the towels, stiU smell- 
 ing strongly of chloroform, and the sickness of the dog during 
 all the following day. 
 
 While it cannot be questioned that dogs and other animals 
 may, in this manner, be made insensible, there is not the 
 slightest proof that they are ever made so without an effort 
 to escape from the room in which they are being thus anses- 
 
TO FACILITATE EOBBEBY ? 305 
 
 thetized. They are always conscious, and always try to 
 escape, and, were they possessed of the intelligence of the 
 human subject, always would escape, unless bolted in and 
 beyond the hearing of the people hving about them. While, 
 therefore, chloroform may facilitate robbery when given in 
 this manner to watch-dogs, it remains to be shown that it is 
 possible to thus use it on the human subject. Upon the sup- 
 position that this was a case of the actual use of chloroform to 
 narcotize a watch-dog, it affords the suggestion that, to pre- 
 vent such results, very free openings through the floor of such 
 rooms should be provided, so that the vapor of chloroform, 
 which is heavy, might run down hke water or carbonic-acid 
 gas, leaving the air of the room uncontaminated. When the 
 vapor of ether may be selected, it, being Ught, escapes from 
 the upper parts of the room, and must therefore be introduced 
 at the lower part of the room. I have no knowledge, however, 
 that any criminal charges have been laid at the door of sul- 
 phuric ether. But all that has been said relative to the pun- 
 gent, irritating, and suffocating effect of chloroform, is appHca- 
 ble to ether in an eminent degree. Therefore, these being 
 the facts with reference to the vapor of chloroform alone, when 
 introduced into the respiratory track, it may be easily con- 
 ceived that if to them there be added the towel or handker- 
 chief to the face — ^the usual method — ^wet in the cold and very 
 irritating fluid, but few human beings sleep so soundly as not 
 to be awakened by it at the instant, if they were not by the 
 vapor alone. 
 
 Most assuredly, if it did not produce that result, no robbers 
 need fear them, for they would not be Hkely to offer any 
 opposition to even the removal of the clothes from their 
 backs. 
 
 I am sustained ia these views by much more modern writers 
 than the one quoted. 
 
 The London Lancet for February of the present year (1871), 
 in its editorial comments upon the newspaper story about a 
 lady who went to her bedroom, and was seized by a man and 
 a lad, who, applying a wet handkerchief to her nose and 
 mouth, and rendering her insensible, completed a robbery 
 20 
 
306 CAN CHLOEOFORM BE USED 
 
 and escaped, lea\iag the lady to reooTer from lier insensibility, 
 whicli she did slowly, goes on to state that, although two 
 medical men are stated to have concurred in the opinion that 
 she had taken chloroform, it is far more Hkely that the lady 
 in the case simply fainted from terror. The well-founded 
 belief, he thinks, among the best-informed members of the 
 profession, is so completely opposed to all such stories, that 
 they are not to be credited, and he would be glad to see 
 more of them thoroughly sifted, inasmuch as he has never 
 heard of a well-authenticated case of robbery in which chloro- 
 form was used ; and adds that the common narratives to this 
 effect are often of those people who went into bad company 
 of their own accord, and, having suffered consequences which 
 involve some disclosure, have had recourse to imagination in 
 order to conceal the truth. 
 
 The American Law Beview for April of the present year 
 (1871) furnishes the following account : " A man and his wife, 
 living in hired apartments in London, induced a jeweler to 
 send one of his shopmen to their apartments, with diamonds 
 of very considerable value for inspection. While pretending 
 to look over the jewels, the woman, it is alleged, went behind 
 the shopman, and placed a handkerchief, saturated with chlo- 
 roform or some other stupefying agent, over his mouth and 
 nostrils, while the husband seized his arms. As he became 
 senseless, they pinioned him and made off with the jewelry." 
 Upon this history, the editor of the Times and Gazette, iu the 
 issue of March 18th of this year (1871), remarks that at the 
 trial, " it was not denied that the shopman who was robbed 
 was first made insensible with some narcotic vapor, adminis- 
 tered by inhalation ; and hence it is assumed that the feloni- 
 ous administration of harcotic vapors is a possible and a prac- 
 tical offense, against which Lord Campbell endeavored to 
 legislate in 1851. "We regret," he adds, " that no determinate 
 inquiry was pursued at this trial, relative to the administra- 
 tion of the alleged narcotic vapor. What was it, and how 
 long was the inhalation continued? Physical force is alleged 
 to have been employed, the male culprit holding the victim 
 while the female administered the vapor. The case differs in 
 
TO FACILITATE EOBBERY ? 307 
 
 this respect from many of the cases of alleged felonious use of 
 chloroform, in which a handkerchief holding the narcotic was 
 thrown over the face. The medical profession have often 
 denied the possibility of producing insensibility by this last- 
 named method, while they have admitted that insensibihty 
 could, of course, be induced if the person were to be forcibly 
 held. This case presents, if true, the possible fact of felonious 
 administration of a narcotic vapor ; but, if true, we believe it 
 to be the first case of the kind on record, and we^eg the pub- 
 lic to be reassured on this point, that no volatile substance 
 can be used with felonious intent, unless there be sufficient 
 force present to first pinion and then rob." 
 
 I do not find in the evidence furnished by the report, or by 
 these editorial comments, any reason to accept this as a case 
 in which there was the slightest eflbi-t made to resist the 
 felonious assault, and I therefore reject it as the possibly first 
 case. 
 
 I find but one well-authenticated case in which the attempt 
 was made in good earnest to render sleep more profound for 
 purposes of theft — as is inferred, though no proof is furnished 
 of such intent. This case occurred in Kendal, England, in 
 the latter part of 1851 {London Medical Gazette for November, 
 1851). The person upon whom this experiment was tried 
 was awoke by a man attempting to suffocate him, as is alleged, 
 by means of a rag steeped ia chloroform. In spite of the dis- 
 advantage at which he was taken by his midnight assailant, 
 his cries of " Help ! murder ! " roused the inmates of the hotel 
 at which he was stopping, and, when assistance arrived, the 
 intruder was found the worse off of the two — that is, the most 
 anaesthetized. He, however, was subsequently severely dealt 
 with, according to the report, and an editor of the time sug- 
 gested that culprits of that class be in future put out of the 
 way of repeating their acts by forcing them to take a fatal 
 dose of chloroform. It has recently been reported in the 
 newspapers, and I merely repeat it, without vouching for the 
 reliabihty of the report, that a painter by trade attempted to 
 chloroform the daughter of his employer, in Healdsbuig, Cali- 
 fornia, while she was asleep ; but the strangulation awoke her 
 
SOS CAN CHLOROFORM BE USED 
 
 and she screamed for help. He escaped by sci'ambling from 
 the window by which he had entered the room, though not 
 early enough to prevent recognition by the girl, upon whose 
 declarations he was subsequently arrested and committed to 
 jail, to await trial on a charge of attempt to administer chloro- 
 form, with intent to kiU ! 
 
 The histories of these cases very convincingly show that 
 ■ the felonious use of chloroform, or any similar substance, is a 
 very unsafe proceeding. A more unpromising measure coidd 
 hardly be thought of by the criminal classes. In speaking of 
 this and other failures of attempts to commit robbery, aided 
 by chloroform, Dr. S-now observes, with obvious justness, that 
 they could hardly have been made by professional thieves, 
 who have the advantage of belonging to gangs, who practice 
 and try beforehand the means they employ, and who cei'tainly 
 would never be led by newspaper stories to use an agent so 
 ill suited to their purpose as chloroform. 
 
 As a matter of instruction to those members of the Society 
 who are not physicians, and therefore ar-e not familiar with 
 the uses and the behavior of chloroform, it may be well to hero 
 aUude to some of the unpleasant attendants of the administra- 
 tion of this substance, and to some facts which make it an 
 ineligible agent for the use of robbers : 
 
 1. As to its use to promote the greater security fr'om the 
 disturbance of the sleeper, even were that practicable, the 
 very time that would be consumed in the gradual and cau- 
 tious administration of the vapor — the only possible theo- 
 retical manner of accomplishing it — would so increase the 
 danger- of detection, that few thieves v\ould think of employ- 
 ing it. 
 
 2. During the course of the administration of chloroform, 
 whatever manner may be adopted, the patient or subject, as a 
 rule, becomes excited, often very violent and turbulent, with 
 an irrepressible propensity to sing and shout, which is often 
 so loud as to alarm the inmates of the whole house. He is 
 in a state of wild, chloroformic intoxication. The excep- 
 tions to this rule are so few that no prudent thief would think 
 of running the risk of not meeting one of those exceptions. 
 
TO FACILITATE BOBBERY? 309 
 
 3. Supposing the two preceding obstacles overcome, and the 
 victim thoroughly quieted into a narcotic sleep, a third and 
 very frequent compUcation arises. He begins to vomit, and 
 ■while he generally does not make much noise about it, stUl he 
 may, and he always requires attention, lest fatal strangulation 
 occur. It may be presuming too much to credit this class of 
 criminals with any care whether their supposed chloroformed 
 victims die of strangulation or not, but I think that a common- 
 sense view of the case must lead to the conclusion that, even 
 were chloroform an available agent in facilitating robbery, the 
 knowledge among the criminal classes that the abandonment 
 of their victim with a towel stUl over his face, and to the lia- 
 bilities of vomiting and strangulation, would often add the 
 crime of murder to that of robbery, would have great effect in 
 deterring them from the further employment of it. 
 
 But, in the absence of the slightest proof that chloroform 
 has ever been given successfully to facilitate the robbery of a 
 person who was already sleeping, and in view of these inhe- 
 rent difficulties in the way of its employment for such purpose, 
 together with the history already adduced of the total failure 
 of the only authentic attempts to thus use it, all cases in 
 which such use of this, or similar substance, is alleged to have 
 occurred, should at once excite suspicion that, either the party 
 making the allegation is laboring under an honest delusion, 
 is falsifying for the purpose of concealing the fact that he was 
 in disreputable company, or engaged in some shameful act, 
 or that he is an aceompHce or the real robber. * 
 
 * After tliis paper liad been sent to the editor, tlie following example of 
 newspaper audacity, in the matter of groundless statements relating to the 
 use of chloroform in robbery, appeared in one of the evening journals of 
 this city • 
 
 " On Saturday night, August 18, 1871, the house No. 115 East Seventy- 
 first Street was entered from the rear-basement window, by breaking out 
 a pane of glass, pushing back the bolt, and raising the sash. From the 
 dining-room a quantity of silver plate was taken, and the plated ware 
 broken up and strewn upon the carpet. The sleeping-room of the propri- 
 etor (who was alone in the room) was next entered, the key having been 
 turned back with forceps, and chloroform administered to him. His pock- 
 ets were rifled of one hundred and fifteen dollars in cash ; his studs, sleeve- 
 
310 CAN CHLOBOFOBM BE USED 
 
 As illustrations tend to fix facts and principles in the mind, 
 I will now adduce the history of a very recent case, to show 
 
 buttons (takeni from a shirt he had laid aside for the night), and gold eye- 
 glasses, and also some expensive wearing-apparel of ladies, were stolen. 
 Leaving this room and locking the door behind, with the key on the out- 
 side, the thieves next entered the apartment on the next floor, in which 
 two young ladies were sleeping, by forcing back the key with forceps. 
 Chloroform was here also used by the robbers, and the occupants robbed 
 of a gold watch and chain, gold bracelets, rings, silk dresses, and money. 
 This room was also relocked, and all the upper chambers were ransacked, 
 the family having been dosed with chloroform. Late Sunday morning the 
 family awoke, all severely suffering from the effect of the drug adminis- 
 tered by the thieves." — Evening Post, August 33, 1871. 
 
 To ascertain what was the truth which had given rise to this editorial or 
 contributed statement, that chloroform had been employed by the thieves, 
 I visited the family living in the house No. 115 East Seventy-first Street, 
 and from them learned that it is untrue ; first, that all the family awoke 
 suffering severely on Sunday morning — that, on the contrary, they were 
 all very well, though somewhat puzzled and bewildered at the discovery of 
 their losses, and to find themselves locked in their rooms ; and, second, that 
 one of the young ladies above-mentioned, being of a highly nervous tem- 
 perament, was very unusually agitated and nervous most of the following 
 day — a natural consequence of the alarm and other emotions such a night's 
 exposures, escapes, and losses, would give rise to in a person of such a tem- 
 perament. 
 
 There was but one circumstance alluded to by the family, as, in their 
 opinion, possibly indicating that chloroform had been used, and that was 
 the presence of a fine powder or dust upon some articles in the room 
 where the young ladies slept. Under the erroneous impression that chlo- 
 roform dries, leaving a powdery substance upon the surfaces wet with it, 
 this family and their friends, knowing no better, inferred that said powder 
 or dust indicated that chloroform had been used. Now, as their original 
 proposition that chloroform dries, leaving a deposit of powder, is untrue, 
 their conclusions have no support, and must be rejected. There is no pre- 
 tense that even the presence of the powder showed that chloroform was 
 used upon the proprietor of the house, or in his room. Therefore, there is 
 not a vestige of proof that chloroform was employed in this robbery ; on 
 the contrary, so far as the newspaper statements may be accepted as cor- 
 rect, those operations of the thieves which were most calculated to arouse 
 the sleeping victims were performed before the alleged administration of 
 the drug. 
 
 In short, this case is another and a typical illustration of the thorough 
 unreliability of newspaper reports about the use of chloroform in facili- 
 tating robbery. 
 
TO FACILITATE BOBBERY? 311 
 
 that the principles above declared, based upon an experience 
 of a score of years, are still as unshaken as they were in the 
 days of Dr. Snow. This case, fortunately, is one of the most 
 instructive, with reference to the above principle, of any which 
 has come under my observation, because it first gives the fic- 
 titious chloroform plea, and subsequently the true account, as 
 developed by investigation : 
 
 Immediately after the robbery of a large sum of money 
 from a prominent express company, a newspaper report says, 
 the two employes in charge of the office whence the money 
 was taken turned into their bunks soon after one o'clock in 
 the morning. The double doors were fastened with a bolt 
 merely, which played in sockets fastened to the inner side of 
 the door with nails, and did not reach beyond an inch into 
 the socket of the opposite door. Less than an hour after 
 these two employes went to sleep, according to their own 
 statement, a guard was sent to ascertain the cause of their 
 non-appearance on their usual duties. He found the doors 
 of the office ajar, and, on entering, discovered these employes 
 soimd asleep, and the floor strewed with papers. Failing to 
 rouse the first one he reached, he turned to the other, and, 
 after some vigorous efforts, succeeded in waking him. He 
 then again commenced to work with the other one, and finally 
 roused him from his deep sleep, discovering at the same time 
 a small sponge near his face, which had been used in the 
 administration of chloroform. The supposition was, that the 
 first and most easily aroused took it first, and the other, who 
 was much more deeply asleep, took it last, and the robbers 
 left the sponge at his nose. The room was found thoroughly 
 chloroformed, and it was discovered that the bolt in the doors 
 had been strained, and the nails started by pushing from 
 without inward. 
 
 When they were thoroughly awakened, it was ascertained 
 that the keys of two safes in the room had been taken from 
 one of their pockets, the safes opened, and the robbery 
 accompHshed. The chloroform was so effective that the 
 sufferers stiU felt the effects on their systems thirty-six hours 
 after. 
 
312 CAN CHLOEOFORM BE USED 
 
 This is an account eminently fitted to foster popular im- 
 pressions upon this subject. Almost any jury would decide 
 that these unfortunate employes had narrowly escaped death, 
 having been well-nigh fatally drugged as well as robbed. 
 
 Within a week, however, we are furnished with an account 
 of the other side of the story, which runs in this way : The 
 alleged chloroformed employes, after being roused with the 
 labor described, and seeing a number of waybills scattered 
 around the floor, remarked that they must have been robbed, 
 and, though sleeping heavily when found, as soon as roused 
 one of them declared his opinion to be, that they had been 
 chloroformed, and immediately produced a small spongy lying 
 near him, in evidence that such had been the fact. 
 
 The bolt fastening the door was found bent in a part which 
 showed that it could not have been done by forcing the door 
 from without. 
 
 These facts were soon followed by the discovery that a 
 brother of one of the alleged chloroformed employes had sud- 
 denly disappeared from the locality, and subsequently to the 
 discovery that this fugitive brother was in the possession of 
 several thousand dollars of the stolen money ; and almost at 
 the same time the remaining brother, who was the chief of 
 the two alleged chloroformed employes, makes a full confes- 
 sion of having been one of the principals in the robbery. 
 This confession, though said to be full and truthful, is a re- 
 markable mixture of truth and falsehood, such a medley as 
 only one totally ignorant of the physiological effects and the 
 chnical behavior of chloroform would concoct. One, indeed, 
 the principal of these alleged chloroformed employes, stated 
 that, on the night of the robbery; he remained up after his 
 companion was asleep ; then, dosing him with chloroform, pro- 
 ceeded to perpetrate the robbery. After accomphshing this, 
 his brother, an outsider, joined him, and took aU of the stolen 
 money. 
 
 Putting it into his carpet-bag, carefully excluding such 
 packages as were not negotiable, he proceeded to give the 
 remaining thieving brother a dose of chloroform, and then 
 decamped, carpet-bag and all. A more absurd and iU-con- 
 
TO FACILITATE ROBBERY? 313 
 
 certed attempt to employ the chloroform plea to shield from 
 crime has rarely been witnessed. There is not the shghtest 
 probability, certainly no proof, that the employe first asleep 
 took any chloroform at all. Whj should he ? The priacipal 
 thief, his companion, had the keys of the safe in his pocket, 
 and did not need the use of the anaesthetic to give him easy 
 access to the treasures, and there is no more reason why the 
 thief should have taken the dose he declares he did, when his 
 brother took charge of the carpet-bag of money. It is there- 
 fore very manifest that, if any chloroform was taken at all, it 
 was voluntarily taken for appearance' sake, and therefore all 
 who took it were accompUces in the robbery. This is a typical 
 example of the blunders that criminals, who are unacquainted 
 with the matter, will make in their attempts to falsely account 
 for their crimes, by attributing their apparent unconscious- 
 ness of them to chloroform, or some similar agent. 
 
 There not infrequently come to us accounts of the chloro- 
 forming and robbing of families, including perhaps the watch- 
 dog. These stories sometimes are related by very honest and 
 thoroughly convinced, if not reUable parties. 
 
 The present state of knowledge upon this matter author- 
 izes us to presume that in all such cases, though the rooms 
 occupied by the persons robbed may smeU strongly of the 
 substance, and they may even be affected to nausea by it, 
 neither insensibility nor intoxication has been produced 
 by it. 
 
 It should be taken for granted that robbery attended by 
 such a circumstance has not been committed by a professional 
 burglar and thief alone, but aided by a novice who is familiar 
 with the habits of the inmates of the house or place, whether 
 such inmates were men or dogs, and probably one who is in 
 the employ and confidence of some party having the means 
 of access to the place, the chloroform having been thrown into 
 the room after the robbery, as a mere cover, and possibly used 
 to disable the dog, if there had been one. 
 
 In short, aU robberies attended by evidence that chloroform 
 has been in any way or at any time used, should be regarded 
 as having been managed by persons in the employ of the 
 
314 CAN CHLOROFORM BE USED 
 
 parties robbed ; but it would be mere presumption to regard 
 the chloroform as having been an efficient agent in the oper- 
 ation, except perhaps to kill or quiet a watch-dog. 
 
 All such forgeries are easily detected by consulting experts 
 on the subject, who are generally able to show to the satisfac- 
 tion of any court that what may at first appear as a plausible 
 and clear case of the felonious use of ansBsthetics, is a bare- 
 faced bungle and imposition. 
 
 With reference to the use of these agents for unlawful pur- 
 poses against the will of the person, there are but few authen- 
 tic cases to adduce as examples, but they also show that the 
 allegations relating to them should not be accepted till the 
 circumstances attending them are carefully sifted. One of the 
 earliest, if not the first case of this kind, I find recorded ia 
 the London Medical Gazette for November, 1850 : A young 
 man returning from a dance, late at night, in company with a 
 yotmg woman, induced her to accompany him into a stable- 
 yard. He there took a bottle of chloroform from his pocket, 
 and poured some on a handkerchief, which he applied to her 
 face. She at once tore the handkerchief away, and caUed out 
 in such a manner as to bring a policeman to her assistance, 
 and also secured the offender, who is reported to have subse- 
 quently soothed and finally subdued the rebellious propensities 
 of this maiden by other influences less anaesthetic, but more 
 agreeable and charming than villainous chloroform. 
 
 The case which occurred at Kendal, England, already 
 referred to, may also be adduced in proof of the difficulty 
 of forcing persons to take chloroform under any circum- 
 stances.* 
 
 The two versions of the express-robbery story just given, 
 
 * It is said, though I have been unable to obtain the article, that some 
 physician of Baltimore has recently published an advocacy of the doctrine 
 that the forcible administration of chloroform for any purpose, and particu- 
 larly for criminal purposes, requires a variable amount of force, depending 
 upon the person attacked, thus rendering several accomplices necessary ; 
 and also the doctrine that the attempt to administer it to a person sleeping 
 ■would almost certainly awake him. Hence the author regards the use of 
 chloroform for purposes of robbery ns mostly ideal. 
 
TO FACILITATE IIOBBERY? 315 
 
 the one by tlie thief himself, and the other resulting from sub- 
 sequent iuTestigation, are probably not more discordant than 
 would be the truth and the manufactured reports of most of 
 the alleged crimes committed under the influence of anaes- 
 thetics. Though sufiiciently fictitious, some of these reports 
 are even more romantic than this robbery story. In one of 
 his communications on this subject, Dr. Snow adduces the 
 following highly-imaginative history of the alleged felonious 
 use of chloroform, as an illustrative one of this class. It has, 
 besides, the merit of furnishing a key to the motive of many 
 of these alleged offended persons in fabricating these stories : 
 
 It appeared, in the evidence before the court, that the 
 offender suddenly passed a handkerchief across the face of 
 the complainant in the street ; the two afterward went into a 
 pubKc-house, and were there seen drinking together. After 
 this drinking, the complainant became insensible, and was 
 robbed by the defendant. His insensibihty was attributed to 
 chloroform, supposed to have been on the handkerchief which 
 was passed suddenly across his face before he went into the 
 pubhc-house to drink {Medical Gazette, November, 1850, vol. 
 xlv., p. 327). 
 
 This, Dr. Snow very truly remarks, every one at aU ac- 
 quainted with the action of chloroform knows to be an im- 
 possible story. 
 
 Still more ridiculous are the recent pubhshed statements 
 that a certain corner of a prize-ring was provided with a maga- 
 zine of chloroform, ready to pour its torpefying spray upon 
 the luckless pugilist who might be knocked into, or might 
 voluntarily go " to grass " in his antagonist's portion of the 
 field. 
 
 This ingenious bit of fiction may be highly satisfactory to 
 those fellows who are casting about for methods to avoid 
 fighting ; and it is more generally acceptable than the plan 
 just adopted of taking one of the buUies to the ring, and 
 leaving the other one at home ; but it totally ignores such 
 well-established facts as those of the Kendal case, where a 
 strong man struggles for some time with a weak one, and 
 failed to produce anaesthesia, though the room is said to have 
 
316 CAN CHLOEOFOEM BE USED 
 
 smelt strongly of chloroform. A recent distinguished writer 
 in our own country, in treating of the credibility of the 
 hitherto-reported cases of robbery under chloroform, says : 
 " Several remarkable instances of robbery of persons design- 
 edly rendered insensible by chloroform have been reported in 
 the newspapers of this country ; although they may be authen- 
 tic, we do not feel warranted in further alluding to them while 
 unable to attribute them to responsible sources. It is obvious 
 that a person may allege that he has been robbed or mal- 
 treated after being rendered insensible by chloroform, but 
 also that the allegation may be false, and put forward so as to 
 divert suspicion or awaken sympathy." (Wharton and Stille, 
 " Medical Jurisprudence," p. 501.) 
 
 Eeferring to the case of the jeweler's shopman, who alleged 
 that the wife covered his face with a handkerchief, while the 
 husband held his hands, it must be obvious to any one at all 
 acquainted with the use of chloroform, that the theory of his 
 allegation is preposterous. Would a strong man, determined 
 to save himself from impending suffocation, stand passively, 
 and allow a man and a woman to practice the administration 
 of chloroform on him ? He could at least have fallen down 
 and turned his head away enough to have enabled him to 
 scream for help, like the man at Kendal, or the young woman 
 in the stable-yard. From all the light which practical experi- 
 ence and the investigation of crimes throw upon this case, 
 there seems little doubt that the shopman was a party to the 
 robbery. 
 
 It is at least a very suggestive case, as showing that there 
 is great liability to err on the part of courts in accepting this 
 kind of allegation, unless, upon detailed inquiry into the cir- 
 cumstances and the manner of the alleged giving of chloro- 
 form, they be found consistent with the thoroughly well-known 
 facts and phenomena uniformly attending the administration 
 and the action of this agent. 
 
 Any iuconsisteney such an inquiry might develop should be 
 accepted as indicating honest delusion, studied deception, or 
 a compKcity in the crime. 
 
 I feel convinced that such a test would exclude at least 
 
TO FACILITATE BOBBERY? 317 
 
 nineteen in twenty of all these cases of the alleged felonious 
 use of chloroform and similar agents as mere fictions. 
 
 But as there may be, as in times past there has been, a 
 popular disposition to accept the statements made by the 
 alleged victims of the felonious use of chloroform, and by 
 their friends, as true, notwithstanding what I may say or other 
 authors may say to the contrary, with the single motive of 
 bringing before the pubUc and the legal profession all that 
 may be true and well-authenticated in this matter, I have 
 challenged, and I now repeat it, the production of any proof 
 of the successful use of chloroform on the human subject to 
 facilitate robbery in a single instance. As I have before had 
 occasion to say, when any such proof is furnished me, that 
 robbery has ever been committed by means of the use of 
 chloroform received unconsciously by the person robbed, or 
 given forcibly against the resistance of the person robbed, I 
 will be ready to admit it, and this society will promulgate the 
 fact to the world. 
 
 And I cannot conclude these remarks iu a more truthful 
 and forcible manner than by adopting the language of Dr. 
 Snow, who so long ago said : " The public have been greatly 
 and unnecessarily alarmed about the employment of chloro- 
 form by thieves ; what they really have to dread is, that rob- 
 bers win stiU resort to the old means of the bludgeon, the 
 pistol, and the knife, and not to one which, Uke chloroform, 
 allows the victim so good an opportunity of escape, and them- 
 selves so great a chance of detection."* 
 
 * Since t1ie flr?t pahlication of this paper, Dr. Cuciiel, of Montbeliard, France, was 
 required by a judge (if one of the Conrta to reply to the following quesilon : 
 
 '•Are narcotics', adininii«tered in liquid or gapeoue form, able to produce aneesthepla, in 
 thOKe to whom they are given, po profound that a criminal violation of their person may be 
 co'ninirted without waking them ? '' 
 
 To this he answered affirmatively, but declared his disbelief in the possibility of anes- 
 thetizing by chloroform a sleeping person without waking the person up. Though ihe 
 jnd^e did not name any narcotic, it appears that the doctor understood him to refer to the 
 ordinary anesthetics, and that the question comprehended their exhibition during natural 
 sleep. Hence one of his replies is : '■ It is impossible to anse^thetize a person with chloro- 
 form daring natural sleep, witliout waking him up." Dr. Btilbeau, of Paris, determined to 
 test the truth of this declaration, and during 1872 and 1873 instituted experiments on 
 twenty-nine persons, of all ages, and mostly sulferinji from severe injury, opei'ation. t>r 
 diseasei The chloroform was applied by holding a towel rolled in form of a cone near the 
 no^e. He reports that ationt one in three were anaesthetized without waking. Every pos- 
 ejljle preiiininary preparation was made for, and great dexterity employed ih the-e experi- 
 ments, from which he conclndes that, Ihongli difficult, it is possible to aiiassthetize a person 
 during iiatural sleep without; waking Iiim. As to the application of this fact to Cacilitate 
 crime, he concludes that, while chloroform given during natural sleep may facilitate the 
 commission of certain crimes, it is nevertheless probable that the conditions favorable to 
 
THE MEDICO-LEGAL VALUE OF CONFESSION 
 
 • AS AN 
 
 EVIDEN^OE OP GUILT 
 
 By WILLIAM A. HAMMOND, M.D. * 
 
 It is a very wide-spread opinion that the confession of an 
 individual accused of an offence is the very best evidence 
 which can be adduced of guilt. This view is not only enter- 
 tained by the community at large, but is held by the common 
 and statute law, and enforced by numerous judicial decisions. 
 Thus Blackstone declares that " a confession of the prisoner 
 taken out of court before a magistrate or person having com- 
 petent authority to take it, and proved by two witnesses, is 
 sufficient to convict him of treason." t In a note, Mr. Archer 
 Kyland states that — 
 
 " It appears now to be an estabhshed rule, that a full and 
 voluntary confession by the prisoner, of the overt act charged 
 against him, is of itself sufficient evidence to warrant a con- 
 viction." 
 
 such a use of it will rarely present themselves to those comraitMn;? crime (BniiLXTiir, 
 Tome III. Socigte de Mfidicme L^gal de France, 1873-1874, P. 113). I have heard this 
 report of Dr. Bolbeaii alluded to as disproving the principles ui-ired and advocated in this 
 paper. It is manifest, howpver, that it contains nothing to justify such a view. I jiave 
 never disputed the possihiljty of ansesthetizing a sleeping person wilh chloroform without 
 waking him. This is all Dr. Bnlbeaa has shown to be possible. My challenge to produce 
 one well-authenticated case of its successful use upon a sleeping person to aid in robbery, 
 or oven rape, has not been accepted by the Doctor's report. It still stands an unanswered 
 invitation. If any proof were needed of the truth of my remark, that " cases In which the 
 victim sleeps so profoundly as not to be roused by the suffocating vapor, would sleep on 
 Dndlsturbed by robbers, however numerous or noisy, and therefore not need chloroform," 
 this report of Dr. Bolbeau furnishes it. So far from disturbing the doctrine I have advo- 
 cated in this paper, Dr. Bolbeau has added greatly to its legal and scientific strength and 
 soundness. STEPHEN K0GEE8. 
 
 July 20, 1874. 
 
 * Read before the New Tork Medico-Legal Society, February 9, 1871. 
 
 + Commentariea on the Law of England, vol. x., eighteenth edition, with 
 tlie Last Corrections of the Author, and Copious Notes. By Archer Eyland 
 Esq., of Gray's Inn, Barrister-at-Law, London, 1839. 
 
VALUE OF COBTFESSION AS AN EVIDENCE OF GUILT. 319 
 
 And again : 
 
 " It seems to be now clearly established that a free and 
 voluntary confession by a person accused of an offense, whether 
 made before his apprehension, or after ; whether on a judicial 
 examination, or after commitment ; whether reduced into 
 writing, or not ; in short, that any voluntary confession made 
 by a prisoner to any person, at any time or place, is strong 
 evidence against him, and, if satisfactorily proved, suificient 
 to convict without any corroborating circumstance." 
 
 And again, in referring to several decisions in support of 
 the practice, Mr. Eyland saj's : 
 
 " A prisoner's confession is sufficient ground for a convic- 
 tion, though there is no other proof of his having committed 
 the offense, or of the offense having been committed, if the con- 
 fession was iu consequence of a charge against the prisoner." 
 
 The practice which prevails in courts is stated in aU works 
 upon evidence, and is to the effect that no stronger testimony 
 to the guilt of an accused person can be obtained than the 
 voluntary confession of such person. 
 
 It is, however, a well-recognized principle that a confession, 
 to be of any legal value, must be made without constraint, 
 and without any promise of reward or immunity. This, how- 
 ever, is qtiite a modern idea, even in public law, and is not yet 
 entirely obsolete in social life. It is not very many years ago 
 that supposed criminals were tortured tiU they confessed, or 
 died protesting their innocence ; and it is at this day no 
 uncommon thiug iu the relations of man, as parent or master 
 to child or servant, to endeavor to extract confession by tor- 
 ture of some kind. 
 
 The principle upon which the existing laws, in respect to 
 confession, appear to be based is, that the innate eagerness of 
 man to preserve his life, his health, his Hberty, or his property, 
 is so overpowering, that it is not at aU probable he will say any- 
 thing calculated to put either of these attributes in jeopardy, 
 if he be innocent, and that, consequently, when he does con- 
 fess to the commission of an offense, the punishment of which 
 is death, mutilation, imprisonment, or forfeiture of estate, he 
 must necessarily speak the truth. 
 
320 MEDICO-LEGAL VALUE OF CONFESSION 
 
 I propose in this paper to show that it is no uncommon 
 thing for individuals to confess to having perpetrated crimes 
 of which they were either certainly or probably innocent, and 
 that there are forces in operation in the human mind' which 
 may prompt to the making of a false confession, even when 
 by so doing, life, liberty, or property be ptit in danger. 
 
 Thus we know that, not very many years ago, thousands 
 of individuals confessed to being witches, and to having inter- 
 course with the devil, and this with the full knowledge that 
 such admissions consigned them to torture and death. Many 
 cases are on record in which persons have confessed to crimes 
 for the purpose of saving the really guilty person from punish- 
 ment. Many others have voluntarily come forward, in times 
 of great public excitement, in regard to some crime, and have 
 apparently courted imprisonment and death by acknowledg- 
 ing themselves to be the crimiaals, when very slight investi- 
 gation has shown that they were liars ; and physicians con- 
 stantly meet with patients, not obviously suffering from mental 
 derangement, who confess to having perpetrated offenses 
 which, if really committed, would send them to the prison or 
 the gallows. 
 
 A little reflection, therefore, will doubtless suflice to con- 
 vince all who hear me, that confession, unsupported by col- 
 lateral evidence, is very unreliable testimony. 
 
 A few years ago, my attention was particularly drawn to 
 
 .» this subject by a very remarkable case, which occurred in 
 
 England. The details, are so interesting, and present so 
 
 many points for reflection, that I am sure I will be pardoned 
 
 for stating them at length : 
 
 On the morning of the 30th of June, 1860, Francis SavUle 
 Kent, four years old, was found murdered in an out-house on 
 his father's premises, Eoadhill House, Wiltshire. The throat 
 was cut to the bone, and there was a wound in the chest 
 which penetrated to the heart. The corpse was wrapped in 
 a blanket which belonged to the bed in which the child had 
 slept the night before ; a piece of flannel, such as women 
 sometimes wear over the chest, was found under the body, 
 and a portion of a newspaper, which had evidently been used 
 
AS AN ETIDENCE OP GUILT. 321 
 
 for wiping a bloody knife, lay upon the floor. Nothing else 
 was discovered calculated to indicate the perpetrator of the 
 deed, and even the ownership of the piece of flannel could 
 not be traced. 
 
 Mr.- Kent's family, including servants, consisted of twelve 
 members. The murdered child, a younger one, and the nurse, 
 Elizabeth Gough, slept in the nursery, each occupying a sep- 
 arate bed. Early in the morning the nurse awoke, and found 
 the little boy's bed empty ; but, supposing that Mrs. Kent had 
 come into the room and removed him, she gave herself no 
 uneasiness on the subject, but went to sleep again. About 
 half-past six she again awoke, and, arising, went to Mrs. Kent's 
 bedroom, and knocked at the door. Receiving no answer, 
 she waited tiU her master and mistress had also risen, and 
 then the discovery was made that the child was not in the house. 
 Some time afterward the body was found as I have described. 
 
 Before going to bed the night before, Mr. Kent had seen 
 that all the doors and windows of the house were securely 
 closed. The house-maid, in coming down stairs that morning, 
 had found the drawing-room door and one of the windows 
 open. Supposing that they had been forgotten, or opened by 
 some member of the family for the purpose of cooling the 
 room, she had considered the matter as of no importance, and 
 had, therefore, raised no alarm. There was no evidence of 
 any one having forced an entrance into the house. On the 
 contrary, it was very certain that the murder had been com- 
 mitted by one or more of the inmates, or by some one who 
 must have entered the building and remained secreted in it 
 till the deed was perpetrated. There were no blood-stains in 
 the house or garden, no marks of any struggle, and no noises 
 had been heard by any member of the family. Suspicions 
 fell, by turns, upon Mr. Kent, the nurse, and upon a daughter 
 of the former by his first wife ; but nothing was discovered 
 sufficient to justify the committal of either for trial, though 
 there were one or two unexplained circumstances which, in 
 the minds of some, connected the young lady with the murder. 
 She had been heard to utter expressions of dislike against 
 the murdered child, and had, on several occasions, manifested 
 21 
 
322 MEDICO-LEGAL VALUE OF CONFESSION 
 
 some slight degree of jealousy in regard to him. A night-di'ess 
 of hers was missing, and no satisfactory account was given of 
 its whereabouts. But there was nothing more. As was very 
 natural, she had shed tears when informed of the cause of her 
 arrest, but had borne herself throughout the examination with 
 wonderful fortitude, and apparently with the utmost conscious- 
 ness of innocence. 
 
 For two years subsequently she went to school, and then, 
 entering a semi-conventual order connected with the Church 
 of England, remained in seclusion till the spring of 1865, when 
 she voluntarily came forward, confessed herself guilty of her 
 brother's murder, and was committed to take her trial for the 
 crime. The trial took place. She pleaded guilty to the in- 
 dictment, and, on her plea alone, without any further inquiry, 
 and without the case being sent to the jury, she was sentenced 
 to death. 
 
 From the report of the trial I make the following extract : 
 
 "At nine o'clock the learned judge took his seat on the 
 bench, and the prisoner was placed at the bar. She stood 
 firmly, but meekly, with her eyes cast down, and her hands 
 clasped before her. 
 
 " Silence having been proclaimed, the deputy clerk of 
 arraigns said : 
 
 " ' Constance Emilie Kent, you are charged with the willful 
 murder of Francis Saville Kent, on the 29th of June, 1860. 
 Are you guilty or not guilty ? ' 
 
 " Pkisoner (in a low tone). — ' Guilty.' 
 
 "Judge. — 'Are you aware that you are charged with hav- 
 ing willfully, intentionally, and with malice, murdered your 
 brother : are you guilty or not guilty ? ' 
 
 " The prisoner made some answer, but in so low a tone that 
 it could not be heard. 
 
 " Judge. — ' I must repeat the question : Tou are charged 
 with having willfully, intentionally, and with maUce, killed 
 and murdered your brother. Are you guilty or not guilty ? ' 
 
 Prisoner (in a low tone). — ' Guilty.' 
 
 " Judge. — ' The plea must be recorded.' The plea was, 
 accordingly, recorded. 
 
AS AN ETIDENCE OP GUILT. 323 
 
 " Mr. Coleridge (one of the counsel). — ' Before your lord- 
 sliip passes sentence, I desire to say two things : First — sol- 
 emnly, in the presence of Almighty God, as a person who 
 values her own soul, she wishes me to say that the guUt is 
 hers alone, and that her father and others, who have so long 
 suffered most unjust and cruel suspicion, are wholly and abso- 
 lutely innocent ; and secondly, that she was not driven to this 
 act by unkiud treatment at home, as she met with nothing 
 there but tender and forbearing love ; and I hope I may add, 
 that it gives me a melancholy pleasure to be the organ of 
 these statements for her, because on my honor I believe them 
 to be true.' " 
 
 The learned judge — evidently a kind and generous- minded 
 man — then assumed the black cap, and, with great feeling, in 
 which the prisoner joined with hysterical sobs, sentenced her, 
 as his duty and the law required. And thus, without any 
 inquiry into the character of the influences which had been 
 brought to bear upon her, the tendencies of her disposition 
 while in the religious institution, the sanity or insanity of her 
 mind, her antecedents, or any other point which might have 
 served to throw light upon the case, to lessen her criminality 
 if really guilty, or to weaken the force of her plea if innocent, 
 Constance Kent left the court convicted of the highest crime 
 known to the laws of man. If innocent, her case is one more 
 added to the long list of others — monomaniacs, ecstatics, en- 
 thusiasts, hysterical persons, and liars, who have confessed to 
 the commission of offenses which they did not perpetrate ; if 
 guilty, she is, so far as I know, the solitary instance of an in- 
 dividual confessing to a crime, and being sentenced to death 
 upon no other evidence than that of admission. Men and 
 women, before this, have, in the face of overwhelming testi- 
 mony against them, or while in a drunken debauch, or on 
 their death-beds, or standing on the scaffold, with no hope of 
 escape, or unintentionally, like the robbers and the cranes of 
 Ibycus, confessed their crimes ; but, if any criminal of sane 
 mind has ever yet voluntarily supplied aU the evidence which 
 could consign him or her to an ignominious grave, the case 
 has escaped my observation. 
 
324 MEDICO-LEGAL VALUE OF CONFESSION 
 
 Such are tlie main facts immediately connected with this 
 most extraordinary casa, and which is rendered still more ex- 
 traordinary from the real or supposed discovery of the crim- 
 inal. That she may have committed the murder is beyond 
 question ; that she did commit it is, in my opinion, a matter 
 of grave doubt. 
 
 At the time of the murder, Constance Kent was in her six- 
 teenth year. Her mother had died a lunatic several years 
 previously ; and she herself, though described as a girl of a 
 warm and generous disposition, was considered to possess a 
 rather duU and sluggish intellect. At the time of the trial it 
 was stated that she was an exceedingly plain-lookiog young 
 woman, with a broad, full, uninteresting face, which wore 
 more an expression of stupid dullness than one of intelligence. 
 She had full, large eyes, glanced uneasily around her, as if 
 expecting some danger, and had, apparently, none of that 
 cunning and shrewdness which it would be supposed she must 
 necessarily have possessed. 
 
 When arrested soon after the murder, her behavior was, as 
 I have said, in the highest degree admirable. She evinced a 
 proper amount of feeHng, denied all knowledge of the crime, 
 and, when questioned in regard to the dead child, said : " The 
 last time I saw him was in the evening when he went to bed. 
 He was a very merry, good-tempered lad, and fond of romp- 
 ing. I was accustomed to play with him often — I had done 
 so on that day. He was fond of me, and I was fond of 
 him." 
 
 Did she commit the murder ? "What evidence was there of 
 the fact beyond her own voluntary confession? It may 
 safely be assumed that there was none. None was brought 
 against her at the trial, and it is not to be supposed that in a 
 country hke England, where the law is rigidly enforced 
 against peer and pauper alike, and in which the regard for 
 human life is at its maximum, she would have been allowed 
 to Hve qiiietly for five years undisturbed by those who had 
 never lost sight of the murder. The great mass of the people 
 who read about the affair said, " "What more is required ? 
 She has confessed herself to be guilty, and therefore she must 
 
AS AN EVIDENCE OF GUILT* 325 
 
 be guilty." Let us see what warrant there is for such an 
 assumption. 
 
 After two years passed at a boarding-school, during which 
 it was a common subject of remark that she was very eccen- 
 tric in her demeanor, Constance Kent entered St. Mary's Col- 
 lege, Brighton, a sort of hybrid convent with a rector and a 
 lady-superior. Here she was undoubtedly subjected to the 
 action of influences calculated to exalt her cerebral sensibihty, 
 already abnormally heightened by hereditary predisposition 
 and the action of the causes to which I have already alluded. 
 Let us suppose, for the sake of the illustration, that she 
 entered the quasi convent thoroughly conscious of her inno- 
 cence. She knew that she was suspected. She had been 
 arrested as the murderess, but discharged for want of evi- 
 dence. During the two years or more subsequently, she had 
 heard numerous disputes among her school-fellows in regard 
 to her guilt. The nurse had been arrested, and, though also 
 discharged, labored under the suspicion of being the criminal, 
 and was in consequence unable to procure employment. 
 Whisperings, too, which had reached her ears, had been going 
 on against her father. It was said that he had had an intrigue 
 ■with, the nurse, and had killed the child — who had awoke while 
 he was in the room — to save his own reputation. Crushed to 
 the earth by these reports, he had buried himseK in obscurity, 
 a broken-hearted and a ruined man. Brooding over these 
 thoiTghts and many others that must have forced themselves 
 upon her, taught that self-mortification was one of the highest 
 privileges of mankind, and thinking for years about the horri- 
 ble events of that dreadful night, would it be a subject for 
 astonishment if Constance Kent had come in time to think 
 herself the murderess, and been brought to believe it her duty 
 to reheve her friends from suspicion, and to save her own soul 
 by taking the guilt upon herself ? Had she not before her the 
 example of her Lord and Saviour, who came down from heaven 
 and assumed the sins of a wicked world in order that man 
 might be saved ? Do we not know, by our daily experience 
 in observations of our fellow-men, that the mind, by constantly 
 entertaining the most preposterous ideas, finally accepts them 
 
326 MEDICO-tEGAl VALUE OP CONCESSION 
 
 as true? It is said, and doubtless with truth, that the mosl 
 false and improbable story, if frequently told, is eventually so 
 deeply impressed upon the mind of the relator, that he reUg- 
 iously believes in its genuineness. 
 
 A mere dream is, in certain states of the system, undistin- 
 guishable from realities. A patient, a lady with deranged 
 menstrual function, informed me a few days since that she 
 had risen in the night and gone to visit a gentleman of her 
 acquaintance, who lived in a distant part of the city, and had 
 stayed in his house all night. Thorough inquiry showed be- 
 yond the possibility of a doubt that there was not a word of 
 truth in her story ; that she had not left the house at all, and 
 that the gentleman in question was not at the time in the 
 city. Doubtless the whole series of events had no other 
 foimdation than a vivid dream. In the middle ages spontane- 
 ous orgasm made many a woman consider herself subjected to 
 the influence of the devil. We know, too, that most children 
 are incapable of discriminating between the phantoms of 
 dreams and actual events, and they are frequently punished 
 for lying when they firmly believe they have spoken the truth. 
 I have often had children give the most circumstantial and 
 serious accounts of their interviews with fairies and ogres, 
 which accounts were clearly attributable to dreams. 
 
 A desire for notoriety will sometimes be the predominant 
 force in causing a false confession. A few months ago I was 
 requested by Colonel Whitely, the chief detective officer of 
 the Government, to visit, in the Tombs prison, a man who had 
 confessed himself to be a member of a gang of counterfeiters. 
 This individual had written a letter to the Secretary of the 
 Treasury, in which he detailed in the most consistent and 
 minute manner the organization of the band, and as members 
 of which he gave the names of the most eminent and respect- 
 able citizens of the United States, of both political parties. 
 His statements were believed, and Colonel Whitely was 
 directed to investigate the whole afifair with the utmost 
 secrecy and completeness. Colonel Whitely, with the perspi- 
 cuity for which he is noted, soon had his suspicions excited 
 that the man's story was a fabrication. Nevertheless, the 
 
AS AN EVIDENCE OF GUILT. 327 
 
 evidence the fellow had sent to Washington was so far cred- 
 ited that it was under consideration whether or not the alleged 
 members of the band, embracing governors of States, senators, 
 representatives, high officers of the army and others, should 
 be arrested. At this juncture. Colonel Whitely requested me 
 to examine the man. I found him perfectly coherent, but 
 wavering and contradictory in his statements. Examination 
 of the skull showed that he had received a wound from a mus- 
 ket-ball, and this, with the facts that he did not sleep, that he 
 had cerebral congestion, and was evidently laboring under a 
 delusion, convinced me that he was a fitter subject for the 
 lunatic asylum on Blackwell's Island than for a prison, and I 
 accordingly had him sent there. In this case a desire for 
 notoriety and the self-inflation resulting from the association 
 of his name with others of exalted station, had been the primary 
 force of his action, and had eventually rendered him insane. 
 
 A mere confession — especially one made under such cir- 
 cumstances as that of Constance Kent — ^is not sufficient evi- 
 dence of guilt. We know that men and women have often 
 avowed a criminality which did not exist, and which they have 
 persisted in claiming for themselves till they yielded up their 
 lives on the gallows, or at the stake. Do we believe that 
 Father Gaufridi was guilty of bewitching more than a thou- 
 sand women, and of worshiping the devil, because he con- 
 fessed these things, and was burned at the stake in expiation 
 of his self-imposed crimes? Do we credit the acknowledg- 
 ments of Sister Marie de Sains, of the Brigettine convent at 
 Lisle, that she had committed hundreds of murders, strangled 
 numberless children, ravaged graves, breakfasted with devils, 
 and perpetrated thousands of unheard-of sacrileges and bar- 
 barities ? 
 
 In those days a woman who confessed to being a witch was 
 put to death without fail, and yet we read, in the book entitled 
 the " Malleus Maleficarum ; or, the Hammer of the Sorcerers," 
 that a woman who was in the hands of the inquisitors assured 
 them that she repaired really and bodily whither she would, 
 and that, even were she shut up in prison and strictly guarded, 
 and let the place be ever so far off. 
 
328 MEDICO-LEGAL VALUE OF CONEESSION 
 
 The inquisitors ordered her to go to a certain place, to 
 speak to certain persons, and bring back news of them. She 
 promised to obey, and was directly locked up in a chamber 
 •where she lay down extended, as if dead. They went into 
 the room and moved her, but she remained motionless, and 
 without the least sensation, so that when they put a lighted 
 candle to her foot and burnt it she did not feel it. A httle 
 while after she came to herself, and gave an account of the 
 commission they had given her, saying she had had a great 
 deal of trouble to go that road. They asked her what was 
 the matter with her foot. She said it hurt her veiy much 
 since her return, and knew not whence it came. 
 
 Then the inquisitors declared to her what had happened — 
 that she had not stirred from her place, and that the paLa in 
 her foot was caused by the application of a lighted candle 
 during her pretended absence. The thing having been veri- 
 fied, she acknowledged her folly, asked pardon, and promised 
 never to fall into it again. — (Golunt.) 
 
 The value of confession as an evidence of guilt is over- 
 estimated, and should, in my opinion, never be accepted, 
 unless confirmed by collateral evidence. The practice of re- 
 quiring an accused person to plead at all is in itself absurd, 
 and contrary to sound psychological science. It is the busi- 
 ness of the government to prove the offense irrespective of 
 what the prisoner may say ; and this was not done ia the case 
 of Constance Kent. 
 
 Moreover, due weight has not been given by the law to 
 those inherent forces of our organization, those mysterious 
 promptings of our nature, which so often cause us to take 
 dangerous risks, and which, as we have seen, may urge to a 
 false confession. "When an idea of the kind has taken pos- 
 session of the miud, it rules with overwhelming power. 
 
 In speaking of the absurdity of employing torture to get at 
 the truth, Beccaria, in his remarkable " Essay on Crimes and 
 Punishments," says : " Every act of the will is invariably in 
 proportion to the force of the impression made on our senses, 
 and the sensibility of every man is limited. The impression 
 of pain, then, may increase to such a degree that, occupying 
 
AS AN ETtDENCE OE GUILT. 329 
 
 the mind entirely, it will compel the sufferer to use the short- 
 est method of freeing himself from torment. His answer, 
 therefore, wUl be an effect as necessary as that of fire, or 
 boiling -water, and he will accuse himseK of crimes of which 
 he is innocent, so that the very means employed to distinguish 
 the innocent from the guilty wOl most effectually destroy all 
 difference between them." 
 
 Can there be a doubt that what is true of bodily torture is 
 equally applicable to the mental torture of an irresistible and 
 ungratified desire, such as may have filled the mind of Con- 
 stance Kent ? Here I might close these very imperfect re- 
 marks, but I feel impelled to say an additional word in regard 
 to the principal case upon which they are based. Into the 
 question of the guilt or innocence of Constance Kent I have 
 not entered ; I have only contended that her criminality is 
 not satisfactorily established by her confession. But, from 
 the stand-point that she actually did commit the murder, a 
 few points suggest themselves : 
 
 It must be recollected that Constance Kent at that time 
 was of an age when women are peculiarly sensitive, and, as it 
 were, instinctive in their feelings. Their Kkes and dislikes are 
 conceived upon the most trivial and often most erroneous 
 grounds ; they are subject to very whimsical and reaUy un- 
 governable fancies ; their nervous systems are disordered, and 
 thoughts may be conceived and acts committed which, at a 
 subsequent period, would fill their minds with horror. Numer- 
 ous instances of the kind have come under my observation, 
 and physicians generally will doubtless recognize the truth of 
 what I say. Though, in the great majority of young girls who 
 are brought up under proper influences, these psychological 
 evidences of the great change the organism is undergoing 
 rarely make themselves manifest to any but those with whom 
 they are thrown into the most intimate relation, this is, unfor- 
 tunately for human nature, not always the case. A slight 
 derangement in the physiological processes which are going 
 on may produce simply an appetite for chalk or slate-pencils. 
 A transient vertigo may cause a radical and permanent change 
 of character. An almost unnoticed congestion of the brain 
 
330 MEDICO-LEGAL VALUE OF CONFESSION 
 
 may prompt to the commission of a horrid crime. Even an 
 adult man is never the same after as before an attack of cere- 
 bral congestion or haemorrhage. From having been kind, 
 considerate, and gentlemanly, he may become changed to a 
 being of morose and brutal instincts, which it is impossible for 
 him to restrain within bounds. With how much greater force 
 would these or similar influences act upon the impressionable 
 nervous organism of a young girl when at the most suscepti- 
 ble and critical stage of her existence ! To hold her legally, 
 morally, or physiologically, accountable for their effects, would 
 be about as sensible and as logical as to blame her for having 
 a club-foot or a distorted face. And if, in addition, we 
 find her hereditarily predisposed to insanity, we should still 
 less be disposed to beheve in her criminahty. Society might 
 punish her for its own protection, but punishment in such a 
 case would be a necessary evil. 
 
 At a period of her life, therefore, when Constance Kent re- 
 quired the most tender and considerate care, she was without 
 the support and counsel which none but a mother can give. 
 Under the influence of morbid ideas conceived by an unhealthy 
 mind, she, according to her confession, perpetrated a deed the 
 memory of which subsequently excited in her no other emo- 
 tions than those of anguish and remorse. That a child of her 
 low order of intellect should have murdered her brother so 
 guardedly as to leave no traces to connect her with the act, 
 should have undergone the most searching examination with- 
 out the shadow of a suspicion being proved against her, and 
 should for five years retain in her own bosom the great secret 
 of her life, can only be explained upon the supposition that 
 she acted from an insane and irresistible impulse, and that the 
 cunning which enabled her to baffle the officers of the law was 
 fully as abnormal in its character. 
 
 The feeHng which prompts us to sympathize with this un- 
 fortunate girl may be called maudhn sentimentality and the 
 offspring of false science ; but every physiologist knows that 
 it is based upon those mysterious but nevertheless well-recog- 
 nized laws of life which, if, as is necessarily the case, of no 
 force in a court of justice, organized for the protection of 
 
AS AS ETIDENCE OF GUILT. 331 
 
 society, are influential with those -who are not altogethei 
 ignorant of the relations which exist between mind and mat- 
 ter, and wUl doubtless be taken into consideration by the 
 infallible and merciful Power which created them. 
 
 Yet her punishment was not altogether untempered with 
 mercy ; for, in deference to the known feeling on the subject, 
 it was first commuted to penal servitude for life, and subse- 
 quently to transportation for the same period. 
 
-:#i 
 
MORITZ ELLINGER. 
 
 Foe many years Moritz Elliiiger has held tlie position of 
 Corresponding Secretary of tlie Medico-Legal Society, and 
 lias been in close and intimate relations with the labors that 
 have been put forth to bring the body into that prominence 
 which it now has. Born in Fiirth, Bavaria, in 1830, educated 
 under the most careful teachings, he is probably the best lin- 
 guist in the body. 
 
 Learned in the lore of the ancient languages, with German 
 as his mother tongue, he is one of the most graceful writers of 
 English in American journalism, of which he is a prominent 
 member. 
 
 His attention was drawn to forensic medicine, in 1872, by 
 Mr. Bell, who induced him to enter the society, since which 
 date he has thrown himself into the work as the personal friend 
 and co-worker of the president, and, more than any otlier man, 
 has helped in the progress and growth of the society. 
 
 Mr. EUinger is a fluent and graceful speaker, a careful 
 student of the science of forensic medicine, and is, while neither 
 a lawyer nor a physician, a representative man of the type of 
 those who have devoted their lives to scientific attainments, of 
 which medical jurisprudence has been his favorite study. 
 
 His peculiar and valuable learning was doubtless the I'eason 
 of his election as Coroner of the City of New York, an ofiice 
 to which he gave distinction, and helped to inaugurate the se- 
 lection of abler and educated men to this important office in 
 the American metropolis. He has contributed to the literatui'e 
 of forensic medicine a paper on the " Malleus Maleficarum," 
 "Moral Kesponsibility," "Hypnotism," among other papers. 
 He is the Chairman of the Sub-committee of Arrangements for 
 the International Medico-Legal Congress, to be held in lHew 
 York in June, 1889, in the success of which he takes a great 
 interest. C. B. 
 
SUGGESTIONS EELATIVE 
 
 TO THE 
 
 SEQUESTEATION OF THE FEESOJS" 
 
 OF 
 
 bt r. l. parsons, m.d* 
 
 "Within tlie past few Tears, the methods of committing pa- 
 tients to asylums for the insane have attracted considerable 
 attention, and have occasioned no little discussion ia this 
 country. The people, who are naturally jealous and sensitive 
 on the subject of their personal Hberty and rights, have been 
 rendered, perhaps, unduly sensitive in regard to the confine- 
 ment of sane persons in lunatic asylums, through the influence 
 of certain sensational novels that have gained a wide circula- 
 tion through the distorted representations of patients who 
 have been discharged when yet uncured, and also from the 
 fact that sane persons sometimes actually are confined as lu- 
 natics. Hence it is not surprising that men have attempted 
 to secure the enactment of laws in several of the States, to the 
 effect that no person shall be confined as a lunatic without a 
 jury-trial. In one of the States such a law has been 
 enacted. 
 
 On the other hand, medical superintendents of asylums are 
 disposed to favor those methods that are least likely to prove 
 
 * Read before the Society, March 9tli, 1871. 
 
SEQUESTRATION OP ALLEGED LUNATICS. 333 
 
 causes of irritation and annoyance to the patient, and that 
 offer as few obstructions as possible to early hospital care and 
 treatment. 
 
 It is not surprising that the popular sentiment should be in 
 favor of the greatest possible safeguards against the confine- 
 ment of sane persons in asylums for the insane. The possi- 
 bility of such an event is disagreeable in itself, for, if one 
 person may be unjustly confined and branded as a lunatic, why 
 may not another ? Who, in fact, can feel assured of his per- 
 sonal hberty ? But the loss of personal hberty may not be 
 the most serious consequence involved ; for the mistake may 
 soon be discovered and liberty regained. In the mean time, 
 however, the property of the alleged lunatic may be badly 
 managed, squandered or appropriated by incompetent or dis- 
 honest relatives ; or his children may make unfortunate aUi- 
 anees or associations ; or they may so lose in respect for their 
 parent as to be thereafter beyond his influence. While con- 
 fined within the walls of an asylum, physical injuries may be 
 received from some of the irresponsible persons with whom he 
 is associated ; or his mind may be unfavorably affected through 
 chagrin, wounded pride, a sense of injustice, or through local 
 associations and disturbing influences. If there be a predis- 
 position to insanity, these causes may be suflBcient to induce 
 an attack of the disease. Conditions that are favorable to 
 persons who are insane, may be unfavorable to those who are 
 not. When the alleged lunatic has been discharged as not 
 insane, his disabihties and annoyances are by no means at an 
 end. It wiU be foimd that many persons stiU entertain feel- 
 ings of distrust toward those upon whom a suspicion of 
 insanity has rested, even though this suspicion has been de- 
 clared unfounded by competent authority. On account of 
 this distrust, his business prospects are likely to be less favor- 
 able and his social relations less pleasant than before. Dread 
 of recommitment to an asylum may prove a stiU further and 
 not unfounded source of annoyance, for it unfortunately hap- 
 pens that the simple fact of a previous commitment is often 
 considered a strong argument in favor of the propriety of a 
 recommitment. 
 
334 SUGGESTIONS KELATIVE TO lI^ 
 
 Arguments like the above are urged in favor of what are 
 supposed to be the strong safeguards of a jury-trial. 
 
 Alienists are, without exception, opposed to the method of 
 trial by jury, for reasons like the following : 
 
 A jury of six, or any other number of unprofessional men, 
 is utterly incompetent to decide regarding the sanity or in- 
 sanity of a doubtful case ; and it is only on account of those 
 that are not evidently and unmistakably insane, that a jury- 
 trial is proposed. Even with the aid of skilled specialists in 
 insanity, the jurymen cannot be expected, within the period 
 of a few days, to learn and thoroughly understand principles, 
 and to appreciate the significance of manifestations, that have 
 required the careful study of men equal to themselves in in- 
 telligence, for long periods of time and under the most favor- 
 able circumstances. The opportunities afforded in a court- 
 room for the direct study of a doubtful case of lunacy are 
 exceedingly unfavorable ; for many persons who are really 
 insane are able to conceal their delusions, and to conduct 
 themselves in a becoming manner, while undergoing a pubhc 
 examination that they are aware is to decide the question 
 regarding their sanity. Hence, if the jurymen make a rational 
 decision, they must adopt the opinions of the medical experts ; 
 or, in other words, the medical experts virtually decide the 
 case. If the experts disagree, it is hardly to be expected that 
 the jury will elicit truth from the resulting uncertainty and 
 confusion. 
 
 The probability that a jury-trial will be entirely barren of 
 good results is not the chief objection, however, to this method 
 of ascertaining the mental status of alleged lunatics, and of 
 securing their admission to asylums for care and treatment. 
 The chief objection is, that a jury-trial is likely to injm-e the 
 patient. 
 
 The insane are often so debilitated by physical disease 
 before the necessity of sending them to an asylum is fully 
 realized, that dispatch and an avoidance of all disturbing in- 
 fluences are of the utmost importance. The delay of a single 
 day may jeopardize the life of the patient. Starvation is often 
 imminent through want of knowledge on the part of friends 
 
SEQUESTRATION OF ALLEGED LUNATICS. 335 
 
 of tlie real condition of the patient, or through lack of tack or 
 skill in administering the necessary food. The mental excite- 
 ment is often such that the patient needs to be kept in the 
 greatest possible quietude and seclusion. The pubhcity of a 
 court-room would tend greatly to increase such a state of ex- 
 citability, and would perhaps destroy the chances of a .cure. 
 
 Again, many sensitive patients would be as much annoyed 
 by having the question of their sanity submitted to a jury for 
 a decision as they would if they should be arraigned before 
 a court of justice on a criminal charge. After recovery had 
 taken place their objections to such a course of procedure 
 would be in nowise dimiaished ; for then they would fully re- 
 alize that calamities and weaknesses, which should have been 
 respected and concealed, have been unnecessarily and unjusti- 
 fiably paraded before a curious and unsympathizing public. 
 
 The objections just mentioned would also be understood 
 and appreciated by the relatives and friends of the insane ; 
 and hence, in order to avoid the publicity and the dangers in- 
 separable from a jury-trial, the advantages of asylum-treat- 
 ment would not be secured until the latest possible moment. 
 The most favorable opportunity for efficient treatment would 
 thus oftentimes be lost, for it is a well-established fact that a 
 very large percentage of the patients who are admitted to 
 asylums soon after the commencement of the disease are 
 cured, while the prognosis in the case of those who are kept 
 at home for a considerable period of time is decidedly unfa- 
 vorable. 
 
 The three great objections, then, to the method of commit- 
 ting insane patients to asylums through the medium of a jury- 
 trial are these : 1. That the method is inefficient. 2. That the 
 patients are very liable to be injured directly by the delays 
 and excitements inseparable from the process ; and, 8. That 
 theyare Hable to be injured indirectly by being kept at home, 
 on account of the prejudice of their friends against a jury- 
 triaL 
 
 Some medical superintendents of asylums for the insane 
 are strongly of the opinion that there should be no greatei 
 difficulties in the way of placing an insane patient in a lunatic 
 
336 SUGGESTIONS EELATIVE TO THE 
 
 asylum tlian of placing a case of fever in an ordinary hospital. 
 They hold that, if it is proper to confine a delirious person 
 to his room or bed without a legal process, it is quite as 
 proper and sensible to confine a person whose mental inca- 
 pacity is similar in character, but only a little more chronic in 
 form, in an asylum without a legal process. The patient ia 
 sick ; he needs treatment. He is incapacitated from judging 
 of what is best for himself ; his friends should be allowed to 
 judge for him. Thus the proper steps would be taken at the 
 proper time by those most interested in the welfare of the de- 
 ranged person ; while aU publicity, excitements and annoy- 
 ances of every kind would be avoided. Especial provision 
 might easily be made to prevent the confinement of sane per- 
 sons in asylums by a regular and systematic inspection of all 
 such institutions by competent and legally-constituted author- 
 ities. 
 
 Here we have the extreme views of men who look at the 
 same subject from different stand-points. The one party, 
 having especial regard to the interests of those who are not 
 insane, desire to so hedge about the entrance to our asylums 
 as to render the admission of an improper subject an impos- 
 sibility. The other party, looking rather to the best interests 
 of the insane, desire to have all obstructions removed that 
 wlU have a tendency to hinder their early and facile admis- 
 sion. 
 
 Neither of these views has gained the public confidence 
 to any great extent. Both are open to very serious objections. 
 Hence in this and in some of the other States a middle course 
 has been adopted by which the most serious of these objec- 
 tions have been avoided. The law of the State of New York, 
 as apphed to New York City, provides substantially as follows : 
 Two respectable physicians are first to examine the alleged 
 lunatic. K satisfied that the person is insane, and needs 
 asylum care and treatment, they make a joint affidavit to that 
 effect before a judge (magistrate). Hereupon the magistrate 
 (judge) commits the patient to an asylum iu due legal form, 
 retaining the affidavits of the physicians as his vouchers. A 
 method similar to the above in all its essential particulars haa 
 
SEQUESTRATION OF ALLEGED LUNATICS. Sal 
 
 recently been recommended for general adoption by the As- 
 sociation of Superintendents of American Asylums for the 
 Insane. 
 
 By this method all the advantages of the other two are 
 gained, and all the disadvantages avoided. Due provision is 
 made for securing dispatch, medical testimony and legal pro- 
 cess, on the one hand ; and for the avoidance of publicity, 
 unnecessary delays and excitement on the other. Theoret- 
 ically this would seem to be all that could be desired. Prac- 
 tically, however, there are some important defects which it is 
 believed admit of an easy remedy. 
 
 Since the year 1847 no less than one hundred and twenty- 
 five persons, who have been committed to the New York City 
 Lunatic Asylum as insane, have been discharged as improper 
 subjects. During a single year forty persons have been dis- 
 charged from American asylums as having been not insane 
 at the time of their admission. Many such oases are admitted 
 every year. 
 
 It would appear, then, that there must still be some defects 
 in the methods by which patients are placed in asylums, or 
 else that there is a failure in complying with the legal require- 
 ments. If there be any such defects or failures, it is of the 
 utmost importance that they be remedied. A-thorough recon- 
 sideration of the whole subject, then, would seem to be de- 
 manded, as thus alone can all the conditions be understood, 
 and more perfect methods adopted. 
 
 The first subject of inquiry should evidently be regarding 
 the nature of the cases that are improperly committed to asy- 
 lums for the insane. Among these may be enumerated those 
 laboring imder the dehrium of fever under the immediate 
 effects of alcoholic intoxication, cases of acute cerebral inflam- 
 mation or congestion, of simple debility, of eccentricity, of 
 imbecOity, of the childishness and weakness of mind incident 
 to old age, cases of feigned insanity, and, finally, those regard- 
 ing which mistakes have been made through lack of a suffi- 
 cient knowledge of mental manifestations in the sane and in 
 the insane, through want of care and thoroughness in making 
 the diagnosis, through too great reliance on the statements of 
 
338 SUGGESTIONS BELATIVE TO THE 
 
 others, and througli fatilty methods of investigation. To 
 these may be added certain cases of transient mania, which 
 have made a perfect recovery at the date of their admission, 
 although they may have presented undoubted indications of 
 insaniiy when the diagnosis was made. 
 
 For the avoidance of many of these mistakes the exercise 
 of care and of ordiaary acumen and medical knowledge would 
 suffice. If a case of typhus fever, of drunkenness, of narcotic 
 poisoning, of acute cerebral inflammation, or of simple physi- 
 cal exhaustion, complicated it may be with alack of knowledge 
 of the Enghsh language, be diagnosed as a case of insanity, 
 the mistake should be considered simply as a medical blunder ; 
 one of those blunders, however, that may prove more detri- 
 mental both to physician and patient than lack of abUity 
 would prove in a case involved in real difficulty. The plea 
 that the patient was at the time of examination quite incapa- 
 ble of exercising his mental faculties would be considered 
 insufficient, for the physical symptoms, if carefully observed, 
 would have sufficed to indicate the true nature of the disease. 
 
 In regard to these cases, however, in which the manifesta- 
 tions of disease are principally mental, physicians, as they 
 have hitherto been educated in their profession, are not 
 without excuse if they sometimes make mistakes. They have 
 not been taught the symptoms of mental disease, they have 
 seen few cases of iasanity, they have not learned those methods 
 of investigation that are most Ukely to elicit the facts. Hence 
 they are distrustful of their own knowledge and abihties, and 
 are liable to content themselves with vague generaHzations 
 that are priacipally based on the statements of interested par- 
 ties, on preconceived notions, and on the appearance of the 
 patient. The appearance of the eye alone has been adduced 
 as the pathognomonic symptom on which the diagnosis of 
 insanity was based. 
 
 The circumstances may, for instance, be somewhat as fol- 
 lows : The family physician is requested to unite with some 
 other physician, whom he shall choose, to procure the com- 
 mitment of a supposed lunatic to an asylum. The physiciaB 
 is positively assured that the person in question is very crazy 
 
SEQtTESTBATION OF AMiEGED LUNATICS. 339 
 
 and very troublesome ; that his natural disposition has en- 
 tirely changed, so that he is now ill-natured and exacting, 
 whereas he was formerly amiable and obhging ; that, without 
 any sufficient cause he exhibits outbursts of passion, during 
 which he loses all self-control, and is considered dangerous ; 
 that he entertains unfounded antipathies against his best 
 friends ; and that his memory is notably impaired. The phy- 
 sician calls on his patient, and is coldly received. He may 
 find .him irritable or even much excited. After in some degree 
 enlisting his patient's confidence, he is entertained with a 
 story of wrongs, neglects, and insults. He sees clearly that 
 his patient is not his former self. The change in disposition 
 he interprets as an evidence of an impairment of the affective 
 faculties; the story of wrongs and insults as evidences of 
 insane delusion. He informs his colleague of the facts he has 
 eHcited, and of the opinion he has formed. The associate 
 physician has httle personal interest in the case ; he is quite 
 satisfied that the family physician is correct in his views ; and 
 he is wiUing to abide by his conclusions. He looks in and 
 sees the patient, however, because the law so requires. The 
 necessary affidavits are then made. 
 
 But the coldness and irritabihty exhibited in the physi- 
 cian's presence may have been induced by dishonest friends ; 
 the statement regarding wrongs and insults may have been 
 truthful. The case may have been simply one in which the 
 mental faculties had become - somewhat impaired, through 
 advancing years and physical infirmities. 
 
 The following histories wiU serve to illustrate certain classes 
 of cases that have been improperly placed in the New York 
 City Lunatic Asylum as insane : 
 
 Case I. — G. M., a married gentleman, about thirty years of 
 age, manifested no symptoms of mental aberration "on his 
 admission, nor yet during his residence at the asylum. He 
 conducted well, was rational in conversation, and came to the 
 asylum of his own free will, although in accordance with the 
 advice of his friends. The history of his case, as given by 
 himself and his friends, was as follows : About six months 
 previous to the date of his admission, he had been induced tc 
 
340 SUGGESTIONS RELATIVE TO THE 
 
 try Ms fortime at the faro-table. For a few evenings he was 
 tolerably successful, when he became more confident, and 
 risked a considerable amount of money, which he lost. He 
 tried his fortune again and again, but almost invariably lost 
 aU the money he brought to the table. He now made some 
 inquiries, and learned that he had been playing against an 
 unfair game. Much annoyed at the idea of having been 
 swindled in this manner, he resolved to study the theory and 
 the tricks of the game, recover the money he had lost, and 
 then stop gambling. He soon became so fascinated with the 
 excitements of the faro-table, and so strongly impelled by the 
 desire for revenge, that he found himself practically unable to 
 pass by a gambhng-saloon without again trj'ing his fortune. 
 In fact, he had acquired the habit of gambhng ; but his men- 
 tal condition was in no way different from that of multitudes 
 of amateur gamblers who squander their means, beggar their 
 families, and even then sometimes continue their vicious prac- 
 tice by acting as aids and decoys in the. service of the profes- 
 sional gamblers who have robbed them of their money. 
 These men are the slaves of a habit that has ruined their 
 morals and weakened their self-control; but this does not 
 constitute the disease we call insanity. In accordance with 
 these views, Mr. M. was discharged as an improper subject, 
 since neither our own observations nor the statements of his 
 friends furnished any evidence of insanity other than that he 
 had a strong inclination to gamble at faro whenever the oppor- 
 tunity offered. 
 
 Case II. — W. S. came to the asylum in handcuffs. He was 
 not communicative, but was quiet in demeanor and connected 
 in his answers. He said that he had been staving in the city 
 for the month previous, and that, during that period, he had 
 spent his time in playing cards and drinking. He strongly 
 averred that he was not then, and never had been, insane, 
 although he had had many misfortunes. His manner, conversa- 
 tion, and appearance were quite in accordance Avith his claim- 
 No delusions or other manifestations of insanity were discovered 
 at the time of his admission, nor yet during a residence of 
 more than two months at the asylum. Before he was discharged 
 
SEQUESTBATION OF ALLEGED LUNATICS. 341 
 
 he told us that he had been robbed of his watch and of a con- 
 siderable sum of money just before he was sent to the asylum ; 
 that he had been drinking pretty hard, and that his landlord 
 had induced him to give him his watch for safe-keeping ; that 
 he (the landlord) had taken seven or eight hundred dollars 
 from between the mattresses of his (patij-nt's) bed, where it 
 had been placed for concealment, saying that his money would 
 be stolen if kept there, and that he would take care of it for 
 him ; but that, when subsequently he asked his landlord for 
 his watch and money, the landlord denied having any knowl- 
 edge of them, and secured his (patient's) arrest ; that he was 
 indignant on account of this injustice, and, being somewhat 
 under the influence of liquor, resisted the arrest, when he was 
 handcuffed and soon after sent to the asylum as insane. Aiter 
 his discharge he sued his landlord for the watch and money 
 of which he claimed that he had been deprived. The testi- 
 mony of Mr. S. was clear, connected, and circumstantial, and 
 was so far corroborated by other evidence that the jury were 
 satisfied he had been robbed. They returned a verdict for 
 the plaintiff. There can hardly be a doubt that, at the time 
 of his arrest, and of his examination by the physicians, he was 
 in a very excited state of mind. He was under the influence 
 of liquor, and believed that he had been robbed and sent to 
 prison by those who had robbed him. He undoubtedly ap- 
 peared somewhat like a maniac at that particular time, although 
 a little delay and a little more care would probably have 
 sufficed to demonstrate his true condition. Not only was our 
 diagnosis that he was not insane when received at the asylum 
 corroborated, but the history of the case subsequently obtained, 
 faUed to show that he had suffered from alcohoKc mania, or 
 from delirium tremens even, at any time. 
 
 Case HI. — J. D., a man about thirty-two years of age, had 
 well-marked symptoms of typhoid fever when admitted to the 
 asylum as insane. He was much prostrated, both mentally 
 and physically. He was received late in the evening. On the 
 next morning he was transferred to the fever hospital, where 
 he died on the fourth day after. 
 
 S. S., a German, about twenty-five years of age, was re- 
 
342 SUGGESTIONS RELATIVE TO THE 
 
 ceived at the asylum, imaccompanied by friends or by any 
 history of his previous condition, or of the causes that led to 
 his arrest. At first he was taciturn, and appeared to be either 
 melancholic or demented. Whenever he attempted to speak it 
 was noticed that his articulation was very defective, like that 
 of an imbecile, and also that he appeared to be dull of appre- 
 hension. It was found, however, that our patient was quite 
 deaf. He could understand spoken words only when they 
 were articulated with great distinctness, and near his ear. 
 When carefully questioned, so that he could understand, he 
 gave a connected and apparently reliable account of himself, 
 which was as foUows : He said that he was a tailor by trade, 
 had no relatives in this country, spoke the German language 
 only, and that imperfectly on account of his defective hearing, 
 which was of long standing, and that he was arrested without 
 any reason whatever that he knew of, while he was quietly 
 walking in the street. He had been accosted by a policeman, 
 but did not understand what he said or what he wanted. He 
 was immediately arrested, sent from place to place, and finally 
 to the asylum. His apparent dementia then seemed without 
 doubt to be owing to his imperfect hearing and enunciation, 
 and his apparent melancholia to the chagrin and apprehension 
 caused by his arrest and detention. He was kept under obser- 
 vation for several weeks, during which time he conducted and 
 worked well, and manifested no symptoms of mental aben'a- 
 tion. An acquaintance finally called, who fully corroborated 
 the patient's account of himself. He said that he had known 
 Mr. S., who boarded in his immediate neighborhood, for a con- 
 siderable period of time ; that he was always quiet and indus- 
 tiious, and that he appeared to be then, in all respects, in his 
 normal state of mind. None of his neighbors had ever 
 thought of Mr. S. as insane. 
 
 Case IV. — C. H. was first admitted to the asylum as a patient 
 in June, 1867. He was very incoherent, and was excitable m 
 manner, although he was generally good-natured and inoffen- 
 sive. He gradually improved, so that in October he was al- 
 lowed to leave the asylum on trial in the care of one of his 
 friends. Three days afterwards he was brought back m a 
 
SEQUESTEATION OF ALLEGED LUNATICS. 343 
 
 state of great excitement. He had evidently been indulging 
 in intoxicating drinks. This he afterwards confessed, but ex- 
 cused himself by saying that his friend had got him drunk in 
 order to get his money. He again improved to a certain 
 extent, but remained somewhat excitable and incoherent until 
 two or three months previous to his discharge. At about this 
 time he received a severe blow on the abdomen from a patient, 
 the effects of which confined him to his bed for several weekfe. 
 He then rapidly improved in mental condition, and was dis- 
 charged as recovered in February, 1870. Oftentimes, when 
 at the asylum, he asserted that he had several hundred dollars 
 laid by in a savings bank. On one occasion while he was at 
 the asylum, and still incoherent, an order on the bank for the 
 money was brought for him to sign. The order was an old 
 one that he had already signed ; but the signature was indis- 
 tinct, and an apparently respectable gentleman who brought 
 the paper asserted that the signature desired was a mere mat- 
 ter of form, as the other signature had been properly made 
 when the patient was in his right mind ; that he simply wished 
 to have the signature made legible in order to save the trouble 
 of proving the fact, and of identifying the original signature. 
 As this story was credited, the affair was not thought of suffi- 
 cient importance to bring to the notice of the resident physi- 
 cian, and the patient was allowed to re-sign the order. Soon 
 after his discharge, Mr. H. returned, and said that he had been 
 robbed of all of his money. He asserted that he had no recol- 
 lection of ever having signed an order for the money at aU ; 
 and also that he did not owe the money to the man who drew 
 it from the bank. One month after his discharge, Mr. H. was 
 again committed to the asylum as insane. No symptoms of 
 insanity, however, were observed at the time of his admission. 
 After keeping him under observation for two weeks, he was 
 discharged as an improper subject. He asserted that he had 
 demanded the restitution of his money, but that, instead of 
 receiving it, he had been arrested and recommitted to the 
 asylum. He subsequently called at the asylum on several 
 occasions, at considerable intervals of time, and appeared 
 always to be of sound mind. He asserted that he did not 
 8 
 
344 SUGGESTIONS RELATIVE TO THE 
 
 taste of intoxicating liquor during the interval between hig 
 discharge and his recommitment ; and there is no evidence 
 that he had done so. 
 
 Case V. — D. P., a German woman, thirty years of age, was 
 brought to the asylum without attendance or any statement of 
 the history of her case. She conducted herself properly, and 
 gave a coherent account of her domestic relations, which, ac- 
 cording to her story, were not altogether harmonious. In fact, 
 she asserted that her husband had abused her on account of 
 some other woman of whom he was enamored. Subsequently 
 her husband called and stated that his wife had entertained 
 the idea that a child they had lost some years before had been 
 disinterred and cut in pieces ; that she thought he spent his 
 money with bad women ; that she thought the people wherever 
 she was, would injure or kill her ; and that she was inchned to 
 quarrel with her husband, although she had never been vio- 
 lent toward him. These assertions of the husband, with the 
 exception of the one regarding her belief in his inconstancy, 
 were not corroborated by a further examination of the patient, 
 who, during the three weeks of her residence at the asylum, 
 conversed and conducted herself in a rational and exemplary 
 manner. 
 
 Case VI. — A. C, a Swiss woman, about forty years of age, 
 was arrested in the street by a pohceman, and was sent to the 
 asylum as insane. Her history was as follows : She had for- 
 merly been in affluent circumstances, but had become impov- 
 erished. She came to the city, hired a small room, and sup- 
 ported herself and her two children by needlework, with the 
 aid of a small income from a piece of property that still re- 
 mained in her possession. Two weeks previous to her arrest, 
 she had been turned out of her rooms because she could not 
 pay her rent. She was almost a stranger in this city, did not 
 know whither to go or what to do, and wandered about the 
 streets with her two children until she became almost ex- 
 hausted. When received at the asylum, she was filthy and 
 ragged. On account of her exhausted condition, and her im- 
 perfect knowledge of the English language, she may have ap- 
 peared to be incoherent to the examining physicians. She 
 
SEQUESTRATION OF ALLEGED LUNATICS. 345 
 
 manifested no real incolierence, however, delusion, nor other 
 evidence of insanity, after her admission to the asylum. 
 
 Case YII. — ^A. G. appeared to be perfectly rational when 
 admitted — ^was said to have been " very wild " when at the 
 city prison. This he explained by saying that he was indig- 
 nant at his unjust detention, and could not speak the EngUsh 
 language well enough to make himself understood, so that he 
 might have appeared, and might have been, excited. He 
 stated that he had been in seven prisons within a few days. 
 This seemed to be an extraordinary statement ; but, on a little 
 further inquiry, it appeared that he referred to the different 
 pohce-stations and court-houses in which he had been held in 
 durance after his arrest He gave a very connected account of 
 his whereabouts after his arrest, and in enumerating the places 
 he saw fit to designate as prisons they really amounted to the 
 number stated. He also said that the Jews were inimical to 
 him, and persecuted Mm. Without further inquiry, it might 
 be inferred that he entertained unfounded suspicions against 
 the Jews that would rank as insane delusions. What he really 
 meant, however, was that certain Jews in his immediate neigh- 
 borhood, who were engaged in the same business with himself, 
 thought that he conducted his business affairs in such a way 
 as to damage their own ; that they had quarrelled with him, 
 and threatened him on that account ; and, as he beheved, had 
 caused his arrest. Now, even if he were quite mistaken in the 
 supposition that these Jews caused him to be arrested, this 
 mistake could not, under the circumstances, be considered as 
 a proof of insanity. Mr. G. was under observation three 
 weeks, and during that time exhibited no evidences of mental 
 aberration either in language or in manner ; nor, after an in- 
 terval of eighteen months, has it been found necessary to re- 
 commit him to the asylum. 
 
 Case YHI. — Miss S. J. talked rationally and intelligently, 
 and manifested no symptom of mental aberration at the date 
 of her admission. She stated that at times she did not sleep 
 well at night, but that she never suffered from deprivation of 
 sleep, as she made up by day what she lost at night. She was 
 about thirty years of age. For the ten years previous her 
 
346 SUGGESTIONS RELATIVE TO THE 
 
 health had been poor. See had suffered much from interna] 
 hsemorrhoids and from uterine disease, for which she had been 
 a long time under treatment, but had experienced only yery 
 temporary relief. Her catamenia were sometimes absent, and 
 at other times diminished. She had an almost constant leu- 
 corrhceal discharge, and suffered from a fistula in ano. The 
 , above points she herself stated at the time of her admission. 
 At a subsequent period a relative gave the following history 
 of her case, as understood by her friends. It will be noticed 
 that this account, in so far as it relates to her physical condi- 
 tion, corresponds very closely with that given by the patient 
 herself : Miss J. has suffered from uterine disease since her 
 first catamenial period, at which time the menstrual flow was 
 checked by exposure to cold. She usually suffers from dys- 
 menorrhcea, which is severe. Sometimes the catamenia are 
 absent for several months in succession. She has leucorrhoea 
 the greater portion of the time, and also suffers from internal 
 haemorrhoids, which sometimes bleed. On account of these 
 maladies, she has been under the almost constant care of her 
 physician for many years past. About two years ago it was 
 first noticed that there was a marked change in her feelings 
 and conduct towaa'd men. She began to intrude herself into 
 their society, would frequent rooms and places where she was 
 most likely to meet them, and would station herseK by stair- 
 cases where they were most Hkely to pass. They occupied 
 aU her thoughts, and were a constant theme of conversation. 
 If some sKght attentions were shown her, they were interpreted 
 as serious in their character, and she would inform her friends 
 that she was engaged to be married on a certain day not far 
 in the future. Before the appointed time had arrived, how- 
 ever, she would either seem to forget her supposed engage- 
 ment, or she would say that the time for the ceremony was 
 changed to a more distant day ; or some new engagement 
 would take the place of the old one. These supposed engage- 
 ments were very numerous, amounting to fifteen or twenty 
 within the period of two years. In some of these cases she 
 had received only the most ordinary attentions from persons 
 who are positively known to have given her no encouragement 
 
SEQUESTRATION OF ALLEGED LUNATICS. 347 
 
 whatever. One of tliem, she was well aware, was at the time 
 under an engagement of marriage to another woman. She 
 has had unreasonable antipathies against her relatives, includ- 
 ing small children against whom she could have had no cause 
 of ill-feeling. She also entertained groundless antipathies 
 against some of her former associates, making slanderous as- 
 sertions against their character. Her notions of her own 
 importance and abilities have of late become much exagger- 
 ated. Within the past two months she has associated and 
 hved with young women who are known to be of bad repute. 
 Patient's father had been of intemperate habits for some years 
 previous to her birth. A haK-brother has suffered several , 
 attacks of mania. The statements of the friends are given 
 in eoctenso, as they embrace all the supposed manifestations of 
 insanity that were adduced. 
 
 It will be observed that in regard to her physical condition 
 her own statement and that of her friends were quite at accord. 
 Miss J. asserted that in some respects her relatives quite mis- 
 understood her, and that in others their statements were ex- 
 aggerated, and their account of her actions not in strict ac- 
 cordance with fact. A friend who was well acquainted with 
 her called at the asylum, and stated that, although he had 
 seen her from time to time, he had observed none of the ex- 
 travagant actions mentioned by her relatives, but that, on the 
 contrary, he had never discovered any great change in her 
 manner, characteristics or subjects of conversation. Miss J. 
 further stated that her half-sister, with whom she had hved, 
 had treated her kindly until the past two or three years, within 
 which time certain differences had arisen between them on 
 account of property, and on account of the too strict super- 
 vision which she thought her sister exercised over her. It 
 would appear that her relatives had never considered her as 
 insane until they were told by her attending physician, six 
 months before her admission, that she was and had been for a 
 considerable period of time insane, and that the form of her 
 insanity was nymphomania. 
 
 Miss J. was kept under observation for the period of three 
 months, and during that time manifested none of the symp- 
 
348 SUGGESTIONS EELATIVE TO THE 
 
 toms of nymphomania, or of any other form of insanity. Tlie 
 conclusion arrived at regarding her case was as follows, viz. : 
 That long-continued and often-repeated local treatment for 
 uterine disease had served somewhat to diminish her natural 
 maidenly timidity and reserve ; that, after passing the age of 
 thirty years, and finding herself stiU unmarried, and under a 
 guardianship that she did not always find agreeable, she had 
 become particularly anxious lest she should always remain a 
 spinster, and had resolved to throw herself upon the matrimo- 
 nial market, with less regard for appearances than was quite 
 in accordance with the more conservative views of her elder 
 sister ; that there was a real change in her manners and habits, 
 but that she herself fully appreciated what the change was, 
 and always retained her normal power of self-control ; that, in 
 consequence of this change in her manners and habits, misun- 
 derstandings, altercations, and ill-feeling had arisen between 
 her and her relatives ; and that, as a consequence of this ill- 
 feeling, prejudiced and untruthful interpretations were placed 
 on her actions and motives. There seemed to be no good 
 reason for supposing that her friends were actuated by any 
 but the most praiseworthy motives when they finally decided 
 upon sending her to an asylum for the insane, but there did 
 seem good reason for beheving that they had been greatly 
 mistaken regarding her mental condition. After her discharge 
 she visited the asylum from time to time, but was not observed 
 to manifest any symptoms of mental aberration. One of her 
 old friends, with whose family she lived for some time after 
 her discharge, and who has often seen her since, states that 
 he has never at any time had any reason to believe that she 
 was insane. 
 
 Case IX. — Miss Montez, when admitted to the New York 
 City Lunatic Asylum as a patient, was about twenty years of 
 age. She was in good physical health, and was above rather 
 than below the average standard of intellectual capacity. 
 Her command of language was good, and she had evidently 
 received fair educational advantages, and been accustomed to 
 the society of people of considerable culture. 
 
 She claimed that she was a daughter of the late Lola Mon- 
 
SEQUESTRATION OF AULEGED LUNATICS. ' 349 
 
 taz and tlie late King of Bavaria, a princess by birth, and a 
 physician by education. She styled herself the Princess 
 Bditha Loleta Montez. 
 
 Her own statement of the history of her past Hfe was some- 
 thing extraordinary. She claimed that she was born in 
 Florence, Italy, in 1849, where she lived tOl she was two 
 years of age, when her mother brought her to America ; that 
 she remained in America about one year and a half, when she 
 returned to Florence, and remained there until she reached 
 the age of seven years ; that she then went to live with her 
 maternal grandmother in Ireland, and remained under her 
 care until she was fifteen years of age, attending school in the 
 meantime, and traveling in England, Ireland, and Wales ; 
 that she then traveled on the Continent two years, in care of 
 an instructor, after which she returned to Ireland, and stayed 
 with her grandmother until she was nineteen years of age, 
 studying medicine a portion of the time ; that she then made 
 another short tour on the Continent, visited Bavaria, started 
 for America in company with the Baroness von Herclotz, and 
 arrived in New Tork eight months previous to the date of her 
 admission to the asylum ; that, on arriving in New York, she 
 immediately went to Baltimore, where she stayed two weeks 
 as the guest of Mr. Patterson, returning to New Tork at the 
 end of this time, where she took rooms at the Astor House, 
 became acquainted with Claflin, Woodhull & Co., delivered a 
 lecture at Steiaway HaU, and, to pass over many other adven- 
 tures, entered a homoeopathic hospital as a patient, whence, 
 after suffering various indignities, such as insulting language 
 and the confinement of her person, she was sent to the asy- 
 lum. 
 
 She also stated, in relation to her pecuniary affairs, as fol- 
 lows, viz. : that, on arriviag in the city of New York, she had 
 in her immediate possession about $500 ; that, subsequently 
 to her arrival, $34,000 in cash was sent to her from Europe, 
 and placed in the care of Claflin, WoodhuU & Co., bankers ; 
 that, aftetr she had drawn $8,000 of this money from the bank, 
 the firm refused to honor her checks ; that she commenced 
 an action to recover the balance, giving the law-firm of Howe 
 
350 SUGGESTIONS EELATIVE TO THE 
 
 <fe Hummel $3,300 as a retaining fee, for whicli amoimt she 
 had their receipt ; that Messrs. Howe & Hummel swindled 
 her out of the retaining fee, and refused or neglected to push 
 her cause further than the initiatory proceedings in court ; 
 that Claflin & "Woodhull still had possession of jewelry of con- 
 siderable value which she had deposited with them, but which 
 they refused to surrender ; that she had sent a brooch worth 
 about $3,000, and a diamond valued at $17,000, to Munich, ia 
 the care of the Baroness von Herclotz, on her return to 
 Europe ; that she had expended nearly the whole of the $8,500 
 she had had in her immediate possession since arriving in this 
 country ; and that, as her remaining funds and her jewelry 
 were now unjustly withheld from her, she had found it neces- 
 sary to go to the homceopathic hospital aforesaid for care and 
 treatment on account of a temporary indisposition. 
 
 The above is a mere abstract of her account of herself, as 
 elicited at the time of her admission. She conversed freely 
 and fluently ; appeared to have a very fair knowledge of per- 
 sons, places, and dates, when not too closely questioned in 
 regard to particulars ; told a plausible and tolerably well-con- 
 nected story ; and was affable and courteous in her manner, 
 although she evidently made an attempt to support her role as 
 princess by her bearing, her language, and her' demands. 
 While telling her story she had the appearance of one who is 
 taking especial care to guard against self-contradiction, and 
 her demeanor was such as to excite a suspicion that she was 
 merely playing a part. Certain discrepancies and contradic- 
 tions in her statements were noticed, that served stiU more to 
 strengthen this suspicion. The existence of insanity in her 
 case was, in fact, considered to be highly problematical. 
 Hence she was immediately placed under close observation, in 
 order that it might be determined at an early day whether 
 she was really insane or not. 
 
 Duriug the first two weeks of her residence at the asylum 
 no new developments were made. She was lady-hke in her 
 deportment, and connected and rational in her conversation, 
 unless her statements regarding her past history should prove 
 to be insane delusions. At the end of this time, however, it 
 
SEQUESTEATION OF ALLEGED LUNATICS. 351 
 
 was reported that she had a sort of fit, or syncope, while at- 
 tendiBg church at the almshouse, about a quarter of a mile 
 distant from the asylum. It was said that she was uncon- 
 scious for several minutes ; that there was atonic spasm of 
 one arm ; and that a frothy saliva, tinged with blood, flowed 
 from her mouth. At about nine o'clock the next evening she 
 had a similar fit. The physicians of the asylum were in imme- 
 diate attendance, and found the patient lying in bed, in appar- 
 ently an unconscious condition ; with her eyes open, fixed and 
 staring ; and with a small stream of saliva, tinged with blood, 
 flowing from her mouth. There was no convulsion and no 
 stertor. Her face was rather dusky in appearance, and her 
 extremities were cold. Her arm when raised fell to her side 
 as though she were profoundly under the influence of anaes- 
 thetics. When the conjunctivae were irritated, reflex action 
 was manifested, although apparently under some degree of 
 voluntary resistance. In a moment, however, she became 
 fully conscious, appearing as though she had just recovered 
 from a deep sleep, or fi-om the influence of anaesthetics. Her 
 catamenia had appeared four days previously, but were in 
 every way normal, while her general health had continued 
 unimpaired. On the next evening, while attending the danc- 
 ing soiree, another fit occurred, resembhng the preceding. She 
 did not fall to the floor, but leaned against the next patient to 
 her, in a posture that seemed to be studied. She was under 
 the observation of the physicians from the first of the attack. 
 The earliest symptoms noticed were a duskiness of the coun- 
 tenance, and almost an entire suspension of the respira- 
 tory movements, although there was no convulsion, and no 
 stertor or other indication of labored or obstructed respira- 
 tion. No effort was made to restore consciousness. She was 
 simply watched ; the dancing going on in the meantime, as 
 though nothing had happened. After about ten minutes she 
 appeared partially to recover, and was led to the door. She 
 then had another attack, and was carried to her room. She 
 was given to understand that severe remedies would be applied 
 in case of a recurrence of her fits. No more occurred during 
 her residence at the asylum. As may be inferred, it was 
 21 
 
352 SUGGESTIONS EELATIVE TO THE 
 
 judged tliat her fits were feigned, or at least voluntarily in- 
 duced. When questioned regarding her fits, she stated that 
 these were the first that had ever occurred. 
 
 Testimony was now sought in regard to her history previ- 
 ous to her admission to the asylum. It was soon ascertained 
 that she had been in New York City for at least several 
 months longer than the period she stated ; that she had had 
 fits, similar to those above mentioned, at the house of a clergy- 
 man, at the Astor House, at the office of Claflin & WoodhuU, 
 and at the Homoeopathic Hospital ; that she had represented 
 herself as an escaped superior of a convent of nuns ; that while 
 a guest at the Belvidere House she took to her bed at the ex- 
 piration of the week for which her board had been guaran- 
 teed, claiming that she was sick ; also that she was an escaped 
 nun, and was pursued, and that she had seen a priest in her 
 room, lying in wait for her ; also that, while at the Belvidere 
 House, she arose from her bed and left the house in her night- 
 clothes, saying, after she was arrested, that she was trying to 
 escape from the priests who were pursuing her. Certain bills 
 incurred at the Belvidere House would seem to indicate that 
 brandy and wine may have had some influence on her mental 
 condition at that time. One or two physicians who saw her 
 at the Belvidere House thought she was insane. Other phy- 
 sicians who saw her during an apparent attack of iUness, and 
 also when in her Jits, thought she was merely shamming. It 
 was reported that, while at the Homoeopathic Hospital, Miss 
 Montez conducted herseK in a very violent and outrageous 
 manner ; that she required to be placed under physical re- 
 straint to prevent her from destroying hospital property, and 
 that she actually did destroy furniture and other property of 
 considerable value. A witness, who was an interne of the hos- 
 pital at the time, and who had abundant opportunities of ob- 
 serving whatever transpired, stated that she was insulted and 
 abused, and that she merely did what any high-spirited woman 
 might have done in a passion of anger under similar circum- 
 stances. The statements of the hospital interne and of Miss 
 Montez, regarding her experience and conduct while there, 
 agreed in all essential particulars. From these statements it 
 
SEQUESTEATION OP ALLEGED LUNATICS. 353 
 
 would appear tbat, in supporting her character as princess; 
 Miss Montez had been imperious and exacting in her demands, 
 that her pretensions had been ignored and ridiculed, and that 
 a quarrel and a scene had ensued as natural consequences. 
 
 From the observations made, and the evidence thus far ob- 
 tained, the decision could not have been otherwise than that 
 Miss Montez was not insane. She evidently was neither mel- 
 anchohc nor demented. Nor yet was her case one of general 
 mania ; for the only symptoms of mania that could be adduced 
 were her exaggerated notions regarding her wealth and her 
 past sphere in life, supposing these notions to have really been 
 insane delusions. From what has already been said regard- 
 ing her deportment at the Homoeopathic Hospital, it is evi- 
 dent that her conduct there was not characteristic of general 
 mania. Her conduct was sufficiently accounted for by the 
 circumstances of the quarrel. Similar quarrels, and very 
 improper and even violent conduct are often observed in per- 
 sons who are not insane. Her violence and excitability were 
 manifested only in connection with this quarrel. At no other 
 time, either while at the hospital, before her admission, or 
 after her discharge, did she manifest similar symptoms. Even 
 if the conduct referred to should be considered as arising from 
 the existence of an insane delusion regarding her parentage, 
 this would afford no sufficient evidence of the existence of 
 general mania. Nor yet could this conduct be considered as 
 an evidence of the existence of a state of hysterical mania ; 
 for there was too much method, too high a degree of self-con- 
 trol, too much persistent willfulness, to accord with this idea. 
 Still less were the symptoms manifested there of epileptic 
 mania, supposing her fits to have been epileptic in character, 
 which, in fact, was not true. If she was insane at all, the case 
 was clearly what is usually termed partial mania, or partial 
 ideational insanity. But in partial mania the delusions are 
 fixed and uniform in their character, and they are recognized 
 and acknowledged by the patient as having been first enter- 
 tamed subsequently to a weU-remembered date or event, how- 
 ever strong the belief may be in the actual existence of the 
 Supposed facts before such date or event. The hypothetical 
 
354 SUGGESTIONS RELATIVE TO THE 
 
 delusions of Miss Montez were neither fixed nor uniform in 
 their character. At the date of her admission to the asylum 
 she stated her belief to be that she was a princess and a phy- 
 sician ; and her account of herself covered the whole period 
 of her past life, leaving no space in time for, and making no 
 mention of, her role as nun. A few months before admission 
 to the asylum she had claimed that she was an escaped 
 superior of a convent, and was pursued by priests. At that 
 time she conducted herself in such a manner as to lead a re- 
 spectable physician strongly to suspect that she must be 
 insane, and the evidences were quite as strong that she was 
 insane at the one date as at the other. There was not only a 
 change in the supposed delusions, but a wide difference ia 
 their character. In the character of princess she was hopeful 
 and exacting; in the character of a pursued nun she was 
 fearful and depressed. Again : at the time of her admission 
 to the asylum she stated that since early childhood she had 
 always known herself to be a princess ; that there was no 
 weU-remembered date or event previous to which she was not 
 aware of her royal descent. 
 
 Her general appearance, beaiing, and manner were at times 
 perhaps, such as at first to justify a suspicion that she might 
 be insane; but, after a longer acquaintance with the case, 
 almost every one who saw her became convinced that she was 
 merely playing a part. Well-educated physicians certainly 
 need not have been deceived. 
 
 To mate assurance doubly sure, however, further inquiries 
 were made, and a gentleman was found who had been weU 
 acquainted with the patient's father, and who had a few years 
 before been tolerably well acquainted with the patient herself. 
 From this gentleman, and from various other sources, all the 
 leading facts connected with her past history were ascertained. 
 It is sufficient to say (in this regard) that aU her extravagant 
 pretensions were entirely without foundation, and that she had 
 practised various deceptions at other times and places. 
 
 Miss Montez was finally informed that a decision had been 
 made regarding her case, namely, that on the one hand she was 
 judged to be of sound mind, but that on the other her account 
 
SEQUESTRATION OF ALLEGED LUNATICS. 355 
 
 of herself was regarded as essentially untrue ; or in other 
 words, that she was believed to be an impostor. Certain facts 
 were mentioned, to sbow that the latter opinion was not 
 without proof, whereupon she was induced to state the lead- 
 ing points in the history of her past life ; and her statements 
 were found to agree in all essential particulars with the 
 accounts already gained from other and diverse sources. The 
 only points of especial interest in this connection were her 
 statements regarding the fits and her assumed character as 
 princess. The fits, she said, were induced voluntarily, al- 
 though she soon passed into an abnormal state that was for 
 the most part, if not entirely, beyond her control. The blood 
 was from her mouth. The role and title of princess, she said, 
 were invented by the parties who engaged her to lecture at 
 Steinway Hall, for the purpose of attracting pubhc attention ; 
 and that she. had subsequently enacted the character then 
 assumed on her own account. 
 
 Case X. — C. J. was fifty-six years of age when admitted to 
 the asylum. He was accompanied by his family physician, 
 and had been told that he was required at the asylum as a 
 witness to the execution of certain papers, for which service 
 he would receive the sum of ten dollars. 
 
 The statement of his case, as given by the family physician, 
 was as follows : " Patient has always had a violent temper, 
 and has often been violent in his language, but never until 
 within two years past has he shown any decided symptoms of 
 insanity. For many months past has thought that his wife 
 kept a house of assignation ; has sometimes exposed himself 
 improperly at the door of his house ; is taciturn and suspicious, 
 and at times noisy, and threatens violence to his family and 
 friends. Is not known to have any suicidal tendencies. Gen- 
 eral health has been good. No exciting cause known, unless 
 it be a wound received on the head more than fifteen years 
 since. No hereditary tendency known. First attack. Dura- 
 tion of the attack about two years." 
 
 On a personal examination, patient conversed connectedly 
 and intelligently. He denied the truth of some of the state- 
 ments of his physician, and others he explained in a way that 
 
356 SUGGESTIONS RELATIVE TO THE 
 
 was at least plausible, and not at all improbable in the nature 
 of things. For instance, he denied that he had ever improp- 
 erly exposed his person at the door of his house, but admit- 
 ted that very early in. the morniug or very late in the evening 
 he might have gone to the door in his dressing-gown, drawers 
 and slippers. After his admission, and during his residence 
 at the asylum, he was kept under close observation, and was 
 found always to conduct himself in a quiet, gentlemanly man- 
 ner ; and to converse rationally, unless, peradventure, some of 
 his statements were based on insane delusions. Of this, how- 
 ever, there was no evidence, 
 
 A few days after the admission of C, J., a protest against 
 his confinement as a lunatic, signed by five respectable citi- 
 zens, was sent to the Board of Commissioners of Charities and 
 Correction. They ordered an immediate investigation and 
 report regarding 1ms mental condition. Since he had been 
 under observation, too short a period of time to render an 
 opinion justifiable without other evidence regarding his past 
 Life and history, the testimony of thirteen persons who had 
 been most intimate with him was carefuUy taken under oath. 
 
 Several of these witnesses were strongly of the opinion 
 that C. J. was insane, while others, with opportunities for ob- 
 serv^ation at least equally good, were of the opinion that he 
 had always been of sound mind. 
 
 The evidence adduced was in brief as foUows : 
 
 Since the date of his marriage, more than twenty years ago, 
 Mr. J. had been irritable in temper and oftentimes abusive in 
 language toward the members of his family. Fifteen years 
 ago, after he had been married six or seven years, he directed 
 his wife to write a very abusive letter to his father in Ger- 
 many, calling him a robber, a thief, and other opprobrious 
 epithets. He had been inimical to his father since his boy- 
 hood, and chiefly because his father had apprenticed him to a 
 tailor, when he himself wished to follow some other pursuit. 
 His wife stated that he had always been too nervous to write, 
 when irritated, or about any subject that annoyed him ; and 
 hence that he had compelled her to write the letter in question. 
 About eight years ago he had dragged his eldest daughter. 
 
SEQUESTRATION OP ALLEGED LUNATICS. 351 
 
 then twelve years of age, from the street to his store by the 
 hair of her head, because, in opposition to the views of her 
 mother, he wished her to leave school and assist in the store. 
 About six years ago he took his son, ten or twelve years of 
 age, ia his arms, and, as his wife and daughter beheve, was 
 about to place him on a range heated to redness, when they 
 interfered and prevented the deed. 
 
 During the past eleven years he had been seen on very 
 many occasions by several witnesses, other than members of 
 his own family, when greatly excited in manner and abusive 
 ia language. Almost eveiy day he would scold in such a loud, 
 angry tone of voice as not only to disturb the inmates of his 
 own house, but also people who lived in the neighboriag houses. 
 On several occasions he had used violence against his wife, so 
 that she carried the marks upon her person for several days. 
 During the past two years his irritability and violence in lan- 
 guage and manner had much increased. He would often call 
 his wife and daughter prostitutes, and the house a house of 
 prostitution. Has been heard to say of them, " I will kill you, 
 I win kill you aU together." At times would look about the 
 house at night, as he said, to see if there were any men con- 
 cealed on the premises. On several occasions arose for this 
 purpose after he had retired for the night, saying that he 
 would see if any of these good-for-nothings were about the 
 house. Sometimes he was good-natured and agreeable, and 
 he would then deny the fact of having been excited, abusive 
 or violent on a previous occasion. One of the physicians who 
 joined in procuring the commitment thought intemperance was 
 the cause of his improper sayings and doings, but other wit- 
 nesses testified that he drank only in moderation. The fact 
 was pretty well estabhshed that he was more irritable in the 
 morning than at any other time of the day, and this would 
 seem to indicate that the use of intoxicating drinks had at 
 least exerted an unfavorable influence on his disposition. The 
 above points are the principal ones urged to prove that Mr. J, 
 was of unsound mind. 
 
 Witnesses who had seen Mr. J. almost daily during the 
 preceding three or four years testified that they had never 
 
358 SUGGESTIONS RELATIVE TO THE 
 
 seen him excited or angry, save when speaking of the unkind- 
 ness and abuse of the members of his own family towards 
 him. The subjoined affidavit will serve to express the facts 
 noticed, the inferences made, and the opinions entertained by 
 this class of witnesses. 
 
 C. B., being duly sworn, says that he is a " practising phy- 
 sician, and has practised as such in the city of New York for 
 thirty years last past ; that for upward of two years last past 
 he has been acquainted with Mr. C. J., now confined as an 
 alleged lunatic in the asylum on BlackweU's Island, and has 
 been in almost daily intercourse with him during the whole of 
 that period, and has observed his conduct, manner, and deport- 
 ment, and found him always cool and collected in his ideas, 
 correct in his opinions and judgment, of even mental tem- 
 perament, and of sober and steady habits. He never mani- 
 fested any symptoms of monomania, insanity, or unsound 
 mind. Deponent further says that he was informed and be- 
 heves that the domestic relations of the said C. J. were 
 unhappy, in consequence of constant efforts by his wife and 
 family to coerce him into arrangements that he believed would 
 operate injuriously to the peace of his family, and it was in 
 consequence of his refusal that every effort has since been, 
 made by the family to make his residence at home unbear- 
 able, and to compel him to leave his own house ; and if he 
 has occasionally given vent to bursts of anger, it was, in 
 deponent's opinion, only in consequence of the cruel treatment 
 to which he had been subjected by his family, and evidence 
 of his just indignation by reason thereof. That, after a full 
 and careful examination of aU the alleged symptoms of insan- 
 ity charged against the said 0. J., deponent is of the opinion 
 that he, the said C. J., is not of unsound mind in any respect, 
 or in any degree, but is as sane as the majority of aU people 
 out of lunatic asylums." 
 
 The above was duly signed, and acknowledged before a 
 notary pubhc. 
 
 The following facts were also elicited in the course of the 
 investigation: Several years ago, Mr. J., together with his 
 wife, had opened, and for some time carried on, a store of fancy 
 
SEQUESTRATION OF ALLEGED LUNATICS. 359 
 
 goods, Mr. J. having in charge the money, the buying, and 
 the keeping of the accounts, and his wife assisting as sales- 
 woman. Fiae laundry work was also introduced as a part of 
 the business, and of this department Mrs. J. took sole charge. 
 This latter branch gradually increased in importance, until 
 finally the fancy-goods business was entirely discontinued. 
 The whole affair, including receipts, payments, and manage- 
 ment, thus very naturally fell into the hands of Mrs. J. ; her 
 husband in the meantime doing a small business on his own 
 account in pinking, etc., in another part of the building. This 
 state of things was a cause of much domestic trouble and 
 altercation ; the wife claiming that she should have sole 
 charge of the management of the business, and of the income, 
 and Mr. J. claiming that he also should have a voice in the 
 management, and in the disposition of the receipts, for the 
 reason that he was the head of the house — ^had virtually com- 
 menced the business, and had invested several thousand dol- 
 lars in the concern. "Without entering into the merits or 
 demerits of either side of the question, it was evident that 
 this state of affairs had been the source of much domestic 
 strife and ill-feeling, and was a sufficient cause for much of 
 the excitability and abusive language on the part of Mr. J. 
 that had been observed. In fact, there was no doubt that his 
 natural irritabihty of disposition had been increased by this 
 domestic feud, and the more especially since the whole family 
 was so arrayed against him that he was left in a hopeless and 
 insignificant minority. 
 
 Another fact was sufficient to account for the extraordi- 
 nary irritability, strife, and exhibitions of anger, that had been 
 observed during the last two years. A young man, whom Mr. 
 J. did not approve, was paying his addresses to Miss J., the 
 eldest daughter, notwithstanding the opposition of her father. 
 The young man's suit was approved and encouraged by all 
 the other members of the family. A family quarrel was the 
 result. Ml'- J- did not wish the suitor to visit his house at all, 
 but claimed that, on the contrary, he came and stayed at un- 
 seasonable hours, and also that, since he had been paying his 
 addresses, his daughter had on more than one occasion been 
 
360 SUGGESTIONS BELATIVE TO THE 
 
 away from home at an unseasonable hour of the night, and 
 without a proper escort. He acknowledged that he had ex- 
 pressed his disapprobation of this conduct in strong terms, 
 saying that his wife and daughter were acting like prostitutes, 
 and using other expressions of a similar kind ; but he denied 
 having said that they really were prostitutes. He also ac- 
 knowledged having searched the house as above-mentioned, 
 but said he had reason to suspect that his daughter's suitor 
 was making unseasonable and clandestine visits at the time, 
 and that his object was to find him, and eject him from the 
 house. 
 
 Mr. J. claimed, on his part, that he had been treated by 
 his wife and daughter with neglect, contumely, and positive 
 abuse ; that his wife had fastened the house against him ; had 
 thrown his clothing into the street from the window ; and had 
 thrown scissors, dishes, and sticks of wood at him with 
 such violence as to put him in fear for his personal 
 safety. 
 
 On the occasion of the first interview with Mrs. J., she was 
 asked by the resident physician if she had ever at any time 
 thrown dishes, sticks of wood, or other missiles, at or toward 
 her husband, in such a way as to give a color or basis»to his 
 statement that she had committed these acts of offence. She 
 positively asserted that she never had. On the next day, 
 when confronted with her husband, and charged by him with 
 having committed these acts, she acknowledged that she had 
 thrown certain articles toward him with some degree of force, 
 but claimed that she only intended to frighten him when she 
 feared that he would do her an injury. In reply to a ques- 
 tion, she said that she did not think her husband was at that 
 time or ever had been insane. 
 
 From the appearance, bearing, conduct, and conversation 
 of Mr. J. while at the asylum, and from a careful study and 
 analysis of the testimony taken, the opinion was formed that 
 he was not insane ; and he was discharged from the asylum 
 as an improper subject. 
 
 Four months after his discharge, Mr. J. was visited and 
 examined with reference to his mental condition, and inqui- 
 
SEQUESTRATION OP ALLEGED LUNATICS. 361 
 
 ries were made of several persons who knew him intimately, 
 in order to ascertain if there had been any subsequent mani- 
 festations of insanity. No reason was found for a reversal of 
 the opinion formed at the date of his discharge. 
 
 Other illustrative cases might be adduced, both from the 
 records of the New York City Asylum and from the records 
 of other asylums, but these will be sufficient to indicate the 
 character of some of the cases to which reference has been 
 made. 
 
 Under the State laws that regulate the admission of patients 
 to asylums for the insane in the city of New York, physicians 
 are required to make an affidavit that a patient is insane, is 
 dangerous, and requires the restraints of an asylum, in order 
 to secure a legal commitment. 
 
 By common consent, the term dangerous receives a liberal 
 interpretation. It may mean that a patient is violent, or only 
 that he is incompetent to take proper care of himself, and 
 hence needs care and treatment. The reasons on which the 
 diagnosis of insanity is founded are not required to be stated. 
 Hence, when mistakes are made, and medical superintendents 
 of asylums receive under their care persons who are not 
 insane, a considerable period of time for observation and 
 study is often required. For the case may be one of recur- 
 rent mania of a dangerous character, that has been received 
 during a lucid interval ; or it may be one in which there is an 
 ability to restrain and conceal the manifestations of insanity 
 for a considerable period of time. The patient has been 
 declared insane on the affidavits of two respectable physicians, 
 and duly committed to an asylum by a magistrate as a person 
 dangerous to go at large. It would be considered as httle 
 less than an insult if a medical superintendent should, after a 
 limited observation of the case, and without a knowledge of 
 the facts on which the diagnosis was made, reverse a judg- 
 ment that had been founded on observations and inquiries 
 made under the most favorable circumstances. Hence, it may 
 be necessary to retain an improper subject in an asylum for a 
 longer period of time than if he had been unmistakably insane 
 at the time of admission, and had made a speedy recovery. 
 
362 SUGGESTIONS EELATIVE TO THE 
 
 The diagnosis must be made out and recorded, and this 
 requires a positive judgment founded on ■well-ascertained 
 facts. 
 
 A brief consideration of the methods that ought to be pur- 
 sued, and of the principles that should be kept in mind during 
 the examination of alleged lunatics, may serve to elucidate the 
 subject, and to suggest the means and regulations adapted to 
 secure the best results. 
 
 In the first place, the preliminary examinations and inves- 
 tigations of the physicians should be separate and indepen- 
 dent. Neither should be biassed by the methods or the opin- 
 ions of the other. Each wUl thus elicit evidence that might 
 not otherwise be obtained. By a comparison of the results of 
 their researches at a subsequent period of the investigation, 
 doubtful points may be established or disproved, and the col- 
 lateral evidence obtained through testimony may be compared 
 and its reliability tested. Each physician, however, should 
 base his ultimate decision on his own view of the facts and 
 reasonings, unbiassed by the authority or opinions of his col- 
 league. This the law contemplates, else the afiidavit of one 
 physician only would be required. 
 
 While conducting his investigations, two distinct sorts 
 (classes) of evidence will demand the attention of the physi- 
 cian, and these should be clearly distinguished and separated 
 in his own mind, since they differ not only in character but 
 also in weight, and consequently in the influence they should 
 have on his opinion. There is, first, the evidence gained from 
 a personal examination of the alleged lunatic ; and, secondly, 
 the evidence gained from the testimony of others. The former 
 ranks as positive knowledge ; the latter only as indicative, 
 collateral, or corroborative evidence. The physician is re- 
 quired to assert his belief in the existence of insanity in a 
 given case, under the formality of an oath. It is clear, then, 
 that the mere assertions of third parties cannot properly form 
 the sole basis of that belief. 
 
 The physician, then, should personally examine the alleged 
 limatic, until some manifestations of insanity are exhibited in 
 his presence. If one visit do not suffice, another should be 
 
SEQUESTRATION OF ALLEGED LUNATICS. Sbd 
 
 made, or else the negative opinion expressed that he had been 
 able to discover no evidences of insanity. 
 
 If a personal knowledge of the fact of insanity be required, 
 of "what use, it may be asked, is the testimony of others ? Of 
 the greatest use, and in many ways. The proofs of insanity 
 gained from a personal examination may be perfectly satisfac- 
 tory, as regards the simple existence of mental aberration ; 
 but yet no sufficient reason may yet have appeared why the 
 restraints of an asylum should be imposed. The person in 
 question may have manifested an insane delusion about some- 
 thing in no way connected with the ordinary affairs of life, 
 and that is very unlikely to exert any influence on his actions. 
 He may believe that he holds communication with a man in 
 the moon, regarding some highly theoretical and abstruse 
 philosophical questions, and yet govern himself and his affairs 
 with propriety and good judgment. This delusion may also 
 be one of long standing, and hence not likely to be relin- 
 quished under any treatment or circumstances. Thus far no 
 reason would appear why the patient should be secluded. 
 
 If, however, it should be learned, from the statements of 
 friends and acquaintances, that this insane person sometimes 
 made the confidential confession that his lunar communica- 
 tions had convinced him of the infidehty of his wife, and that 
 her death alone could expiate her crime, no doubt would re- 
 main that the patient should be confined in an asylum for the 
 insane, as a dangerous lunatic. 
 
 Information of the greatest importance is oftentimes thus 
 gained regarding the character and duration of the insanity, 
 and the habits and conduct of the patient. When the physi- 
 cian has been once satisfied of the existence of insanity from 
 his personal examinations, he should avail himself of all the 
 collateral and corroborative proofs attainable ; both for the 
 sake of strengthening his conclusions, and also for another 
 purpose, that will shortly be mentioned. 
 
 Although in the study of difficult and doubtful cases it is 
 usually best to commence with the personal examination of 
 the alleged lunatic, in order that the mind may be quite 
 unbiassed by the opinions of others ; yet, since in certain 
 
364 SUGGESTIONS RELATIVE TO THE 
 
 cases the patient is inclined to ayoid those topics in regard to 
 which evidences of insanity are manifested, especially if he 
 entertains a suspicion that he is himself the subject of inquiry, 
 it is sometimes both proper and advantageous to first obtain 
 the statements of unprofessional observers, at least regarding 
 the leading points. 
 
 Both during the examination of the alleged lunatic and 
 during the examination of witnesses who may testify in regard 
 to his insanity, it is well to remember that there may be 
 motives that improperly influence the witnesses, and even the 
 supposed luna.tic himself. If any such probable motives exist, 
 the testimony offered should be weighed and scrutinized with 
 especial care. 
 
 On the part of witnesses, motives like the foUowiag are 
 liable to influence testimony, to the prejudice of the person 
 against whom the charge of lunacy is made : Feelings of re- 
 venge or hatred may serve to invalidate testimony. A hus- 
 band may find that his wife has become a burden, by reason 
 of physical infirmities or advancing years ; and that her pres- 
 ence at home interferes with certain projects to which he is 
 strongly incKned. Ungrateful children may wish to get rid 
 of the care or of the support of their aged parents. Avaricious 
 relatives may wish to get the control of property that right- 
 fully belongs to some other member of their family ; or a party 
 to a suit at law may wish to invalidate the testimony of a 
 troublesome witness. It should also be remembered that in- 
 sanity may be feigned for the purpose of escaping the punish- 
 ment due to crime ; to avoid pecuniary liabilities, or the fulfil- 
 ment of disadvantageous contracts; or simply to secure a 
 comfortable home. 
 
 After examining th« alleged lunatic with the greatest care, 
 and weighing the testimony offered with the most mature 
 deliberation, the examining physician will sometimes find that, 
 while he is quite satisfied that the person in question is reaUy 
 insane, and needs asylum care and treatment, he still has only 
 vague and indefinite notions regarding the, evidence on which 
 his diagnosis has been based. The conviction is very strong 
 in his own mind that his patient is insane, and he may flatter 
 
SEQTIESTEATION OF ALLEGED LUNATICS. 365 
 
 himself tliat a generalization of all the particulars that -n'ere 
 in his mind but which have escaped his memory, and the 
 impressions gained from his pecuUar knowledge and skill as 
 an expert, but which he cannot intelligibly express to others, 
 are sufficient bases for his opinion. This, however, is not 
 enough. He should be able to give the reasons for his belief 
 in such terms as would be inteUigible and conviacing to other 
 intelligent physicians. Otherwise he does no more than an 
 unprofessional observer who believes a person insane simply 
 because he seems to him to talk and conduct himself in a 
 crazy manner. 
 
 It is true that an opinion may properly be formed from a 
 generahzation of many particulars. Still the particulars should 
 be sufficiently definite to admit of a clear statement. So also 
 it is true that an expert may properly be influenced in making 
 up his opinion by acts and appearances, for which he would 
 find it difficult or even impossible to give an exact expression. 
 StiU his impressions thus formed should not be the sole basis 
 of an opinion in a matter of such importance. 
 
 Now, this confusion and uncertainty of ideas arise in great 
 part from want of method, from neglecting to write down the 
 facts ascertained during the course of the investigation while 
 they are yet fresh in the memory, and from not giving an 
 exact expression to the conclusions that have been deduced. 
 Nothing tends more to give clearness and definiteness to our 
 notions than the exercise of expressing them in writing. Hence 
 it would be of great advantage to the examining physician if 
 this were always done. If his written statement be satisfac- 
 tory to himself, his conclusions are very Hkely to be correct ; 
 if he fail in clearly expressing the grounds of his diagnosis, he 
 will feel satisfied that the case is still in doubt. 
 
 There is another reason why the general diagnosis, and a 
 statement of the facts on which the diagnosis is based, should 
 be reduced to writing. It is, that the affidavits affirming the 
 fact of insanity, to the best knowledge and belief of the tes- 
 tators, should be something more than a mere expression of 
 opinion. The facts on which the diagnosis was founded should 
 be included in the affidavits, the proper distinction being made 
 
366 SUGGESTIONS EELATIVE TO THE 
 
 between such facts as were mthin the personal knowledge of 
 the testator, and such as were learned from the testimony of 
 others. The statements of facts would thus become a matter 
 of record, and be available for reference at a subsequent period 
 if required. 
 
 There is still another reason why the statement of facts 
 above alluded to should be reduced to writing, and included 
 in the affidavits of the examining physicians. 
 
 It is exceedingly desirable that medical superintendents of 
 asylums for the insane should be made acquainted with the 
 history of the patients who are placed under their care, in 
 every particular that has a bearing on the question of their 
 insanity, including hereditaiy and congenital influences, physi- 
 cal injuries and diseases, predisposing and exciting causes, 
 natural characteristics and habits, and the duration, character, 
 and manifestations of the disease. 
 
 Now, patients are frequently received at asylums, especially 
 at city institutions, with regard to whose history no informa- 
 tion whatever can be gained by the physicians in charge. 
 Sometimes only negative evidence can be obtained from the 
 patient. Perhaps he cannot or will not tell his own name 
 even, so that there may be doubts regarding his identity as 
 the person named in the commitment. If two such cases be 
 received at the same time, the difficulties are still further 
 increased. The patient may have been intended for another 
 institution, or one person may have been designedly substi- 
 tuted for another. Or, if this difficulty do not exist, there may 
 be important points in regard to the mental or physical con- 
 dition of the patient that should be known at an early date. 
 The patient may have suicidal or homicidal propensities ; he 
 may be treacherous and violent ; he may be on the verge of 
 starv9,tion through prolonged voluntary abstinence from food ; 
 he may suffer from some physical disability that needs prompt 
 attention, but is not of such a nature as to attract immediate 
 notice ; or he may have been exposed to some contagious 
 disease. 
 
 At the very least, the examining physician must be aware 
 of the circumstances relating to the patient's mental and 
 
SEQUESTRATION OF ALLEGED LUNATICS. 367 
 
 pUysical condition for a short time preyious to his commit- 
 ment. A knowledge of these is highly desirable, even if 
 nothing further can be learned. In a scientific point of view, 
 all the facts bearing on the patient's condition and past his- 
 tory are of importance. 
 
 It has already been recommended that examining physi- 
 cians write out a statement of the facts on which they base a 
 diagnosis of insanity, for the purpose of enabliog them to ob- 
 tain clearer and more definite notions regarding the mental 
 status of the alleged lunatic. It is also highly desirable that 
 they transmit this statement, with the patient, to the asylum 
 in which he is to be placed ; that the statement include both 
 points of diagnosis, and aU the causes that have probably had 
 an influence in producing the insanity, as far as these causes 
 could be ascertained ; and also that the preparation and trans- 
 mission of this statement be made obligatory by law. If this 
 were done, the confinement of sane persons in asylums for 
 the insane, would be almost entirely, if not absolutely pre- 
 vented. 
 
 As aids in carrying out this project, blank forms should be 
 furnished to the examining physicians, arranged under the 
 following divisions and titles : 
 
 The entire document might be entitled as follows : Fcicts 
 and opinions adduced by , M. D., of , No. 
 
 of Street, in the case of , an 
 
 alleged lunatic. 
 
 The first division should be entitled thus : Name and fer- 
 sotial description. The personal description should include 
 the nativity, age, height, color of hair, color of eyes, civil con- 
 dition, education, religion, occupation, and any other facts 
 that might serve to identify the person. If a foreigner, the 
 date of arrival in this country, the name of the ship on which 
 he came, and the port of entry should also be designated, 
 both as an aid in identification and as an aid in deciding to 
 what State the charge of the patient belongs. 
 
 The second division should be entitled thus : Facts ob- 
 served and adduced by , M. D., as evidences 
 <f the insanity of 
 
368 SUGGESTIONS BELATIVE TO THE 
 
 Under this heading should be included references to all the 
 physical and mental conditions bearing on the question of 
 insanity that an examining physician would be hkely to 
 observe ; as, for instance, the condition of the pupils, tongue, 
 circulation, temperatxire, etc., also the mental condition in 
 regard to memory, power of apprehension, irritability, antip- 
 athies, hallucinations, illusions, delusions, exaltation, depres- 
 sion, etc. 
 
 The third diTision might be entitled thua : Facts adduced 
 as evidences of insanity, and presumaUe causes of insanity, 
 in the case of , that have been ascertained iy 
 
 , M. D., on tohat he believes to be reliable 
 testimony. Under this diTision should be enumerated points 
 bearing on the mental condition, as under the second division, 
 peculiarities in the habits, propensities, disposition, conduct, 
 etc. ; mental causes, such as losses of property or of friends, 
 domestic troubles, disappointments, rehgious excitements, etc. ; 
 physical causes, such as hereditary and congenital iafluences, 
 loss of sleep, injuries to the head, physical diseases, etc. ; and 
 such other particulars as would naturally belong to this cate- 
 gory. Under this division should also be stated the number, 
 duration, and character of any previous attacks of insanity 
 that may have occurred. 
 
 The fourth division shall be entitled thus: Affidavit of 
 , M. J)., rcf/arding the mental condition of 
 . Under this division it should be stated 
 that the testator visited the alleged lunatic at a specified place 
 or places, on a specified day or days, and for specified periods 
 of time ; that he obtained what he believes to be reliable tes- 
 timony from parties who should be named ; that the results 
 of his investigations are embodied in the preceding divisions, 
 and that on the facts there stated he bases the opinion that 
 is of unsound mind, and is a fit subject for 
 care and treatment at an asylum for the insane. 
 
 The specific points of inquiry, being thus methodically ar- 
 ranged and printed in the blank forms, would serve as great 
 aids to the examining physicians during the prosecution of 
 their investigations. One form should be provided for each 
 
SEQUESTRATION OF ALLEGED LUNATICS. 369 
 
 physician, and, as intimated above, these affidavits should be 
 forwarded with the patient to the asylum, the court that issues 
 the commitment making such record of the facts as legal safe- 
 guards or custom may require. 
 
 The law should also require that a personal examination 
 on the occasion of which evidences of insanity were observed 
 should have been made within a limited and specified period 
 of time previous to the making of the affidavit ; also that the 
 patient be actually received at the asylum for which the com- 
 mitment is made out within a limited and specified period of 
 time thereafter; and also that a want of comphanee with 
 either of these conditions will render the whole procedure 
 invahd. 
 
 The question now arises whether these examinations, in- 
 vestigations, and affidavits should be made by general prac- 
 titioners of medicine, as at present, or whether these duties 
 ought not rather to be performed by men supposed to be 
 especially conversant with the subject, and who have been 
 duly authorized by law to take sole charge and responsibiUty 
 in cases of lunacy. 
 
 The following considerations may be urged in support of 
 the last-named method : It is acknowledged that sane persons 
 are sometimes committed to asylums for the insane. It is 
 also acknowledged that some cases of insanity are difficult of 
 diagnosis, and that general practitioners of medicine are in 
 many instances poorly versed in the subject of mental diseases. 
 Hence it may very naturally be inferred, on a cursory exami- 
 nation of the subject, that experts in insanity should be 
 appointed to conduct all iavestigations, and to make aU deci- 
 sions in cases of lunacy. 
 
 There are many and very cogent reasons, however, in favor 
 of the existing method ; and these reasons will be stiU stronger 
 when the method has been improved in some way similar to 
 the one just recommended. Some of these reasons are as 
 follows : 
 
 It is of great importance that there be no obstacles in the 
 way of placing such patients as are really insane in asylums. 
 Any difficulties, publicity, or unusual proceedings, would serve 
 
370 SUGGESTIONS RELATIVE TO THE 
 
 to hinder their early admission, and hence diminish the proba- 
 bilities of a cure. Under the present system, even if it were 
 modified as recommended, the difficulties are very slight. 
 The friends have only to call iu the family physician, whom 
 they consider at the same time as a family friend. The phy- 
 sician usually is already well acquainted with the patient. He 
 makes a visit without causing any disturbance or excitement. 
 He makes a diagnosis with comparative ease, from the fact that 
 he is able to compare his personal knowledge of the present 
 condition with his personal knowledge of the past condition 
 of the patient. Oftentimes he is thoroughly conversant with 
 the patient's physical and mental history from childhood. He 
 may even be acquainted with the family history and heredi- 
 tary influences. If required by law, a neighboring physician 
 may be found who also knows the leading points in the case. 
 They have only to make the necessary affidavits, and a com- 
 mitment is secured. 
 
 The evidences of insanity in the case of a very great major- 
 ity of those who are placed in asylums for the insane are so 
 clear and unmistakable that no difficulty exists in the way of 
 making the proper diagnosis. If difficulties are experienced, 
 the form of affidavit proposed would be found of great assist- 
 ance, and might perhaps remove aU difficulties. In any event, 
 a consultation would be available if the family physician should 
 finally distrust his own abilities or judgment. 
 
 General practitioners of medicine ought to have a fair 
 knowledge of mental diseases, as they are now expected to 
 have of surgery or midwifery. Every physician does not 
 claim to be an expert in surgery, and to give the most pro- 
 found opinion on a case of extraordinary obscurity or difiS- 
 culty, yet he is expected to understand and scientifically treat 
 the great majority of cases that are committed to his care. 
 He should, in like manner, be able to comprehend the great 
 majority of cases of lunacy that come under his notice. 
 
 It is not every person who is insane that needs to be se- 
 cluded in an asylum. The advice of a general practitioner of 
 medicine may at times be required in the treatment and man- 
 agement of these cases. The condition of the mind exerts a 
 
SEQUESTEATION OF ALLEGED LUNATICS, 371 
 
 very important influence on the condition of the body, and 
 vice versa. Physicians need fully to appreciate the impor- 
 tance of these reciprocal influences. The approach of insanity 
 is often slow, and so obscure as to escape the notice of those 
 who have given no attention to mental diseases and their 
 causes. If detected at an early day, the actual outbreak of 
 the disease might without doubt oftentimes be averted. Gen- 
 eral practitioners have much better opportunities than super- 
 intendents of asylums for observing the 'prodromata and the 
 early stages of insanity, and hence are their natural allies 
 both in the general study of the disease and in the study of 
 any particular case ; but to afford really valuable assistance, 
 either from a practical or theoretical poiut of view, they 
 should be reasonably well informed on the subject in question. 
 
 For such reasons as these it has become a well-accepted 
 principle that general practitioners of medicine ought to be 
 conversant with the subject of mental diseases. One after 
 another the different medical colleges are adding professors of 
 psychological medicine to their staff of teachers, so that very 
 soon all graduates in mediciue will be as well instracted in 
 regard to mental diseases as they now are in other branches 
 of the science. 
 
 If, however, by the appointment of a particular set of men 
 to make out the diagnosis and decide regarding the custody, 
 in all cases of insanity, physicians should be led to infer that 
 mental diseases are too difficult of comprehension to be 
 understood by the profession in general, they would be very 
 unlikely to increase their fund of information on the subject. 
 If they were not called upon to investigate those cases that 
 naturally come under their notice, they would be quite certain 
 to lose all interest in the study of mental diseases. This 
 would be a retrograde movement — a result much to be 
 regretted, both in the interests of science and of the com- 
 munity at large. 
 
 There are two classes of lunatics for which, thus far, no 
 improved method has been su^ested, in accordance with 
 which they may be placed in asylums for the insane. Befer- 
 ence is made to criminal lunatics, or those that in any way 
 
372 SUGGESTIONS RELATIVE TO THE 
 
 become subjects of a legal investigation ; and cases in which 
 no evidences of insanity could be detected by the examiaing 
 physicians as a result of their personal observations, but in 
 which unprofessional observers, of greater or less reliabihty, 
 have noticed presumable evidences of insanity. 
 
 Some of the objections that have already been urged ia 
 this paper against a jury-trial, as a method of securing the 
 commitment of lunatics to an asylum, are equally cogent in 
 the case of crimiaal lunatics in behalf of whom the plea of 
 insanity is interposed, and indeed in aU cases of lunacy that 
 for any reason become causes of litigation. Ordinary iaves- 
 tigation in cases of lunacy have, in many instances, entirely 
 failed in eliciting the truth and establishing justice, through 
 faulty methods and lack of the requisite skill and information 
 on the part of judges and jury. Facts and opinions that are 
 presented are not rated at their just value. The counsel for 
 each side often submit hypothetical cases to the medical 
 expert which differ in essential particulars, whUe neither hypo- 
 thetical case is likely to be a true statement of facts. The 
 expert testimony may thus be apparently at variance, and 
 hence considered unreliable, although the experts might en- 
 tirely agree if they were to testify regarding the same facts. 
 Experts are themselves liable to be unconsciously biased, 
 from having been employed by one of the parties to a suit, 
 and remunerated for testimony expected to be in favor of a 
 particular side. 
 
 These are among the reasons why some mode of procedure 
 different from the one now in use should be adopted in the 
 legal investigation of cases of lunacy. The most rational and 
 effective mode would seem to be the appointment of men who 
 have the confidence of the medical and legal professions, and 
 of the community at large, and who are thoroughly informed 
 on the subject of insanity, both in its medical and its legal 
 aspects, as a court of inquiry, in aU cases of lunacy that are 
 to be submitted to the civil or criminal courts ; and that this 
 court, or commission in lunacy, be in its pecuUar province 
 clothed with all the powers and privileges possessed by other 
 courts. 
 
SEQUESTBATION OF ALLEGED LUNATICS. 373 
 
 The difficulties that now exist in those cases ia which the 
 examining physicians can detect no evidences of insanity as 
 a result of their personal observations, but which are proba- 
 bly insane, are these : Since the evidences of insanity are 
 gained from third parties who may or may not be rehable, or 
 who, if reliable, may seem to differ in essential particulars, 
 these parties should be examined under oath, and in accord- 
 ance with the methods adopted for the examination of ordi- 
 nary witnesses. But general practitioners of medicine do not 
 have the power of administering oaths, nor are they skilled in 
 the methods of eliciting truth by the examination of witnesses. 
 These cases would also be proper for the investigation of such 
 a court or commission in lunacy as the one above recom- 
 mended. 
 
 The design of this paper has been simply to suggest certain 
 improvements in the methods of examining alleged lunatics, 
 and of placing them in asylums for the insane, to the end that 
 mistakes in diagnosis may be avoided, and also that medical 
 superintendents of asylums may be promptly advised of facts 
 that are of great value, both in a scientific point of view, and 
 as aids in devising the early and rational treatment of their 
 patients. 
 
MEDICO-LEGAL CONSIDERATIONS 
 
 ALCOHOLISM 
 
 AND THE 
 
 MORAL AND CRIMINAL RESPONSIBILITY OF INEBRIATKS- 
 
 BY PALUEL DE MABMON, M. D., OF KINGSBKIDGE, N. Y.* 
 
 In order to well understand the real value of tlie subject, it 
 is necessary to see first what are the physiological properties 
 of alcohol, and the different degrees of alcohoHc intoxica- 
 tions. 
 
 According to the recent researches of Maurice Perrin, it has 
 been ascertained that "alcohol acts as a regular dynamic 
 agent in the system ; that it remains in the blood ; that it 
 exerts a direct and primitive action upon the nervous centers, 
 of which it modifies, perverts, or abolishes the functions ; that 
 it does not become transformed or destroyed in the blood or 
 respiration ; that it accumulates in the nerve-centers and the 
 blood ; and that, finally, it is expelled in nature from the 
 economy by aU the ways of elimination." This author found 
 also, by experiments made ixpon himself, that the use of 
 alcohol diminishes the quantity of carbonic acid exhaled, and 
 lessens in the same proportion the intra-vascular oxidation, 
 and consequently the production of animal heat ; also, that it 
 
 * Read before the Medico-Legal Society, New York, March 31, 1871. 
 
MEDICO-LEGAL CONSIDERATIONS UPON ALCOHOLISM. 375 
 
 increases the secretion of urea. We would rather say that it 
 decreases its excretion by preyenting disassimilatibn. 
 
 It is not an ahment proper, but, equally with opium, h pre- 
 vents to a certain degree denutrition. Like all substances 
 producing stupefaction when given in a large dose, it is an 
 excitant when given in a small one. 
 
 It causes the temperature of the body to decrease, and that 
 of the brain to increase, thus explaining the effect of conges- 
 tion of this organ. 
 
 Allow me here to give you the results of a few of my experi- 
 ments upon this important subject ; they have, so far, been 
 made upon cats and rabbits. 
 
 EXPEEIMENT 1. — Male rabbit, 4 months old. Thermometer 
 75° r. 
 
 Normal temperature in the rectum, . . 104° 
 of the brain, . . 1031° 
 
 Temperature 3 minutes after death by strangulation : 
 
 Eectum, 105° 
 
 Brain, 104f° 
 
 In this ease no alcohol was given, the object of the experi- 
 ment being to ascertain what was the difference of temperature 
 between the rectum and the brain ; it was repeated upon ten 
 different subjects, and the result was always the same, the 
 normal temperature of the brain was always lower than that of 
 the rectum. 
 
 Having thus found these data, I proceeded to make my 
 experiments with alcohol. 
 
 ExPEEiMENT 2. — Female rabbit, 4 months old. Thermome- 
 ter 90°. 
 
 Normal temperature in the rectum, . 105^° 
 
 I gave the animal 3 ij. of pure alcohol mixed with 3 iij* of 
 water by means of a sound introduced in the stomach. 
 
376 MEDICO-LEGAL CONSIDERATIONS UPON ALCOHOLISM. 
 
 In half an hour, temperature of the rectum, . 1044° 
 
 In one hour, " " " 103° 
 
 In two hours, " " " . 102f° 
 
 of the brain, 103f 
 
 In the above case the dose was small, the animal being 
 only we may say in the second stage of intoxication, the tem- 
 perature being, however, one degree higher in the brain than 
 in the rectum. 
 
 ExPEKBiENT 3. — Female rabbit, 4 months old. Thermome- 
 ter 66° F. 
 
 Normal temperature in the rectum, . . 102|° 
 
 Administered as above, alcohol 3 jv., diluted in same quan- 
 tity of water. 
 
 Forty-five minutes after, rectal temperature, 101|° - 
 One hour " " " 101^° 
 
 One hour and a half, " " " 100° 
 
 At this period the animal lay on the grass in a state of 
 almost complete insensibility. He was, we may say, dead 
 drunk. 
 
 I then made a crucial incision of the skin over the parietal 
 region, then trephined the bone, and plunged my thermometer 
 into the substance of the brain, the animal not showing during 
 the operation any signs of sensibility. 
 
 Temperature of the brain, . . . 102f ° F. 
 " rectum, . . . 100° 
 Difference, 2|°. 
 
 Now,, if we add to this the difference existing normally 
 between the rectum and the brain, viz., 1|°, we find an increase 
 of 3-1°, caused by the action of alcohol upon this last organ. 
 
 Although this is not exactly the place to report these experi- 
 ments, which I propose to pubhsh at length in another paper, 
 I must, however, call the attention of the medical profession 
 to a few important physiological and pathological points. 
 
MEDICO-LEGAL CONSIDERATIONS UPON ALCOHOLISM. 377 
 
 1st. To the lower normal temperature of the brain com- 
 pared with that of the body. 
 
 2d. To the irregular temperature of rabbits, whether taken 
 in warm or cold weather.* 
 
 3d. Upon the influence of alcohol as lowering the tempera- 
 ture of the body, and increasing that of the brain. 
 
 This last being proved by experience and well known by its 
 pathognomic symptoms, but not proved so far by direct ex- 
 periments. 
 
 DIFFERENT DEGREES OP DRUNKENNESS. 
 
 In acute alcohohsm, or accidental drunkenness, we have 
 three periods : first, excitation ; second, perturbation ; and, 
 third, stupefaction. 
 
 In the first period, which, in accidental drinkers, is pro- 
 duced after the ingestion of a few glasses, the subject becomes 
 communicative, justifying then the old adage. In vino Veritas ; 
 he is joUy, good-natured, witty ; his natural timidity has been 
 chained into boldness ; he is kind, generous, friendly, as one 
 who feels happy and has nothing to trouble his mind ; he is 
 sociable and obliging ; the words flow out of his mouth like a 
 
 * This remark ia suggested to me from the results given by Qavarret in 
 his tables upon the temperature of animals, and in which I find that the 
 temperature of rabbits is given by 
 
 Fatrenheit. 
 Prevort & Dumas, and taken in the rectum is . . 100° 40' 
 I. Hunter, " " " . . 99° 50 
 
 Delaroche, " " " . . 103° 28' 
 
 " " . . 103° 46' 
 
 .... _ 104° 00' 
 
 It is not said in those tables if the observations were made in winter oi 
 summer, but according to my own observntion I found it to be as follows : 
 
 Fahrenheit. 
 
 Ambient temperature, . 75° 
 
 90° 
 
 . 66° 
 
 8° 
 
 . 8° 
 
 20° 
 
 
 Fahrenheit 
 
 In the rectum, . 
 
 . 104°- 
 
 " 
 
 1055° 
 
 " 
 
 . 1021° 
 
 « 
 
 1051° 
 
 « « 
 
 . 108f° 
 
 u It 
 
 104° 
 
378 MEDICO-LEGAL CONSIDERATIONS UPON ALCOHOLISM. 
 
 stream. It is this period of happiness so well painted by 
 Macnish* iu the following terms : " The consequences of 
 drunkenness," says he, " are dreadful, but the pleasures of 
 getting drunk are certainly ecstatic. While the illusion lasts, 
 happiness is complete ; care and melancholy are thrown to 
 the wind ; and Elysium, M'ith all its glories, descends upon 
 the dazzled imagination of the drinker. Some authors have 
 spoken of the pleasure of being completely drunk ; this, how- 
 ever, is not the most exquisite period. The time is when a 
 person is neither drunk nor sober, but neighbor to both, as 
 Bishop Andrew says, in his ' Ex-ale-tation of Ale.' The mo- 
 ment is when the ethereal emanations begin to float around 
 the brain ; when the soul is commencing to expand its wings 
 and rise from earth ; when the tongue feels itself somewhat 
 loosened in the mouth, and breaks the previous taciturnity if 
 any such existed." In this period the individual is very sel- 
 dom dangerous, and is fully responsible for his acts. 
 
 If he continues to drink, his ideas become obtuse; his 
 tongue gets thick ; he speaks louder, for on account of the 
 buzzing sensation in his ears his auditive power is blunted so 
 he does not hear himself speak, and judges of others by him- 
 self ; the merry feeling of the first period has been replaced 
 by an excess of susceptibility and irritation ; he does not take 
 a joke, and is ready for fight ; if you don't listen to him he 
 gets mad. Muscular strength is in that degree at its maxi- 
 mum ; at that time the drunkard becomes a bore to all those 
 surrounding him ; he is not conscious of what he says or of 
 what he does, and it is generally then that he is more apt to 
 commit a crime. 
 
 " In the second period of drunkenness," says Hoffbauer, " a 
 man has stiU the use of his senses, although they are notably 
 affected ; but he is out of his wits ; memory and intellect 
 have left him ; he acts as if living only for the present ; for he 
 does not think of the result of the actions he may commit, and 
 he has forgotten the past. The least occasion is sufficient to 
 awaken in him the greatest passion, although his miad may 
 
 * " Anatomy of Drunkenness." 
 
MEDICO-LEGAL CONSIDERATIONS UPON ALCOHOLISM. 379 
 
 be changed very easily. In this condition he is so much the 
 more dangerous for himself and for others, that he is sub- 
 jected to an irresistible impulse, and that he knows rarely 
 what he is doing ; for, in order to be conscious of what is 
 done at the time, it is necessary to know what was done an 
 instant before. He is, then, assimilable to a maniac, and can- 
 not be made responsible for his actions, although he is re- 
 sponsible for his drunkenness." 
 
 This question of responsibility has been advocated and 
 argued for and against as all questions of law, when the right, 
 seen separately, seemed to be on both gides. We may ask 
 questions, and add another argument stiU : Insanity is a legal 
 excuse for crime. Drunkenness, although not an excuse, is 
 assimilable to, and in its second and third degrees is re ally, 
 insanity. Then, would an insane man committing a crime 
 while under a fit of alcohoUc intoxication be less insane for it, 
 and hable to a different punishment ? 
 
 An insane man or a drunkard cannot be responsible for a 
 deed committed against his will, and, where there is no reason- 
 ing, there is no will, for reasoning cannot exist without wiU. 
 In a state of drunkenness man is deprived of reason. Thus, 
 he is not wilhng. In this case, the body — the. animal, if I may 
 so speak — acts without consent of the mind, and any actions 
 committed with absence of mind, consequently in a state of 
 insanity, whether it be temporary or permanent, cannot make 
 its author responsible. 
 
 (I wish it to be well understood that I do not mean to ex- 
 cuse drunkenness, my views being, on the contrary, diametri- 
 cally opposed to it. I only emit an argument, and hope it 
 win be combated. We will see very soon the different opin- 
 ions upon this subject.) 
 
 The second stage, however, does not last long, but changes 
 into a third one — ^brutishness and somnolence. Eelaxation 
 of the whole muscular system has taken place ; the subject is 
 not able to walk ; he is vomiting ; his mind is stolid as well as 
 all his faculties ; he cannot find his house, nor does he know 
 his friends. He has in that period reached a degree below 
 the swine, for this last can find its own pen and knows its 
 
380 MEDICO-LEGAL CONSIDERATIONS UPON "ALCOHOLISM. 
 
 own yoTing ones.* In that third period man cannot commil 
 a crime, or, if he does, it must be involuntarily and by acci- 
 dent ; but it is at that period that a crime may be committed 
 upon him, as he is unable to defend himself ; and as in this 
 period, also, there is a great degree of anaesthesia, the most 
 severe wounds, the most painful operations are not felt. We 
 know that, before anaesthetics were used in surgical operations, 
 barber-surgeons used to intoxicate patients until complete re- 
 laxation of the muscular system was produced, before making 
 an operation or reducing a fracture. 
 
 Drunkenness may be produced upon a child, a woman, with 
 the guilty intention of committing a rape. In this case, if 
 intoxication has been pushed to a high degree, the victim is 
 totally unaware of the deed committed upon her. It may in 
 such instances create difficulties as to the evidence in the 
 case. No traces of resistance are shown, above all, if the 
 deed has been committed upon a married woman. If it has 
 been committed upon a virgin, it is different. Traces com- 
 mon to this crime may be easily detected. 
 
 A man will get intoxicated sometimes with the intention of 
 committing a crime, and prepare an excuse under the plea of 
 drunkenness. The laws of the State of New Tork do not 
 accept the excuse as long as drunkenness is a volimtary action. 
 We will see farther that, however, where drunkenness has 
 degenerated into a mental disease, jurists think differently. 
 
 Medico-Legal Diagnosis. — In a medico-legal examination of 
 a case of alcoholism, "the first point to establish," says 
 Tourdes (" Diet. Encycl."), " is the fact of alcohoKsm. This 
 question is asked in most of criminal cases. Sudden death, 
 accidents, as well as suicide and homicide, require this inves- 
 tigation. 
 
 * Casper says moral liberty varies according to the degrees of drunken- 
 ness : the shades are difficult to discern, the stages are transformed rapidly. 
 At what moment are conscience and will lost ? The first glasses, says an 
 Italian proverb, give lamb's blood, which causes one to be good-natured ; 
 the second ones give tiger's blood, which makes one furious ; the last ones, 
 hog's blood, which causes one to roll in the mud. These are the three 
 periods of drunkenness — excitation, perturbation, and stupefaction — as T 
 have already described them. 
 
MEDICO-LEGAL CONSIDERATIONS UPON ALCOHOLISM. 381 
 
 Medical evidence is furnished by the symptoms, the post- 
 mortem and chemical examinations. 
 
 "We win not enter into these detaUs, which would lead us 
 too far and cause our remarks to extend beyond our limited 
 time. 
 
 Intoxication does not present the same character when 
 caused by different drinks. Spirituous liquors are obtained, 
 some by fermentation, and others by fermentation and distil- 
 lation. They all have the same active principle, viz., alcohol, 
 in a more or less large quantity. Such are wine, cider, beer, 
 brandy, rum, whiskey, arrack (made with fermented rice and 
 catechu), absinthe, giu, etc. Absiathe is the most hurtful, 
 and lately the name of absiuthism has been given to the dis- 
 ease caused by its abuse. 
 
 All these beverages do not contribute in an equal propor- 
 tion to the production of the disease, but generally it is pos- 
 sible to ascertain their degree of nocuousness by the state of 
 concentration of the , alcohol. It would, however, little con- 
 form to observations to attribute to them identical effects. 
 Professor Trousseau (Diet, en 30 vol.) finds special properties 
 in champagne, Rhine wine, spirits of grain and of potatoes. 
 " Drunkenness caused by wine," says M. Bouehardat, " exerts 
 some less marked and slower modifications upon innervation 
 and digestion than intoxication by brandy ; death is also less 
 rapid than by the abuse of strong Hquors." 
 
 Cider acts somewhat like sparlding wines, brings its action 
 upon the nervous system, and, besides, causes some affection 
 of the digestive organs, such as indigestion, diarrhoea, gas- 
 tralgia, and sometimes leads into glycosuria. Beer strongly 
 alcoholized may produce the same effects as wine, but intoxi- 
 cation produced by it is generally more dangerous. This 
 beverage generally leads into obesity, and into the decrease 
 of the active forces of the economy. 
 
 " Malt liquors, under which title we include all kinds of por- 
 ter and ales," says Macnish, " produces the worst species of 
 drunkenness ; as, in addition to the intoxicating principle, 
 some noxious ingredients are usually added, for the purpose 
 of preserving them and giving them their bitters. The hop 
 
382 MEDICO-LEGAL CONSIDERATIONS UPON ALCOHOLISM. 
 
 of these fluids is highly narcotic, and brewers often add othei 
 substances to heighten its effect, such as hyoscyamus, opium, 
 belladonna, cocculus Indicus, laurocerasus, etc. Persons 
 addicted to malt liquors increase enormously in bulk. They 
 become loaded with fat ; their chin gets double or triple, the 
 eye prominent, and the whole face bloated and stupid. Their 
 circulation is clogged, whUe the pulse feels like a cord, and is 
 full and laboring, but not quick. During sleep the breathing 
 is stertorous. 
 
 Everything indicates an excess of blood, and when a pound 
 or two is taken away, immense rehef is obtained. The blood 
 in such cases is more dark and sizy than in the others. In 
 seven cases out of ten, malt liquor drunkards die of apoplexy 
 or palsy. If they escape this hazard, swelled liver or dropsy 
 carries them off. The abdomen seldom loses its prominency, 
 but the lower extremities get ultimately emaciated. Profuse 
 bleedings frequently issue from the nose, and save life by 
 emptying the blood-vessels of the brain. 
 
 The effects of malt liquors on the body, if not as immedi- 
 ately rapid as those of ardent spirits, are more stupefying, 
 more lasting, and less easily removed. The last are particu- 
 larly prone to produce levity and mirth, but the first have a 
 stunning influence upon the brain, and in a short time render 
 dull and sluggish the gayest disposition. They also produce 
 sickness and vomiting more readily than either spirits or 
 wine. 
 
 Both wine and malt liquors have a greater tendency to 
 swell the body than ardent spirits. They form blood mth 
 greater rapidity, and are altogether more nourishing. The 
 most dreadful effects, upon the whole, are brought on by 
 spirits, but drunkenness from malt Uquors is the most speedily 
 fatal. The former break down the body by degrees ; the lat- 
 ter operate by some instantaneous apoplexy or rapid inflam- 
 mation. 
 
 No one has ever given the respective characters of the malt 
 liquor and ardent spirit drunkard with greater truth than 
 Hogarth, in his Beer Alley and Gin Lane. The flrst repre- 
 sented as plump, rubicund, and bloated ; the second, as pale, 
 
MEDICO-LEGAL CONSIDEEATIONS UPON ALCOHOLISM. 383 
 
 tottering and emaciated, and dashed over with the aspect of 
 blaJik despair. 
 
 The expert shall have to make the differential diagnosis 
 between alcohoHc and other intoxications. A poison may 
 have been given to an individual, and to conceal the homicide 
 a dose of alcoholic liquor or wine be injected in the mouth 
 and stomach to give rise to the suspicion that the subject died 
 of drunkenness. In this case, the liquor injected would be 
 nearly all found in the stomach ; some might be found also in 
 the trachea, but none would be found in the brain, where it is 
 always found in subjects poisoned by alcohol. This absence 
 of alcohol in the brain, after having been found in the stom- 
 ach, should of itself lead the expert into the suspicion that the 
 subject died from some other cause, and lead him to look for 
 that cause. 
 
 The medical expert must also detect sumdated drunkenness, 
 as well as intoxication caused by other substances, such as 
 opium, belladonna, datura stramonium, ether, chloroform, 
 turpentine, naphtha, benzine, or carbolic acid ; which, es- 
 pecially the two last, produce regular drunkenness. 
 
 The effects of intoxication by alcohol are sometimes very 
 sudden, so much so that in some cases instantaneous death 
 has been produced in individuals swallowing one quart or 
 more of brandy at one time. Of all intoxicating liquors, 
 potato whiskey is the one which produces the most disgust- 
 ing drunkenness. 
 
 Alcoholism may be mistaken for the symptoms of a disease ; 
 for example, for the first delirium of typhoid fever, congestion 
 of the brain, apoplexy, the sequaela of a wound upon the head. 
 Very often a man attacked with concussion of the brain after 
 a wound, or one having been exposed to an intense cold or 
 heat, has been taken for a drunkard, and vice versa* The 
 diagnosis must then be based upon the presence of alcohol 
 and the comparative signs of the intoxication and the wound. 
 The difficulty, however, is greater if a consecutive disease, as 
 apoplexy, for example, is added to the effects of drunkenness, 
 
 * " Diet. Encyclop^dique.'' 
 
384 MEDICO-LEGAL CONSIDERATIONS UPON ALCOHOLISM. 
 
 or if it is complicated from the effects of a wound. In this 
 case, then, both conditions must be examined and diagnosti- 
 cated separately. 
 
 According to Ware and Calmeil, delirium tremens is seldom 
 a cause of death, being 1 to 20 ; but GrisoUe * thinks the pro- 
 portion to be mush higher, as it is demonstrated by statistics 
 published in 1842, at Brussels, by Dr. Bougard : out of 447 
 cases of delirium tremens observed at Copenhagen, Paris, and 
 Brussels, there were 85 deaths, being one-fifth of mortality. 
 Death, says GrisoEe, is the consequence of some cerebral com- 
 plication, exhibited by convulsions in some, whilst in others it 
 is caused by diseases iadependent of the brain. EinaUy, most 
 of them die in consequence of the perturbation experienced 
 by the nervous system ; they fall suddenly into coUapsus, and 
 succumb abruptly after an agony of only a few minutes. 
 
 Wounds. — In regard to traumatism, we all know what influ- 
 ence is exerted upon wounds by alcohoHsm, although they 
 often differ very much, and depend upon whether the subject 
 is laboring under acute or chronic alcoholism, for the conse- 
 quences and the treatment are very different in both cases. 
 
 Drunkenness acts upon the traumatism as traumatism acts 
 upon drunkenness.t In the fixst case, drunkenness plays an 
 important part in a hygienic and medico-legal point of view as 
 a cause of the traumatism. It comphoates the diagnosis, and 
 gives rise to important questions of intervention, such as an 
 indication of delay ia the operation, and a contra-indication 
 to the administration of chloroform. In the second case, the 
 traumatic action seems to act upon the drunkenness. It may 
 increase it, and necessitate an active treatment, of which a 
 striking example is the observation of Simpson, who per- 
 formed tracheotomy ia a case of drunkenness, and saved his 
 patient. 
 
 "The most slight traumatic lesions," says M. Peronne, 
 " especially the wounds upon the head, may have the most 
 serious consequences when the subject is under the influence 
 
 * "Traits de Pathologic interne." 
 
 f Peronne, " De I'Alcoliolisme dans ses Rapports avec le Traumatisme. ' 
 
MEDICO-UIGAL CONSIDERATIONS UPON ALCOHOLISM. 385 
 
 of alcoliol ; but accidental drunkenness does not seem to have 
 any marked influence upon tha future consequence of the 
 wounds. 
 
 " Traumatism is often the occasional cause of acute alco- 
 holic ^iccidents in individuals laboring under chronic alcohol- 
 ism, the most frequent of which is delirium tremens. 
 
 " The gravity and frequency of alcohoUc delirium seem to 
 have more effect upon traumatisms exposing to alteration of 
 the blood, and delirium is declared so much the sooner as 
 traumatism exposes more to these alterations. Tlie nervous 
 dehrium as described by Dupuytren must certainly have been 
 alcoholic delirium. 
 
 "Finally, alcoholism contra-indicates all operations not 
 necessarily urgent; but, if immediate intervention is indis- 
 pensable, it win be advantageous to act promptly before 
 traumatic fever sets in." 
 
 These questions are of the highest importance in a medico- 
 legal point of view ; and both wounds and subject in cases of 
 assaults or murders must be carefully and separately examined, 
 as the wound inflicted may become mortal in an aloohohc 
 subject, which otherwise would have been of no consequence 
 in a sober one. The wound or contusion is then only the 
 occasional, the secondary cause ; drunkenness is the essential, 
 the real, the predisposing one, since, according to the judi- 
 cious remark of Tardieu, in death supervening so suddenly in 
 drunken subjects, pulmonary and cerebral apoplexy are, if not 
 constant, at least very frequent and almost characteristic 
 lesions. 
 
 Spontaneous Combustion. — Since the medico-legal examina- 
 tion of the Countess of GoerHtz's murder, there has been a 
 great doubt as to the veracity of the cases reported as cases 
 of spontaneous combustion, and the fact is that modem 
 authors do not speak of it ; it seems to have been buried in 
 oblivion. I shall here revive the subject, and report a few 
 cases ; for, notwithstanding the conclusion in the report of 
 MM. Siebold and Tardieu in the case above cited, and 
 which says that, of the pretended facts of human spon- 
 taneous combustion reported, not one has been attested 
 
386 MEDICO-LEGAL CONSIDEBATIONS UPON ALCOHOLISM. 
 
 by competent witnesses, the question still remains unset- 
 tled. 
 
 Among tlie many cases reported by Lair * is one reported 
 by Joseph BatagHa, surgeon at Ponte-Bosio. Don Q. Maria 
 Berthoh, a priest of Mount Valerius, went to the feir of 
 rnetto, and afterwards visited a relation in FenUo, where he 
 intended to pass the night. Before retiring to rest, he was 
 left reading his breviary, when, shortly afterwards, the family 
 were alarmed by his loud cries and a strange noise in his 
 room. On opening the door, he was lying prostrate on the 
 floor, and surrounded by flickering flames. Bataglia was im- 
 mediately sent for, and on his arrival the unfortunate man 
 was found in a most deplorable state. The integuments of 
 the arms and back were either consumed or detached in hang- 
 ing flaps. He said that he felt all of a sudden as if his arm 
 had received a violent blow from a club, and at the same time 
 he saw blue flame rising from his shirt- sleeves, which were 
 consumed without having burnt the wrists. A handkerchief 
 which he had tied round his shoulders, between the shirt and 
 the skin, was intact. His drawers were also intact; but, 
 strange to say, his silk skuU-cap was burnt, while his hair 
 bore no marks of combustion. He died the fourth day ; his 
 body exhaled an intolerable putrid smell, and was fuU of 
 maggots. 
 
 Case II. — An old woman, very devoted to ardent liquors, 
 and who never went to bed without being drunk, was found 
 reduced to ashes ; both femurs and several other portions of 
 bones were not entirely consumed. The case is reported in 
 the Commentaries of Leipsic. 
 
 Case HI. — ^Another fact of the same nature is reported by 
 JacobsBus in the Annals of Copenhagen. In 1 92, a woman 
 who was making a great abuse of spirituous Hquors, and took 
 very little food, having fallen asleep upon a chair, was found 
 entirely biirned, except the cranium and the last articulations 
 of the fingers. 
 
 Case IV.-— In 1765, Countess Cornelia Bandi, of Cesena, 
 
 * Lair, P. A. : " Bssai Bur lea Combustions Humaines produites par un 
 long Abus des Liqueurs spiritueuses." In 8vo. Paris. 1800. 
 
MEDICO-LEGAL CONSIDERATIONS UPON ALCOHOLISM. 387 
 
 who was in the habit of usiag frictions of camphorated spirits, 
 was found consumed close to her bedside. No traces of fire 
 could be observed in the room ; the very lights had been 
 burned down to their sockets ; but the furniture, closets, and 
 linen were covered with grayish, damp, and clammy soot. 
 (Bianchini.) 
 
 There are on record about fifty cases of human combustion, 
 of which forty-five are reported by Lair (foe. cit.). 
 
 It is possible that these accidents may be attributed to the 
 escape of hydrogen gas. The presence of this inflammable 
 body in animals is evident. Morton saw flames issuing from 
 the body of a pig. Bonami and Buysch, with a Mghted 
 candle set fire to the vapor arising from the stomach of a 
 woman whom they were opening. In the Memoirs of the 
 Academy of Sciences of Paris, of 1751, we find the case of a 
 butcher who, on opening the body of an ox that had died 
 after a malady which had caused him to swell considerably, 
 was severely burned, as weU as a little girl who was alongside 
 of him, by an explosion and a flame which rose to the height 
 of about five feet, lasted several minutes, and emitted a very 
 disagreeable odor. 
 
 Sturm, Nieremberg, BarthoHn, Gaubius, GmeHn, speak of 
 fiery eructations when, after copious libations, drinkers expose 
 themselves to a cold atmosphere. 
 
 Liebig remarks that the forty-five or fifty cases reported 
 siuce 1725 present aU this in common : that, first, they all 
 took place in winter. Second, in alcohol drinkers in a state 
 of drunkenness. Third, in countries where apartments are 
 heated with open fire-places. 
 
 But such facts are so rarely observed in our days that it 
 is difficult to confirm the theories and reports of old authors 
 by new and well-identified observations. A paper upon the 
 subject of spontaneous combustion has been lately written by 
 Prof. Alexander Ogston, of Aberdeen, and published in The 
 British and Foreign Medico-Chirurgical JSeview, No. 89, Janu- 
 ary, 1870, in which he classifies the cases in two classes. The 
 spurious cases belong to the first class, which comprises those 
 based on the most, unreliable data ; they, however, make a 
 
388 MEDICO-LEGAL CONStDEKATIONS UPON ALCOHOLISM. 
 
 small percentage. The seconcl class comprises cases whose 
 deductions are based upon conditions which cannot be denied 
 as being true and doubtful, and are admitted indiscriminately 
 as evidence. This author counts fifty-seven cases as an exact 
 number of those on record ; and he himself reports one case 
 he has observed, with his father, on the I4th of March, 1869. 
 
 They were requested to examine the remains of Mrs. War- 
 rack, of Boss, aged 66, who resided alone in a house near the 
 Bridge of Dee, Aberdeen. She was said to have been stout, 
 of intemperate habits, and her son stated that he had left her 
 at 10 A. M. on the 14th in her usual health. She was found 
 at 11 A. M. on the same day, lying burnt on the lower steps of 
 the stair of her house, on her left side. The conditioD of the 
 body showed that the fire had caused the greatest alterations 
 in it. The hair was burnt off; the soft parts of the face and 
 front of the head burnt off, the bones exposed, blackened and 
 calcined ; the back of the head, the neck, and the trunk 
 everywhere converted into greasy charcoal to the depth of 
 about an inch ; the skin totally removed, and the bones of the 
 trunk lying bare, blackened, and calcined ; the front wall of 
 the abdomen totally destroyed ; all the internal organs were 
 burnt to ashes, black and greasy ; the right foot totally de- 
 tached from the leg, and converted into a soft, black, greasy, 
 and shapeless cinder, through which the finger could be 
 pushed with ease, etc. Not a vestige of clothing remained 
 anywhere. 
 
 Dr. Beveridge, in a number of experiments as to the com- 
 bustibility of human tissues, concludes, first, that, while sim- 
 ple heat or exposure to a red flameless heat is slow in 
 charring and destruction, the exposition of tissues to a flame 
 gives rise to a much more rapid process of destruction ; second, 
 that in portions of flesh removed from the human body, if 
 without fat, the charring is slow and very gradual, while, if 
 fat and placed next to the flame, the eutis is speedily destroyed 
 and charred, and, cracking, permits the liquefaction and flow- 
 ing out of the subcutaneous fat, which, taking fire, envelops 
 the whole mass in a flame so strong as to speedily reduce it 
 to the condition of a black, greasy cinder. 
 
MEDICO-IiEGAL CONSIDERATIONS UPON ALCOHOIISM. 389 
 
 Illusions and Hallucinations. — These two conditions, although 
 not identical in their effects, are connected together, pro- 
 duced by the same cause, and one is often the consequence 
 of the other. They are intimately connected with the ques- 
 tion now occupying us, as being frequently the cause of mur- 
 der or suicide. 
 
 By illusion we understand a mental condition in which the 
 subject takes one thing for another, or one person for another, 
 or for an animal or a devil. Briere de Boismont (" Des 
 Hallucinations") relates a number of those cases, a few of 
 which we shall repeat. In one case, a woman killed her hus- 
 band with an iron bar, having taken him for the devil, and, 
 although she afterwards recognized her mistake, she always 
 persisted in saying that she took him for this evil spirit. 
 Once before, mistaking her sister for a cadaver, she took her 
 by the neck, and was going to throw her out of the window. 
 
 King Theodoricus, blinded by jealousy, and yielding to the 
 perfidious suggestions of his courtiers, ordered the Senator 
 Symmachus, one of the most virtuous men of his time, to be 
 put to death. This order is hardly executed before the king 
 is overwhelmed with remorse ; he incessantly reproaches 
 himself with that crime. One day a new kind of fish is served 
 upon his table ; he gets filled with terror, for in the head of 
 the fish he has recognized that of Symmachus. 
 
 M. 0. (" Obs." 23), after a mental affection of which he is 
 now completely cured, returns to his family. The next day 
 he goes down in the cellar, followed by his wife. His sister, 
 not seeing them return, goes down also. The absence of 
 these persons was so prolonged that the servant becomes 
 anxious, and goes to see what may be the cause of the delay, 
 when she suddenly reappears, and runs out of the house 
 screaming terribly. From the expression of fright painted on 
 her face, something frightful is expected ; the police arrive ; 
 two women are seen swimming in their blood, and a man sit- 
 ting on a barrel, with a razor lying at his feet. Being ques- 
 tioned, all he can answer is that he has seen the devil, and has 
 defended himself against him. This man, whose mental dis- 
 ease had been ascertained, was sent to Charenton, and after- 
 
390 MEDICO-LEGAL CONSIDERATIONS UPON ALCOHOLISM. 
 
 ward transferred to a private asylum, where Briere de Bois- 
 mont saw him for nearly a year. He spoke rather reasonably, 
 and his conduct presented nothing peculiar. The doctor was 
 struck by only one thing : every time the washerwoman came 
 he saw the woman's clothes spotted with blood, and his eye 
 took a sinistral expression. C, tired of living in an asylum, 
 claimed his liberty, and obtained it, notwithstanding the pro- 
 testations of Esquirol and Marc. A few years after, he as- 
 saulted the woman who lived with him, taking her for a 
 demon who was reproaching him for his crimes ; she only 
 escaped an imminent death by jumping out of a window. 
 Twelve days after, he expired in an asylum in the midst of 
 raving madness, thinking himself surrounded by phantoms 
 and devils.* 
 
 Marc relates a ease where, two friends being intoxicated, 
 the one killed the other under an illusion that he was an evil 
 spirit. The drunkenness of the accused was held to have 
 been voluntary, and he was condemned to ten years' impris- 
 onment with hard labor. A case of this description (Taylor) 
 was tried at the Norfolk Lent Assizes, 1840 (Reg. v. Patteson). 
 A man while intoxicated killed his friend, who was also intoxi- 
 cated, under the illusion that he was some other person who 
 had come to attack him. The judge made the guilt of the 
 prisoner to rest upon whether, had he been sober, he would 
 have perpetrated the act under a similar illusion. As he 
 had voluntarily brought himself into a state of intoxica- 
 tion, this was no justification. He was found guilty of 
 manslaughter, and sentenced to tioo months' imprison- 
 ment. 
 
 " The proof of drunkenness may fail," says Taylor,t " but 
 still, if the party charged with the death acted under an illu- 
 sion, he will be acquitted. In Eeg. v. Price (Maidstone Sum- 
 mer Assizes, 1846), it was proved that prisoner, who had been 
 on friendly terms with deceased, was going home at night, 
 
 * Briere de Boismont : " Observations Medico-legftles sur la Monomania 
 Homicide." Paris. 1837. , 
 
 f "Medical Jurisprudence." 
 
MEUICO-LESAL CONSIDERATIONS UPON ALCOHOLISM!, 3!)1 
 
 having previously been in company with deceased at a public- 
 house,' when, according to his statement, a man sprang upon 
 him from the hedge by the roadside, and demanded his 
 money and his watch, or else he said he would take his life. 
 The prisoner closed with and beat him severely, inflicting 
 suc'i injaries that he died shortly afterwards. The supposed 
 robber turned out to be the friend, and it was believed that 
 he had made an attempt to rob the prisoner jokingly, which, 
 however, had ended in this fatal manner. The prisoner 
 throughout told the same story, and there did not appear to 
 bo the slightest ground for believing that it was untrue. 
 Coltman, J., after hearing the evidence of the witnesses, said 
 it appeared to be quite clear that the prisoner had acted 
 under an impression that he was protecting his own life from 
 the attack of a robber, and under such circumstances he could 
 not be held to be criminally responsible. The jury accord- 
 ingly returned a verdict of not guilty, and the prisoner was 
 discharged." 
 
 Hallucination is a mental condition in which the pertur- 
 bation of the senses is such that the hallucinated, sees, feels, 
 hears, or smells things existing only in his imagination. The 
 pretended sensations of the hallucinated, says Esquirol, are 
 images or ideas reproduced by memory, associated by imagi- 
 nation, and personified by habit. 
 
 Hallucinations caused by alcoholism have generally the 
 same character. In some cases, the subject is persecuted by 
 men forcing him to endorse a forged check, as I have wit- 
 nessed one a short time ago ; another one is terrified by the 
 presence of thieves, thinks he is tied up, and is going to be 
 thrown in a river ; in other cases, the prominent idea is the 
 presence of devils or animals. Morel remarks that, in the 
 principal of this wretched passion, it is not infrequent to see 
 phosphorescent lights presenting the most fantastic forms. 
 The patients have frightful dreams, they see hideous objects, 
 threatening faces, unclean animals of all sorts, which they 
 try to keep away in extending the arms or covering their 
 faces. In the period when the alcoholist experiences some 
 formications in the legs, they may be illusioned in the same 
 
392 MEDICO-LEGAL CONSIDERATIONS UPON ALCOHOLISM. 
 
 way as hypocliondriacs. An insane man of this category fol- 
 lowed, with a sensation of stupid iineasiness, the motions of 
 a cat, which, climbing on his legs, stuck its claws in his flesh. 
 When arrived at the paroxysm of pain, the illusion was be- 
 coming so complete that this patient would catch hold of 
 and evidently squeeze his scrotum, thinking he had caught 
 the animal. 
 
 Hallucinations are more generally a cause of suicide, either 
 voluntary or involuntary ; and is it astonishing that it should 
 be so ? A man thinks he is pursued by some one who wants 
 to kill him ; he runs out through a window, taking it for a 
 door, and kills himself in the fall. Another one is so oppressed 
 and persecuted by the sensation of animals running on him 
 to devour him that he hangs himself. Briere de Boismont 
 (" Du Suicide et de la Folie Suicide ") relates the following 
 casj: 
 
 X., a day -laborer, had been, through drinking excesses, 
 subjected to a superexcitation, revealing to him the thousand 
 small miseries of life. The idea of work appeared to him as 
 a horrid malediction ; he resolved to get rid of it without 
 delay. Providing himself with a rope, he climbed on a tree, 
 and, after fastening it and passing round his neck, he threw 
 himself into eternity. Fortunately for him, the lame was 
 broken by the shock, and his body deposited upon the 
 ground, where it was found by a charitable passer-by, who 
 cut the rope, and, assisted by the police, took him to the 
 station-house, where he could say nothing, except that 
 drinking made him crazy. However, when completely sober, 
 he thanked his star for having escaped so miraculously from 
 death, and preserved carefully the rope, probably as a future 
 warning from getting drunk again. 
 
 Drunkenness may also lead to kleptomania, this new ex- 
 cuse for fashionable people who are in the habit of supplying 
 themselves with other people's property. 
 
 A man whose honesty was unspotted was no sooner drunk 
 than he was stealing everything that came under his hands. 
 As soon as the paroxysm was terminated, he felt ashamed of 
 himself and restored the stolen goods. He was led to com- 
 
MEDICO-IiEGAL COXSIDEKATIONS UPON ALCOHOLISM. 393 
 
 mifc suicide from the fact that he could not cure himself from 
 this bad habit.* 
 
 - Moral and Criminal Responsibility of Drunhards. — This is a 
 question which has been the subject of the greatest contes- 
 tations and -variety of opinions. Aristotle, and after him 
 Quintilianus, did not admit that drunkenness, even when so 
 complete that liberty of action was abolished, was an excuse 
 or even a cause of extenuation. Drunkenness, they said was 
 a state of voluntary degradation, and one cannot find a means 
 of justification in his own degrad ation. Drunkenness aggra- 
 vates the crime instead of excusing it ; and there is, then, a 
 reason for applying two punishments, one for the offence and 
 the other for the drunkenness. This opinion was accepted by 
 jurists of the middle ages, when a citation was an argument, 
 and was defended by Bartholes. In the statutes of Francis 
 I., the offences committed in that condition were more se- 
 verely punished. In England, as well as in this country, 
 drunkenness is no excuse for crime, and Blackstone declares 
 that it is rather a cause of aggravation. In Prussia and 
 Bavaria, on the contrary, drunkenness is a cause of excuse 
 (Briand and Chaude). However, we see in the Prussian code 
 that any one who, through gambling, drunkenness, or other- 
 wise, is unable to support his family is sent to prison.f 
 
 The French Penal Code is silent on this point, and the dis- 
 cussion rolls upon the interpretation to be given to Art. 64, 
 which declares, first, that there is neither crime nor offence 
 where the accused was in a state of dementia at the time the 
 deed was committed, and, after, that no crime or offence can 
 be excused or the punishment mitigated except in cases of 
 circumstances where the law declares the fact excusable, and 
 allows an extenuation of the pain. 
 
 In regard to civil responsibility, authors are unanimous, 
 
 * Briere de Boismont, he. cit. 
 
 f The criminal code of Maria Theresa admitted that the individual in a 
 state of drunkenness was incapable of offence. The Austrian code says that 
 involuntary drunkenness leading to criminal action destroys the judgment, 
 and, of course, responsibility. It declares that drunkenness must be pun- 
 ished as transgression when one has committed an action which in another 
 time should be considered as a crime. , 
 
394 MEDICO-LEGAL CONSIDEBAllONS UPON ALCOHOLISM. 
 
 and agree that drunkenness pushed to a certain degree en- 
 genders an incapacity ; depriving temporarily the individual 
 laboring under its influence from the faculty of making a 
 contract, and that the nullity of an agreement passed in this 
 condition must be granted. (Pothier, cited by Briand and 
 Chaude.) 
 
 Taylor says : " When the mind of a man is completely 
 weakened by habitual drunkenness, then the law infers irre- 
 sponsibility, unless it plainly appears that the person was at 
 the time of the act, whether of a civil or of a criminal nature, 
 endowed with full consciousness of what he was doing ; and 
 a court of equity will not interfere in other cases unless the 
 drunkenness was the result of collusion by others for the 
 purpose of fraud. When the drunkenness has occasioned a 
 temporary loss of the reasoning powers, the party is incapa- 
 ble of giving a valid consent, and therefore cannot enter into 
 a contract or agreement, for this implies aggregatio mentium, 
 i.e. a mental assent of the parties. Partial drunkenness, 
 therefore, provided the person knew what he was about, 
 does not vitiate a contract or agreement into which he may 
 have entered. Thus the law appears to create two states in 
 drunkenness : one, in which it has proceeded to but a slight ex- 
 tent, and it is considered that there is still a power of rational 
 consent ; another, in which it has proceeded so far that the per- 
 son has no consciousness of the transaction, and, therefore, can 
 give no rational consent. The proof of the existence of this last 
 state would vitiate all the civil acts of a party." Upon the 
 criminal question of responsibility the same author remarks : 
 " When homicide is committed by a man in a state of drunk- 
 enness, this is held to be no excuse for the crime. If voluntarily 
 induced, whatever may be its degree, it is not admitted as a 
 ground of irresponsibility, even although the party might not 
 have contemplated the crime when sober. Thus it appears 
 that when the state of drunkenness is such that any civil act 
 of the person would be void, he may still be held responsible 
 
 for a crime like murder." * . 
 
 * The English laws do not excuse. Whoever gets drunk voluntarily is 
 responsible for the action committed in that condition, if even, when sober, 
 
MEDICO-LEGAL CONSIDEKATIONS UPON AXCOHOLISM. 395 
 
 In the state of New York, we have a statute which places 
 the property of habitual drunkards under the care of the 
 court, in the same manner as that of lunatics. The over- 
 seers of the poor in each town may, when they discover 
 any person to be a habitual drunkard, apply to the chancel- 
 lor for the exercise of his power and jurisdiction. And cer- 
 tain cases, when the person considers himself aggrieved, may 
 be investigated by six freeholders, as to whether or not he is 
 actually what he is described to be, and their declaration is 
 prima facie evidence of the fact. (Beck's " Med. Jur.") 
 
 Now, we must decline to accept the validity of such a law, 
 that the testimony given by six freeholders is prima facie 
 evidence of the fact in a medico-legal question. We have 
 always opposed medical expertism given by laymen, and we do 
 it now more than ever. So many blunders and illegal acts 
 are caused daily by such experts that it is time they should 
 be stopped. No question involving a medical question 
 should be judged and its validity become incontestible ex- 
 cept when given not only by a physician, but by a medical 
 expert. Members of a jury, especially of a country jury, are, 
 as a common thing, very incompetent in everything regard- 
 ing medical matters, and no man is able to discuss or judge 
 of a question he is totally ignorant of. 
 
 Far from being a pretext to extenuate the offence, drunk- 
 enness must, on the contrary, aggravate the circumstances. 
 In fact, the perpetration of a crime is in most cases encour- 
 aged by it. Drunkenness has been the first offence which 
 has led to a second one more criminal still, and the second 
 offence is very often the consequence of the first. The man 
 who gets drunk has often the idea of satisf3'ing a passion, 
 and only uses drunkenness as a cloak to conceal his premedi- 
 tation. The records of criminal cases show that often mur- 
 derers, incendiaries, and seducers get intoxicated before com- 
 mitting their crimes ; and, as Taylor says, " It is obvious that, 
 
 he could not have premeditated the crime. Drunkenness has no legal 
 action ; it neither extenuates nor increases the penalty attached to the trans- 
 gression. (Guy.) 
 
396 MEDICO-MIGAL CONSIDEBATIONS UPON ALCOHOLISM. 
 
 if drunkenness were to be readily admitted as a plea of irre- 
 sponsibility, three-fourths of the whole of the crimes in this 
 country would go unpunished. Sir B. Coke declares that: 
 " As for a drunkard who is vduntarius demon, he hath no 
 privilege thereby ; but what hurt or ill soever he doeth, his 
 drunkenness doth aggravate it." In our own day, Judge 
 Parke, a very authoritative Crown judge, said to a jury : "I 
 must also toll you, if a man makes himself voluntarily drunk, 
 it is no excuse for any crime he may commit while he is so. 
 .He takes the consequences of his own voluntary act, or most 
 crimes would go unpunished." Such opinions, of course, 
 must vary a great deal according to whether the judge is a 
 temperate man or the contrary. 
 
 The French laws do not make any mention of drunkenness. 
 It is not admitted as a legal excuse : "There is neither crime 
 nor offence where the accused was in a state of dementia at 
 the time of the action." {Oode Penal, 64.) Attempts have 
 been made to apply to drunkenness this disposition of the 
 penal code. Dementia is a general expression designing all 
 conditions in which consciousness, judgment, will, are sus- 
 pended ; it is mental alienation, permanent or temporary, prim- 
 itive or secondary, a delirium as well as a mania. " Should we 
 hesitate," says Tourdes ("Diet. Encycl. des. Sc. Med."), "to 
 excuse the acts committed under the influence of typhoid 
 fever, of poisoning by belladonna, by datura? Why, then, 
 judge differently when it is a question of alcohol, which has 
 identical effects upon conscience and will ? Jurisprudence 
 has always rejected this doctrine. Drunkenness is a volun- 
 tary action, a wicked one, disapproved by morals, and cannot 
 constitute a legal excuse." " If the will of the legislator had 
 been to place drunkenness upon the same level as dementia, 
 and classify it among the excuses, he would have mentioned 
 it as he mentioned dementia and provocation. His silence 
 reveals his formal will to refuse that character to it." (Briand 
 and Chaude.) The question of drunkenness cannot be sub- 
 mitted to the jury. In 1808, the Court of Assizes of Cher, 
 having put a question relative to drunkenness presented by 
 the accused, the Court of Cassation disapproved, specifying 
 
MEDICO-IiEGAL CONSIDEEATIONS UPON ALCOHOLISM. 397 
 
 that drunkenness, being a voluntary and reprovable action, 
 can never constitute an excuse acceptable by law and 
 morals. 
 
 Such is French jurisprudence, which makes man responsi- 
 ble for crimes committed during drunkenness. We will now 
 examine this doctrine in its medical aspect. 
 
 Drunkenness is a temporary dementia, destroying con- 
 science and free-will. Responsibility and absence of moral 
 liberty, are contradictory ideas. Such is the absolute prin- 
 ciple. " Drunkenness," says Bossi, " when complete, destroys 
 completely the conscience of good or evil, the faculty of 
 reasoning ; it is a sort of temporary dementia. The man 
 who became intoxicated may be guilty of a great imprudence, 
 but it is impossible to say, with justice, ' This crime you un- 
 derstood at the time it was committed by you.' " 
 
 The man who gets drunk must only be responsible for the 
 imprudence he committed in getting drunk. To impute to 
 him the actions he committed when he had lost his power of 
 reasoning, is punishing as a crime a purely material action, 
 abstraction being made of the guilty will of the agent. 
 (Chevreau and F. Helis.) If the individual has lost all 
 faculties of knowledge, judgment, and will, he becomes una- 
 ble to dispose and contract. His actions can no more be 
 imputed to him. 
 
 If in a general view this principle is not contestable, let us, 
 however, confine it between some narrow limits, and indicate 
 the circumstances ruling its application. It would be danger- 
 ous to give the character of a legal excuse to a fact reprova- 
 ble in itself — to legitimate, so to speak, an immoral habit and 
 prepare an excuse to all crimes. Drunkenness alters more 
 or less our moral faculties ; but the insane himself, in a cer- 
 tain measure, may be considered as responsible for his actions 
 when they are committed during a lucid moment, and when the 
 mental lesion is not very deep or specialized. The same ap- 
 preciation, with still more light, is applied to the effects of 
 alcoholism. We must not in such a matter admit any abso- 
 lute doctrine. There are regarding drunkenness some cases 
 of excuse or of extenuation, as well as there are cases where 
 
398 MEDICO-LEGAL CONSIDERATIONS UPON ALCOHOLISM. 
 
 responsibility remains entire or is even aggravated. This 
 opinion is not contrary to law. 
 
 Some authors go still further. Dr. Steph. Eogers, in a 
 paper read before this Society, says:* "The finding of a 
 man drunk and absent from business, that be knows to be 
 important, I should at once regard as evidence of the exist- 
 ence of methomania in his case ; " and as " methomania," ac- 
 cording to the same author, " is a manifestation of brain dis- 
 ease, and that brain disease involves generally impairment of 
 mental faculties, and consequently a form of insanity, any 
 man drunk and absent from business that he knows to be 
 important, committing a crime in that condition, should be 
 treated not as a criminal, but as a maniac. 
 
 Dr. Tyler, quoted by the same author, says : " An inebriate 
 has a diseased brain. No will or agency of his can bring 
 forth therefrom other than diseased mental and moral pro- 
 ducts. A person who is governed by an uncontrollable influ- 
 ence is not a responsible being, and should be so treated." 
 
 Now, as we have seen above, the drunkard is in some cases 
 responsible and in others he is not; and, in fact, how can we 
 condemn a man committing a crime against his will ? In a 
 criminal case, the question must be carefully examined ; for, 
 if the guilty party has had attacks of delirium tremens, if it is 
 ascertained that he is a dipsomaniac, he ought to be confined 
 in an asylum as any other insane ; and no matter how well he 
 may appear to be while confined, it is not till after a long 
 time, probably ten years, before he can renounce spirits, or 
 that he may be set at liberty without danger for himself and 
 society. No matter how much he might promise, swear, that 
 he will not " touch another glass," the inclination before that 
 time is stronger than he. He cannot resist it as long as he can 
 procure it. 
 
 The habit of getting drunk is as old as the world. It is a 
 chronic evil, and a chronic evil as well as a chronic disease 
 cannot be cured by quick-acting remedies. The symptoms 
 may be amended, but before a cure can be effected, we must 
 
 * Quarterly Journal of Psychological Med., April, 1869 
 
MEDICO-LEGAL CONSIDEBATIONS UPON ALCOHOLISM. 399 
 
 first combat tlie diathesis, and use slow-acting remedies as 
 well as all the resources of hygiene. 
 
 When we want to treat a disease, we always try to find its 
 cause. When this last is found, it is often an indication for 
 the treatment. 
 
 Causes of Drunkenness. — Now, in ninety cases out of a hun- 
 dred, drunkenness is first contracted by imitation and polite- 
 ness ; for it is considered very impolite by some individuals 
 to refuse to drink when invited io join in. It soon becomes a 
 habit, and then constitutes one of the most incurable diseases. 
 Every additional glass is one more stitch in that other Nessus' 
 tunic, called chronic alcoholism, from which, when once entan- 
 gled in its folds, it is impossible to come out, and Hercules, 
 like the drunkard, dies in the most wretched agony. 
 
 The disease is not even ended by his death, but its influ- 
 ence extends from generation to generation until extinction 
 of his race. Morel * reports many examples of this fact. 
 According to him, the sequence is as follows : 
 
 First generation : immorality, depravity, excess in the use 
 of alcoholic liquors, moral debasement. 
 
 Second generation : hereditary drunkenness, paroxysms of 
 mania, general paralysis. 
 
 Third generation : sobriety, hypochondria, melancholy, sys- 
 tematic ideas of being persecuted, homicidal tendency. 
 
 Fourth generation : intelligence slightly developed, first 
 accession of mania at sixteen years of age, stupidity, subse- 
 quent idiocy, and probably extinction of the family. 
 
 Another cause rests principally in this country upon the 
 bar-room system. There were in New York, on the 1st of 
 last February (1871), 7,000 dram-shops or hotels pa5'ing 
 license, under the Excise Law ; and I was told by one of the 
 officers of the department that there was at least an equal 
 number of people selling liquor without license, which would 
 make for the city of New York alone the enormous number 
 of 14,000 drinking places, one for every 65 inhabitants. • 
 
 *"Traite des D%enere3cence3 phyeiques et morales de I'Espece hu 
 maine " 
 
400 MEDICO-LEGAL CONSIDERATIONS UPON ALCOHOLISM. 
 
 The amount of revenue tax collected last year upon spirits 
 and fermented liquors was nearly fifty-six million dollars, at 
 a rate of fifty cents per gallon, making 23,000,000 gallons of 
 native spirits only, whilst in 1868, when the tax was two dol- 
 lars per gallon, it amounted only to nearly nineteen millions, 
 making 9,500,000 gallons. We may thus judge of the increase 
 in the use of spirits since the decrease of the tax ; for, if in 
 1870 the tax had been at the same rate as in 1868, the 
 amount would have been one hundred and sixty-eight mil- 
 lions instead of nineteen ! Vice-President Colfax, in a recent 
 lecture at Washington, said that the money spent by the 
 people of the United States in drinking amounted to the 
 fabulous sum of one thousand millions a year. 
 
 Messrs. Otis Clapp, John E. Tyler, and William B. Spooner, 
 who were appointed commissioners to consider the expedi- 
 ency of establishing an asylum for inebriates in Massachu- 
 setts, have submitted a very interesting report to the Gov- 
 ernor and Council of that State, which has been commu- 
 nicated to the Ii3gislature. They estimate that there are 
 600,000 persons in the United States who have lost their pow- 
 er of self-control in the use of intoxicating liquors, and that 
 in Massachusetts there are 23,000, of which number two per 
 cent, die each year a drunkard's death. According to the re- 
 port of the Board of Health of the city of New York for 1870, 
 there wer^ 307 deaths direct from intemperance ; but, as I 
 said in my last paper, those who die from some other disease 
 caused by intemperance are credited to the disease and not 
 to the cause. We must, however, be thankful to Dr. Charles 
 P. Kussel, Registrar of Records of Yital Statistics, who has 
 begun for the year 1871 to take an accurate account of the 
 deaths which are caused directly or indirectly by intemper- 
 ance.* We do not wish to extend our remarks any longer 
 
 * The report has just reached us, and we find that in 1871 deaths from 
 direct alcoholism amounted to 220. In 1873 they were 314. Deaths from 
 delirium tremens, 102. Intemperance was certified as either the direct or 
 complicating cause in altogether 836 cases— over two daily ; 75 per cent, 
 were in males. 
 
MEDICO-LEGAL CONSIDERATIONS UPON ALCOHOLISM. 401 
 
 upon the subject of statistics, which we have sufficiently de- 
 veloped in our last paper.* 
 
 Nor can we suggest a means of arresting the progress of 
 intemperance in this country. We leave this task to legis- 
 lators. The evil is known, and has been advocated by 
 thousands better than I can do myself, only I must repeat 
 with Magnus Huss : " Things have arrived to such a point 
 that, if energetic means are not taken against such a fatal 
 habit, the nation is threatened with incalculable evil. . , 
 The danger to which is exposed the intellectual and physical 
 health "fcf Scandinavian [we might as well say American] 
 populations is not one of those more or less probable event- 
 ualities. It is a present evil, whose ravages may be observed 
 upon the present generation. . . It is no more time to back 
 out before the means to be taken, should they even injure 
 many interested parties. . . It is better to steal away 
 from danger at any price than to be obliged to say it is too 
 late." 
 
 As we have said above, one of the greatest causes of drunk- 
 enness is imitation ; but what we must add is that imitation 
 is in most part inherent to minors. It is most generally be- 
 tween the ages of seventeen and twenty-one that the habit is 
 contracted. I asked, a short time ago, a youth of nineteen, 
 who was in the habit of gettmg intoxicated, if he liked the 
 taste of the liquor. He answered that he disliked it ; and 
 finally confessed that he was drinking to do like the others, 
 and that among his friends he who drank the most was con- 
 sidered the smartest and most manly ! 
 
 Now, the best means to cut short this human plague is to do 
 away with the bar-room system, when, if bar-rooms are not 
 met with in every block, the occasion of drinking will be less 
 frequent, and the habit will be made less easily contracted ; 
 or, if this measure be found too rigid to begin with, let the 
 number of drinking-places be limited, a heavier tax imposed 
 
 * " Report of Three Cases of Poisoning by Whiskey, with Eemarks upon 
 Alcoholism,'' New York Med. Journal, Dec, 1870. Reprinted in pamphlet 
 form. D. Appleton & Co., New York. 
 
402 MEDICO-LEGAL CONSIDEEATIONS UPON ALCOHOLISM. 
 
 upon them, and a sufficient bond furnished by the keepers of 
 those establishments, who should be liable to a heavy fine 
 for selling liquors to minors or to people already intoxi- 
 cated. 
 
 By these means we should arrive soon to a decrease of 
 this plague, which, if not soon stopped, will be the ruin of 
 the country and a cause of degeneration of its population. 
 
-\' 
 
DAYID DUDLEY FIELD. 
 
 If Professor Gross was properly called the Nestor of Ameri- 
 can surgei-y at the moment of his death, the legal profession of 
 the United States would, with one accord, concede that David 
 Dudley Field may, with equal propriety, be named the ]S"estor 
 of the American bar. He M'as^born February 13, 1805, at Had- 
 dam, Conn. He graduated at Williams College in 1825. Ad- 
 mitted to the bar in 1828, he has been for over half a century 
 in practice in this city. His is the most conspicuous name of 
 the senior bar of the United States. He has been for many 
 years a member of the Medico-Legal Societj', has held several 
 of its important offices, and contributed papers, always taking 
 an interest in the science of medical jurisprudence. 
 
 The name of Mr. Field will be more prominently identiiied 
 with the Code he has furnished for the legal profession and the 
 public, than with any other subject in legal affairs. 
 
 While others have been associated with him in his labor of 
 codification, he has survived and outlived all, and is to-day the 
 foremost man in America identified with that system of codes 
 which has been adopted in New York, California, Kentucky, 
 Ohio, Iowa, Wisconsin, Kansas, Nevada, Dakota, Oregon, Idaho, 
 Montana, Minnesota, Nebraska, and Arizona. 
 
 In 1866 he submitted his views upon an International Code 
 to the British Science Association, and was made chairman of 
 a committee on an International Code, which reported in 1873. 
 He was made President of the International Conference for the 
 Codification of the Law of Nations, held at Brussels in 1873, 
 and was the central figure at succeeding conferences held at 
 Geneva, The Hague, Bremen, and Antwerp. He is still in full 
 vigor, and actively engaged in important professional conflicts. 
 D. Appleton & Co. have recently issued Yol. I. of his " Speeches, 
 Arguments, and Miscellaneous Papers,'' which aptly illustrates 
 much of his eventful life. C. B, 
 
THE SPHERE, RIGHTS, AND OBLIGATIONS 
 
 OF 
 
 MEDICA.!. EXPERTS 
 
 By JAMES J. O'DEA, M.D., of New York.* 
 
 Not much is known of the application of medical knowledge 
 to the end of jurisprudence in the earliest historic times. The 
 ancient Roman law-courts had a short and easy method of 
 settling doubtful medico-legal points by referring them to the 
 "authority of the learned Hippocrates." But under the 
 imperial sway, when the study of jurisprudence underwent 
 its wonderful development in the reigns of Justinian and his 
 successors, a serious attention was attracted to the subject, 
 and rules relating to its practical application were embodied 
 in those famous compounds of state and judiciary law, the 
 Pandects. Still, the actual beginning of the system, such as 
 we now enjoy it, dates from so late as the commencement of 
 the sixteenth century. In those da^-s the experiment was not 
 always attended by happy results, for, naturally enough, 
 medical men shared in many of the ignorant beliefs of the 
 times, and lent the force of their opinions to sustain them. 
 But, notwithstanding this drawback, it soon gave promise of 
 such good fruit that it was deemed necessary to frame a body 
 of rules for the employment of medical witnesses, and for 
 their guidance in the new duties assigned them. These rules 
 
 * Read before the Society, April 13. 1871 
 
404 SPHEEE, EIGHTS, AND OBLIGATIONS 
 
 are contained in the celebrated " Conslitufio Criminalis Caro- 
 lina," decreed by Charles V., Emperor of Germany, at the 
 Diet of Rafcisbon, in 1532. It is there ordained that medical 
 practitioners shall be called to investigate all cases of death 
 "by wouads, poisons, hanging, drowning, or the like; as well 
 as cases of concealed pregnancy, procured abortion, child- 
 murder," etc.* The numerous works on medical jurispru- 
 dence which succeeded the publication of this code amply 
 atte.at the interest it awakened among the medical men of the 
 dav. About the first was a treatise by a German doctor, 
 Johannes Bohn, on the subject of mortal wounds, entitled 
 " De Senunciatione Vulnerum," published in 1689. The same 
 author produced in 1704 a more comprehensive work, giving 
 copious rules for the guidance of medical evidence in courts 
 of law ; and in Valentine's Pandects, the physicians of the 
 day had, according to good authority, " a compendious retro- 
 spect of the opinions of preceding writers on juridical medi- 
 cine." t 
 
 At first the right to testify in courts of law was restricted 
 to surgeons. Two were appointed in every city and town to 
 examine " all wounded or murdered persons," and to report 
 the facts to the proper tribunal. But in 1692 physicians were 
 included, and henceforth discharged similar duties. Such, at 
 least, was the early progress of ihis novelty in Germany. The 
 French adopted and improved upon the German institution. 
 After the publication of the Caroline Code, Francis I. decreed 
 that both "physicians and surgeons should be legally re- 
 quired" to act in a medico-legal capacity. Subsequently, 
 Henry IV. conferred on his court physicians the privilege of 
 nominating surgeons in every town " to the exclusive right 
 of exercising this important duty." Finally, Louis XIV. 
 decreed that physicians must always be present with sur- 
 geons at the examination of dead bodies.| A pleasing ex- 
 ample of the authority of medical opinion with courts of in- 
 
 * Paris and Fonblanque, "Medical Jurisprudence," vol. 1, Introduction, 
 pp. 9, 10. 
 t Ibid. 
 :|:Foder6s, Traite de Med. Leg., vol. i. 
 
OF MEDICAL EXPEETS. 405 
 
 quirj, even in those days, is narrated by Pigray in 
 his Chirurgerie I'liv. 7, chap. 10, p. 445). It appears that 
 seven men and seven women were sentenced to death 
 for sorcery, and that M. Pigray, with three professional 
 associates, was appointed to visit the condemned in com- 
 pany with the court counselors, to investigate the truth 
 of the charges contained in the written deposition made 
 against them. The result of the inquiry was a recom- 
 mendation to the court to remove the sentence of death, 
 and to place the fourteen prisoners, whom they dis- 
 overed to be lunatics, under medical treatment, and we are 
 told the court was wise enough to follow the advice. The 
 progress of opinion was slower in England, for we read that, 
 more than a quarter of a century after the occurrence just 
 mentioned. Sir Thomas Browne, author of the fascinating 
 book " Religio Medici," bore " testimony to the reality of dia- 
 bolical delusions, occasioning by his evidence the conviction 
 and condemnation of two unfortunate persons, who were tried 
 at Bury St. Edmonds, before the Lord Chief Justice Baron 
 Sir Matthew Hale, on the capital charge of bewitching the 
 children of a Mr. Pacey, and causing them to have fits." * 
 But this was in the reign of James I., whose obsequious Par- 
 liament enacted a law against witches, in the preparation of 
 which men even such as Coke and Bacon took an active part. 
 It was not until the furore had spent itself in the execution 
 of some forty thousand men, women, and children that the 
 persecution was finally stopped by the efforts of Chief Justice 
 Holt. Among the last to suffer death in England were two 
 women, executed on the grave charge of having, the devil 
 willing, raised a hurricane by making a lather of soap and 
 pulling off their stockings. But I must ask pardon for this 
 digression. 
 
 Undoubtedly, American physicians are among the most 
 industrious laborers in the field of medico-legal research. So 
 early in the history of the republic as 1810, Dr. Kush drew 
 attention to the subject in an introductory lecture delivered 
 
 * Paris and Fonblanque, p. 38. 
 
406 
 
 SPHEEE, EIGHTS, AND OBLIGATIONS 
 
 before the University of Pennsylvania, dwelling on the value 
 of medical testimony as an aid in the vindication of oppressed 
 innocence and the punishment of crime. Since then the 
 whole field of medical jurisprudence has been traversed in 
 numerous American works of recognized ability and author- 
 ity. I need only mention those of Beck, of Wharton and 
 Stille, and two valuable productions on medical evidence to 
 which I am much indebted in the preparation of this paper, 
 Dr. Elwell's " Malpractice and Medical Evidence," of which 
 the third edition, revised and enlarged, is recently published, 
 and the excellent treatise on the "Jurisprudence of Medi- 
 cine," by Prof. Ordronaux, 
 
 I. 
 
 The word expert means, etymologically, " taught by use, 
 practice, or experience." It therefore denotes one who has 
 a practical knowledge of some science or art. Now, in the 
 case of the medical expert this practical knowledge is only 
 of sterling valae to the cause of justice when reared on a 
 solid basis of scientific training. This fact our law courts do 
 not seem sufficiently to recognize, and it is precisely because 
 they do not recognize it that the question " What constitutes 
 a medical expert?" receives even at this day conflicting 
 answers. Thus, while in some cases (as in Page v. Parker, 
 40 N. H., 47) it was ruled that, in questions of skill or science, 
 mere opportunity for observation was not enough, it being 
 necessary that the witness should have superior skill and 
 scientific knowledge, and also a mastery of the subject ; in 
 others (e. g., in N. Orleans & Co. v. Allbritton, 38 Miss., 242) 
 it has been held that practising physicians without medical 
 diploma or license from an examining board stand on an equal 
 footing in this respect with the most thoroughly-educated 
 medical men. And in the Livingston case it was the judicial 
 decision " that any practising physician is competent to 
 express an opinion as an expert on a medical question."* 
 
 * Ordronaux : " Jurisprudence of Medicine." 
 
OF MEDICAL EXPERTS. 407 
 
 A medical expert, properly so called, is one specially quali- 
 fied to give opinions on facts having a medical nature and 
 bearing. Of course, this definition will exclude all who, 
 though recognized as physicians by the amended statute, are 
 not legitimate members of the profession. Moreover, it will 
 discriminate between members of the profession itself, and 
 with propriety, I think, for, apart from the fact that some 
 physicians are, by reason of certain advantages of training 
 and observation, more entitled to the position of experts than 
 others, there is no doubt that the interests of justice and the 
 reputation of our cloth require some classification of medical 
 witnesses more in accordance with facts and experience. 
 Presuming this to be true, I may classify them : 
 
 A. As physicians and surgeons. This might answer, though 
 still imperfectly, in countries where medical and surgical prac- 
 tice are conducted separately. But where such is not the 
 custom, it is open to the serious objection of not being in 
 accordance with fact. 
 
 B. As medical witnesses and medical-expert witnesses. 
 This is not only the most natural but also the most widely 
 applicable division, being based on a real difference in the 
 character of medical testimony ; and, although not generally 
 recognized in our courts of law, it certainly, if unconsciously, 
 influences the weight which judge and jury attach to separate 
 medical testimonies. Let me be permitted to show the nature 
 of this important distinction. Medical witnesses testify to 
 familiar medical facts, and deliver opinions based on that 
 knowledge of the general principles of medicine which all 
 medical men should have. The value of their testimony 
 will therefore depend on the range of their general medical 
 information and experience, and not necessarily on a minute 
 acquaintance with some special medical branch. On the 
 other hand, medical-expert witnesses testify to special medical 
 facts, and deliver opinions on a more or less minute and 
 exhaustive study and experience of some particular medical 
 subject to which they have devoted special care and atten- 
 tion. As an illustration of my meaning to those to whom it 
 is not already sufficiently obvious, suppose an investigation 
 
408 SPHERE, EIGHTS, AND OBLIGATIONS 
 
 into an alleged murder by strychnia, and medical men sum- 
 moned to give testimony. He who has a knowledge of the 
 effects of strychnia, and of its obvious properties, will testify 
 to these. He will state that it is white, intensely bitter, a 
 valuable medicine in proper doses, a powerful poison in 
 overdoses. And he will tell how much an overdose is, how 
 it causes death, and what diseased appearances it leaves on 
 the body. But if he were required to extract strychnia from 
 this body, to prove by chemical tests this substance to bo 
 nothing but strychnia, and to explain the comparative merits 
 of these tests, he might decline by acknowledging his special 
 inabilit}'. The court would have to seek the opinion of an 
 expert in toxicology, who in turn would testify with authority 
 on this branch, from having a special knowledge of it. The 
 former of these would be a medical loitness, the latter a medi- 
 cal-expert witness. 
 
 There is no doubt, I believe, as tq the reality of this dis- 
 tinction, nor as to the importance of its full recognition in 
 courts of law. One of the reasons of the dissatisfaction 
 expressed, now and then, in regard to medical testimony, is 
 the unreasonable anticipation of its performance, leading to 
 the common injustice of expecting an exact and minute 
 knowledge on all medical topics from all medical witnesses. 
 Next to slander, unreasonable expectation is the greatest foe 
 to character. How prevalent is the false notion that physi- 
 cians have an intuitive knowledge of their profession — like 
 poets, are born, not made-^and that " he is no doctor," as it 
 is said, who can't give a solution of any medical question 
 that may be sprung upon him ! Nor will this habit of thought 
 excite surprise if we remember how it is kept alive by a cer- 
 tain class of medical practitioners who feign a mysterious 
 knowledge of the healing art. These are the quacks of whom 
 Dr. Parr said, that " they endeavor to obtain confidence by 
 pompous pretenses, mean insinuations, and indirect prom- 
 ises." I would press this classification on the attention of 
 legal men in the hope that it may have some weight in influ- 
 encing the expectations they may in future form of medical 
 witnesses. 
 
OF, MEDICAL EXPERTS. 409 
 
 Sometimes, as the following example will show, exceptional 
 circumstances have rendered this classification impracticable. 
 In the State of Iowa one Hinkle was tried for poisoning his 
 wife with strychnia (6 Iowa E., 380, quoted from Elwell's 
 " Malpractice," etc.). Two physicians stated in evidence 
 that they had never tested for poisons, though they under- 
 stood the principles of chemistry, and had seen tests applied 
 by chemists. An exception taken to the admissibility of 
 their evidence was overruled on the ground that " to say that 
 none shall be permitted to give their opinions, except those 
 who have given their lives to chemical experiments, or those 
 of the highest professional skill, would, in this country at 
 least, render it impossible in most cases to find the requisite 
 skill and ability." In reflecting on this decision, it is but 
 fair to remember that it was influenced by necessity. Still, in 
 a trial involving so much of last consequence to the accused, 
 a successful efi'ort might have been made to procure elsewhere 
 the services of a medical expert. Even the " highest profes- 
 sional skill " is compatible with comparative iguorance of 
 some special medical subject, and I cannot but think it 
 hazardous to admit the testimony of such witnesses to be 
 conclusive on a question of chemistry and toxicology. 
 
 Experts are called to explain to a jury the meaning of 
 certain facts which might not otherwise be known. Most 
 trials involve some such facts, and are inconclusive without 
 assistance from expert testimony. 
 
 The expert testimony of medical men is the most impor- 
 tant of all, for it requires a most minute, varied, and extended 
 knowledge ; it frequently relates to subjects of an intricate 
 and recondite character ; it is applied to tlie settlement of 
 questions afi'ecting the three great interests which men most 
 love, namely, life, reputation, and property. 
 
 Two examples will illustrate its great value. The first is 
 an instance of a crime discovered, and of the criminal pun- 
 ished, by the instrumentality of medical science, after all 
 ordinary means had completely failed. 
 
 In the year 1821 a woman disappeared mysteriously from 
 the city of Paris. A suspicion that she was murdered led to 
 
■ilO SPHERE, EIGHTS, AND OBLIGATIONS 
 
 the arrest of several suspected persons, who, however, were 
 soon liberated, owing to want of proof of their guilt. After 
 eleven years the remains of an unknown corpse were ex- 
 humed in one of the city gardens. They were examined by 
 Orfila, Ohevallier, and other famous experts, with the result 
 of identifying them with the published description of the 
 murdered woman, and the rearrest and conviction of the pre- 
 viously discharged criminals. 
 
 The second illustrates how an innocent man was, perhaps, 
 saved from an ignominious death, at least freed from a crush- 
 ing imputation, by the intervention of tlie same species of 
 testimony. 
 
 Thomas Bowman was accused of murdering an illegitimate 
 child by piercing its head with an awl. The skull was pro- 
 duced in the coroner's court, the hole was plainly visible by 
 all the jury. There was no doubt about the case, and the ac- 
 cused was held to stand his trial for willful murder. The 
 grand jury sitting in Exeter, England, examined the facts and 
 were about to bring in a true bill, when jMr. Seldon, a noted 
 surgeon of the neighborhood, heard what was going on. 
 Suspecting some great mistake, he appeared before the jury 
 and asked to see the skull. Perceiving at a glance that the 
 hole was only a natural opening for the transit of a vein, he 
 lost no time in so demonstrating it to the satisfaction of the 
 jury, who, thereupon, procured the honorable discharge of 
 the accused. 
 
 The Quarterly Journal of Foreign Ifedicine and Surgery, 
 in alluding to the importance of the medico-legal functions, 
 says : " It is such duties ably performed that raise our pro- 
 fession to an exalted rank in the eyes of the world ; that cause 
 the vulgar, who are ever ready to exclaim against the inutil- 
 ity of medicine, to marvel at the mysterious power by which 
 an atom of arsenic, mingled amid a mass of confused ingesta, 
 can still be detected. It does more : it impresses on the 
 minds of assassins, who resort to poison, a salutary dread of 
 the great impossibility of escaping discovery." 
 
OP MEDICAL EXPEBTS. 411 
 
 II. 
 
 The sphere of the medical expert is practically coextensive 
 with civil and criminal jurisprudence ; but, as it would be 
 impossible within the limits of this paper to do even scanty 
 justice to the subjects thus embraced, I must confine myself 
 to some remarks on his evidence as delivered in a court of 
 law. 
 
 Expert testimony begins where ordinary testimony ends. 
 Ordinary witnesses testify to facts of which they are person- 
 ally cognizant. Their opinions are not usually of any value. 
 But it is otherwise with the expert witness. He does much 
 more than bear testimony of facts, for he delivers opinions 
 not only on those he has himself observed, but also on such 
 as ordinary witnesses may have stated on oath. His method 
 of procedure is like this : he observes facts, or listens to their 
 recital, in doing which he weighs and classifies them, and, 
 after their due examination, rises to a conception of the general 
 principle of which they are the expression. The stating of 
 this conception in appropriate language constitutes the de- 
 livery of an opinion. It hence follows that his function is 
 judicial as well as testamentary, for he interprets the mean- 
 ing of certain medical facts just as the judge on the bench 
 decides the law. His position on the witness-stand is there- 
 fore exceptional quoad his testimony. Such is the dignified 
 character of his office, but necessarily it has limits, and with 
 these it is his duty to be acquainted. " He should," writes 
 Prof. Ordronaux, " understand at the outset that he is not 
 called to express any opinion on the merits of the case ; that 
 he has no proper concern in its issue, and, by whichever 
 party called, he is in no wise the witness, much less the advo- 
 cate, of that side. . . . His duties are properly limited 
 to gauging the value of certain facts as they appear in evi- 
 dence — facts whose importance to the issue cannot be deter- 
 mined without his assistance." 
 
 The fact, then, that medical testimony chiefly consists of 
 reasoned opinions on statements made in evidence, and the 
 
412 SPHERE, EIGHTS, AND OBLIGATIOKS 
 
 necessity of limiticg the expression of opinion within definite 
 bounds, have led to tlie institution of certain rules by which 
 it is to be guided. The majority of these rules are scattered 
 throughout an almost endless succession of law reports, and 
 are nearly inaccessible to all but students at law. I will just 
 mention a few, at the same time directing those who wish to 
 see references to some of the latest, to the appendix of Dr. 
 Elwell's work on " Malpractice and Medical Evidence." 
 
 A medical witness is not allowed to express an opinion on 
 facts requiring no special knowledge for their comprehen- 
 sion. 
 
 He is not allowed to base an opinion on the opinion of 
 another expert. 
 
 His opinion should be formed on a personal examination, 
 not on the report of another physician. At first sight it may 
 seem inconsistent that he should be asked an opinion on facts 
 reported by common witnesses, but debarred from giving one 
 if based on the statements of qualified men. But the dis- 
 crimination is due, no doubt, to the statement of the common 
 witness being rendered under oath. 
 
 It has been ruled — and this corroborates what I have lately 
 said regarding the importance of putting in practice a certain 
 classification of medical testimony — that a medical witness 
 is not competent to deliver an opinion on insanity unless he 
 has had experience in the treatment of this disease. The 
 wisdom of this decision will be obvious to all who appreciate 
 the many and great difficulties which beset the diagnosis of 
 some forms of insanity. 
 
 " A medical witness may, when the issue is sanity or insan- 
 ity, be asked whether such and such appearances, proved by 
 other witnesses, are, in his judgment, symptoms of insanity ; 
 but he gannot be asked if the act with which the defendant 
 is charged is an insane act; for this is a fact to be decided 
 by the jury." 
 
 The expert must be confined in the expression of opinion 
 to the subject on which he has special knowledge. 
 
 As time passes and many things remain to be said, I must 
 beg you to be content with this very meager outline of the 
 
OF MEDICAL EXPERTS. 413 
 
 sphere of medical testimony, and to permit me to pass imme- 
 diately to the second part of my subject — the rights of the 
 medical expert. 
 
 First of these in order is his right to compensation for his 
 labor and opinion. This is generally conceded by courts of 
 law, on the common-sense ground, I suppose, that as his time 
 and opinion are his capital, no one has a right to use them 
 .without returning interest. The opposite view implies the 
 doctrines of communism to that extent. But, though con- 
 ceded by the courts, there is a popular prejudice against it, 
 and it is commonly objected to medical men that they are 
 actuated by mercenary motives in requiring compensation for 
 their testimony. Adopting the prevalent fallacy, post hoc ergo 
 propter hoc, they who make this charge have inferred, from 
 the fact that medical men do receive money for their testi- 
 mony, the opinion that therefore they sell their testimony for 
 money. The charge would be a very serious one if true. 
 But, in my opinion, it could not be wider of the truth. I 
 don't believe money is the prize which medical men seek in 
 ascending the witness-stand. Nor, to take lower ground, do 
 I think the ordinary compensation sufficient of itself to tempt 
 any wise member of the profession to undergo the slow tor- 
 ture of a trial and " the law's delays." The desire of fame 
 may indeed influence some, though, I think, not many, and 
 these perhaps only once in a lifetime, or until they cease to 
 be novices to the situation. I really believe, despite the cyni- 
 cal sneer which the announcement may cause among " dollar- 
 getters," that the motives actuating medical experts who 
 enter upon the position are love of scientific investigation, 
 sense of moral duty, and zeal for truth and fair play. But, 
 waiving this paltrj' objection aside, is there any sound reason 
 why medical experts should not be paid for the labor, time, 
 and trouble, they take in aiding judicial investigations? Let 
 me dismiss the subject by a quotation from a manly letter 
 addressed by Dr. Hammond to the JSF. Y. Tribune of May 
 24, 1870. " While," he wrote, " I hold it to be my duty as a 
 good citizen to testify at any sacrifice to facts, my opinions 
 are my own, and I will not give them, unless I please, with- 
 
414 SPHEEE, EIGHTS, AND OBLIGATIONS 
 
 out a remuneration in some degree commensurate with the 
 time and labor spent in their elaboration." It only remains 
 for me to say that the fee should be stipulated for before the 
 opinion is given or the cross-examination begins, for, once it 
 is allowed to pass into the ?"es gestcB of the trial without this 
 proviso, the witness ceases to have any right of property 
 over it. 
 
 The medical expert has a right to the courtesy of counsel. • 
 Sometimes, I fear it must be said, counsel shows him little 
 consideration. A certain degree of hostile criticism is usually 
 to be expected from lawyers in the interests of their clients, 
 but it is too often carried beyond the bounds of moderation. 
 It may insure a lawyer's triumph to belittle the expert in the 
 opinion of the court, or it may conduce to the success of his 
 cause, but there are other and more honorable means of se- 
 curing these short of assailing a physician's leputation. We 
 may indeed find a reason for the latitude allowed to lawyers 
 in this particular, in the following words from Chief- Justice 
 Earle, of the English bench : " The law trusts the advocate with 
 a privilege in respect to the liberty of speech which is in prac- 
 tice bounded by his own sense of duty ; " for " he may have 
 to speak upon subjects concerning the deepest interests of 
 social life, and the innermost feelings of the soul." But that 
 this liberty is limited, if not by the patience of the court, at 
 least by moral considerations, is a truism on which it would 
 be waste of time to dwell. It is a nice point in casuistrj' to 
 determine how far a lawyer may go before overstepping the 
 limits of his extended and even elastic privileges. But this 
 much is certain, that, even before he reaches the imposed 
 limit which debars him from aspersing the character of a 
 witness, he may trench on dangerous ground, as, for instance, 
 when, in his address to the jury, he so mistakes or distorts 
 the medical evidence as to make it appear other than what 
 it is. Examples of such unfairness have fallen within the 
 experience of most medical men who have appeared in the 
 capacity of witnesses. They are far from being excusable 
 on the ground thai the lawyer is not bound by the oath of the 
 witness to speak the truth, because his relations to his client 
 
OF MEDICAL EXPERTS. 415 
 
 neither absolve him i'lom the higher law nor from respect to 
 healthy public opinion. I may further remark that the heat 
 engendered by a closely-contested case may palliate, if it 
 does not excuse, the faults of lavvj'ers now under considera- 
 tion, but there is no such apology for the conduct of judges 
 who allow scientific testimony to be indecorously handled. 
 They seem prone to forget that the process of " brow-beat- 
 ing," to which medical witnesses have to submit, often defeats 
 the very object of judicial investigations. This view may be 
 supplemented by some remarks on the difficulties natural to 
 the position of the medical witness, which I find so well put 
 in Paris and Fonblanque's " Medical Jurisprudence " that I 
 shall not apologize for giving them in their own words : " A 
 scientific witness fully acquainted with the subject in dis- 
 pute, and by particular knowledge well qualified to inform the 
 court on the most ijnportant points, is too frequently ren- 
 dered miserable in himself and absolutely ineffective to the 
 ends of justice by the diffidence which a man of real acquire- 
 ment generally feels when impressed at once by the novelty 
 of his situation .... the importance of the duty which he 
 is about to perform, and the consciousness that the truths he 
 is about to utter may be obscured, suppressed, or perverted 
 by technicalities for which he is unprepared with any defense. 
 . . . We do not mean to arraign the present forms of exami- 
 nation in general when we assert that some abuse in practice 
 too frequently places the medical witness in as painful a sit- 
 uation as if he were himself a criminal." I, on the contrary, 
 believe that the " present forms of examination " may very 
 justly be arraigned, an4 that they are susceptible of improve- 
 ment. Now, let me hasten to state my conviction that the 
 number of lawyers who abuse their privilege is few as com- 
 pared with the many who do not. I have entered my protest 
 against the length to which some go, and all, perhaps, think 
 they have a right to go ; but, this much being said in the 
 kindliest spirit to our legal friends (I wish some lawyer would 
 arise in this assembly and point out the deficiencies in the 
 conduct of medical men viewed from the stand-point of his 
 profession), I will now add my belief that medical witnesses 
 
416 SPHERE, RIGHTS, AND OBLIGATIONS 
 
 are treated, as a rule, with high consideration by counsel, 
 and that, very properly, the more important and influential 
 they are the greater is the deference paid to them. This, I 
 repeat, is very proper, but I must beg them to keep a corner 
 in their hearts — a cynic might say a corner in their pockets, 
 it being a popular error that lawyers have no hearts — for the 
 humbler, though perhaps equally worthy, members of my 
 profession. There is, let me say, a tendency to pay exclusive 
 deference to those whose reputations have impressed us with 
 feelings of respect and reverence. We often pride ourselves 
 on a sort of intimacy with people whose names are spoken 
 with admiration in the public places, though we may have 
 had no personal intercourse with them. We are all, indeed, 
 lawyers as well as others, given to undue reverence for au- 
 thority. And so it happens that exclusive ahd, I had almost 
 said, obsequious deference is paid to Professors A. and B. 
 because they are the major lights of their profession; so 
 much so, that if a scientific man who has put his light under 
 a bushel, but who also may be just as competent, is induced 
 to confront the opinions of these others, we are tempted to 
 conceive a contempt of his mental calibre and to regard him 
 as one of the too numerous conceited individuals who " rush 
 in where angels fear to tread." Well, who will aflSrm that 
 counsel is exempt from this same failing ; and does it not ex- 
 plain why medical witnesses who, though able and learned, 
 may not have had their talents trumpeted abroad, meet some- 
 times so little consideration at their hands ? This is a petty 
 grievance to be sure, but it deserves a remedy, and this I 
 think is to be found in more intimate intercourse between the 
 members of the two professions. For, lawyers and physicians 
 cannot long associate together without great mutual benefit, 
 and without discovering much latent ability requiring only the 
 stimulus of contact to be quickened into life. But intercourse 
 should not be confined to these meetings. The leading mem- 
 bers of this association would confer no small boon on both 
 professions by encouraging that social communion among 
 them which is the cement of all good understanding and 
 friendship. The benefits of such an intercourse, full, free, 
 
OF MEDICAL EXPERTS. 417 
 
 and untrammeled by the forms of our society reunions, 
 would flow out on all sides, increasing the amenities of life, 
 and otherwise contributing to the general benefit. 
 
 The medical witness is entitled to have questions put to 
 liim in a clear, intelligible form. The unintelligibility of many 
 of these is a subject of surprise and comment among medi- 
 cal men. They complain that they often betray such a want 
 of precision that the medical witness is puzzled how to make 
 sense out of them. The reason seems to me obvious enough. 
 It is almost as difficult to put a sensible and predise question 
 as^to frame a guarded answer. Both acts require an intimate 
 knowledge of the subject on which the examination is to be 
 conducted, based on a systematic preliminary training in its 
 elementary principles. It is not reasonable to expect that 
 men, however intellectual and studious, can supply deficien- 
 cies in this respect by a few weeks', or even months', cram- 
 ming for a trial. Indeed, the real wonder is that counsel 
 succeed so well, considering all the disadvantages under 
 which they labor. In pointing out these things to our legal 
 friends I am quite sure we have no intention of assuming 
 airs in their presence. Such pretension would indeed be very 
 absurd, for there are points of culture in which the advantage 
 is conspicuously on the side of the legal profession. I might 
 instance the faculties of argument and expression — of dialec- 
 tic, in a word — arts in. which medical men are usually defi- 
 cient, but which are the necessary qualifications of the lawyer. 
 Various remedies might be suggested for this defect of ques- 
 tioning, the most effectual of which I will, however, reserve 
 for a future part of this paper. But for the present I will 
 mention, as a good empirical reform, the employment of medi- 
 cal men to assist in preparing the medical parts of lawyers' 
 briefs. 
 
 The right to use memoranda, conceded to all witnesses, is 
 particularly necessary to medical men whose investigations 
 are frequently of a nature too complex to be accurately re- 
 produced without them. It is one of the wonders about the 
 human mental constitution that impressions, fading in the 
 excitement of engrossing occupations, are so quickly resusci- 
 
 37 
 
4:18 SPHERE, EIGHTS, AND OBLIGATIONS 
 
 tated by artificial aids. One of the most effectual of these is 
 a written document, which, though not received by courts as 
 a substitute for memory, is permitted as an aid to recall the 
 past. It is immaterial whether the memoranda are made by 
 the witness himself or to his dictation, by an assistant, pro- 
 vided they be taken at or soon after the investigation, for with 
 each succeeding day's delay their reliability is more and more 
 weakened. In drawing up memoranda we cannot be too ex- 
 act in attending to facts and dates. These require to be re- 
 corded with scrupulous accuracy. As regards facts they 
 should be conscientiously set down as thej'^ appear ; and too 
 many precautions cannot be taken against the besetting error 
 of mixing them up with inferences. The golden rule would 
 seem to be to state the facts first and the inferences last ; to 
 state the facts fully and the inferences cautiously. 
 
 IV. 
 
 All obligations of the medical expert, which I will next 
 consider, are divisible under three chief heads : 1. His obhga- 
 tions to courts of law ; 2. To medical science ; 3. To his pro- 
 fessional brethren. The last of these will form a heading for 
 some general observations on the duties of medical men 
 toward those of their profession who are defendants in suits 
 for malpractice. The three will be considered in the order 
 now stated : 
 
 1. His Obligations to Courts of Laiv. — ^In many cases re- 
 quiring legal investigation the coroner's court is the first be- 
 fore which a medical witness is summoned. The laws of this 
 State " make it the duty of coroners to summon a medical 
 witness," to be present at inquests. " And it shall be the 
 duty of every coroner to cause some surgeon or physician to 
 be subpoenaed as a witness upon the taking such inquest," says 
 the statute (vol. iii. p. 103S, " Eevised Statutes of New York"). 
 It declares that physicians so summoned shall be liable to 
 the same penalties if they refuse to attend as are provided in 
 other courts, and yet, by an extraordinary omission, it affirm < 
 nothing in regard to their compensation. Now, though it 
 
OP MEDICAL EXPERTS. 419 
 
 may be a little out of place, I must observe that, for 
 consistency's sake alone, tbeir labor should be compen- 
 sated here as in other courts. The character of the ser- 
 vice is precisely the same. That its remuneration should 
 be a recognized thing in one and not in the other court is, to 
 say the least, evidence of a very unsatisfactory state of the 
 law on the subject. A more just and rational provision is 
 made in the British possessions, though by no means an 
 adequate one. But, at all events, it has the merit of greater 
 consistency. There medical witnesses receive from town or 
 county a fee oE five dollars for expert testimony given before 
 a coroner's court, and ten dollars if required to make a post- 
 mortf.m examination. I fear time will not permit me to enter 
 into details regarding the physician's duties at coroner's in- 
 quests. I must content myself with referring to Taylor's and 
 Beck's manuals for most that is required to be known on the 
 subject. Suffice it to remark here that he should be very 
 circumspect of the opinion he gives at the inquest, both on 
 account of its paramount influence with the coroner's jury, 
 who look to it sometimes for sole direction, and of the severe 
 criticism it must undergo in the higher courts. 
 
 The question, whether a medical man can be compelled to 
 appear in court as a skilled witness against his will, comes 
 next in this section. The general opinion is in the affirma- 
 tive, though, as we shall see there is not unanimity among 
 the judicial decisions on the subject. I speak of skilled wit- 
 nesses, because only in reference to such has any doubt 
 existed, all citizens being obliged to give evidence in courts 
 of law as ordinary witnesses. The usual mode of summons 
 is by subpoena, which is a positive command obliging obedi- 
 ence under pain of certain specified penalties. It was indeed 
 held at one time that this command was binding on ordinary 
 witnesses only ; that medical experts being, as it were, extra- 
 ordinary witnesses, could not or should not be compelled 
 to attend court against their will. This, in fact, was the 
 opinion of Lord Campbell in Betts vs. Clifford, Warwick 
 Assizes (quoted in Taylor's "Medical Jurisprudence"). He 
 held that a " scientific witness was not bound to attend upon 
 
420 SPHERE, BIGHTS, AND OBLIGATIONS 
 
 being served with a subpoena, and he ought not to be subpoe- 
 naed. If the witness knew anj' question of fact he might be 
 compelled to attend, but could not be compelled to give his 
 attendance to speak to matters of opinion." Prof. Ordronaux, 
 in a foot-note to his able work on the " Jurisprudence of 
 Medicine," suggests that Lord Campbell's language could 
 not have been accurately reported, because, " in the first 
 place, it has never been admitted to be within the discretion 
 of any person to disobey the subpoena of a court within 
 whose jurisdiction he may chance to be. ... In the 
 second place, even if told the purpose of his examination, he 
 can exercise no choice in the matter of his attendance, unless 
 he could show that he was neither a competent or ordinary 
 witness, nor an expert; but, as he can never know this abso- 
 lutely in advance, it is certainly made his duty to obey the 
 subpoena." Although this is not merely the most likely but 
 the only logical view of the matter, being also what our law- 
 courts would generally assent to, yet I find the old opinion 
 reaffirmed by Mr. Justice Sprague, of the United States Dis- 
 trict Court. The question was as to the right of said court 
 to compel the attendance of an interpreter who had diso- 
 beyed a subpoena. After stating that on a former occasion 
 he had refused " to issue process of arrest in such cases," he 
 proceeded to say : " When a person has knowledge of any fact 
 pertinent to an issue to be tried, he may be compelled to at- 
 tend as a witness. In this all stand upon equal ground. But 
 to compel a person to attend merely because he is accom- 
 plished in a particular science, art, or profession, would sub- 
 jecit the individual to be called upon in every case in which 
 any question in his department of knowledge is to be solved." 
 {In re Koelker, 1 Sprague Dec, 276, rom Appendix to Elwell's 
 " Malpractice and Medical Evidence.") Thus unsettled stands 
 the question. "We may say of the controversy upon this ques- 
 tion what Curran remarked about an indefinite speech, that 
 "it begins at a point and goes on widening and widening un- 
 til it fairly puts the question out altogether." In this as in 
 other circumstances, however, we will find prudence the bet- 
 ter part of valor. It will be at least expedient for us to obey 
 
OF MEDICAL EXPERTS. 421 
 
 the summans, even though issued by so indulgent a judge as 
 Mr. Justice Sprague. 
 
 2. His Obligations to Medical Science. — The medical expert 
 in a court of law occupies the distinguished and responsible 
 position of representative and exponent of the most advanced 
 ideas and most recent improvements in medical knowledge. 
 It is hence requisite that he be well learned not only in the 
 fundamental branches of medical science, but also in the 
 latest researches and most improved methods of investiga- 
 tion. This proposition is so obvious and reasonable that the 
 bare statement of it should suffice. But something further 
 is requisite to constitute what is, in the broad sense of the 
 term, a good witness, and a fit representative of the medical 
 science of the day. If this knowledge is to be made efi'ectual 
 it must be assisted by two important acquisitions, namely, 
 by powers of observation and by faculties of reasoning cor- 
 rectly on the facts observed. To these must be added an 
 amount of practical experience sufficient to enable him to 
 bring this knowledge to bear on the points under investiga- 
 tion. According to the degree of proficiency in these things 
 will the reputation and usefulness of the medical witness be 
 affected for good or evil, and hence they deserve to be seri- 
 ously considered. 
 
 Medical men — in matters relating to the sick, such quick 
 observers — are, when summoned to act in an unusual capacity, 
 like people generally, liable to overlook valuable facts. This 
 defect, of which we are all more or less conscious, is partly 
 occasioned, I think, by undue concentration of the mental 
 faculties upon purely professional subjects. The mind ab- 
 sorbed in this one pursuit is not free to receive new impres- 
 sions; or it becomes imprisoned in its own conceits, and a 
 narrow^ pedantic character is the result. Part of the defect 
 is also due to neglect of discipline and self-culture. But by 
 far the greatest portion is the result, I feel convinced, of the 
 educational system pursued in our medical schools. With 
 the great defects of that system, as a whole, I have not now 
 to do. The remarks which I am about to make relate imme- 
 diately to that department of it called medical jurisprudence. 
 
422 SPHEEE, EIGHTS, AND OBLIGATIONS 
 
 Still, let me say, on the general question, that I am wholly in 
 accord with those medical reformers who urge upon our at- 
 tention the advantages of giving this system much more of a 
 practical character. I think they are entitled to our grati- 
 tude for pointing out its incompetency to fit medical men for 
 the ever-widening circle of duties imposed upon them by the 
 exigencies of modern society. If we were to judge by the 
 system they so loudly condemn, we would be forced to be- 
 lieve that physicians and surgeons have no other duties apart 
 from writing prescriptions and setting broken bones, for it 
 unaccountably neglects that essential practical instruction 
 which they should have as a necessary preparation for the 
 important functions they may be called upon to discharge to 
 the State in view of an exacting and critical public. As a 
 particular instance of this defect, let me point to the practice 
 of confining tuition in medical jurisprudence to dry theoreti- 
 cal disquisitions, given at the fag-end of a curriculum, and 
 offered as a substitute for the practical instruction which is 
 of far greater value. How nearly fruitless these lectures are, 
 the experience of every student who has been schooled in the 
 art of acquiring knowledge under difficulties will tell him. I 
 do not think I exaggerate the defects of this kind of instruc- 
 tion, when I say that of the numbers of aspiring young men 
 annually turned out by our medical colleges, ninety-five per 
 cent, have no practical knowledge of legal medicine; hardly 
 one, if brought face to face with an accidental death or 
 wounding, would know how to apply the meager theoretical 
 knowledge he has received from his lectures and his text- 
 book ; hardly one would make a respectable display of what 
 he does know if asked to perform an autopsy or give a state- 
 ment to a coroner's jury. 
 
 We pride ourselves, and to a certain extent justly, on the 
 superiority of our institutions of learning ; but in all that 
 relates to the practical application of skill, and particularly 
 medical skill, to the service of the State, we are, I really 
 believe, far behind what some of us might choose to call " the 
 effete monarchies " of Europe. Let me instance, as an exam- 
 ple of what we might profitably imitate, the school of legal 
 
OF MEDICAL EXPERTS. 423 
 
 medicine attacked to the University of Berlin,' wherein each 
 student who desires receives practical instruction in medical 
 jurisprudence, enjoying opportunities of examining the living, 
 of making autopsies, of analyzing poisons, of essaying the right 
 methods of applying various tests, such as those required to 
 ascertain the modes of death of infants — in a word, of putting 
 to practical use the discourses heard in the lecture-room. The 
 Austrian system,.if I am correctly informed, is, or was, equally 
 good, and the French, though deteriorated within the last fifty 
 years, and now much more defective than need be, is still 
 better than any either England or America can lay claim to. 
 Many stanch supporters of the constitutional freedom and 
 institutions of Britain have deplored her deficiencies in this 
 respect. Dr. Gordon Smith, for example, in the course of 
 his work entitled the " Analysis of Medical Evidence," 
 earnestly insists on the necessity for a law demanding more 
 special qualifications for medical witnesses, accompanying, 
 however, his recommendations with a pardonable strain of 
 national glorification. " Though," he writes, " one of the 
 last of his countrymen who would wish to see the customs 
 and institutions of Great Britain shaped according to foreign 
 patterns, we might take a hint from and improve upon their 
 practice." Truly, and we also in America, overlooking this 
 appeal to national prejudices, may take a hint from, and at 
 least, try to "improve upon, their practice." That there is 
 ample room for improvement is evident from this one fact, 
 that we are to this day nearly as deficient as the English 
 were three-fourths of a century ago, when even John Hunter 
 had to deplore to his class his want of sufficient medico-legal 
 training, accusing himself of incompetency at the trial of Sir 
 Theodosius Boughton. It is mere folly to expect that, 
 because a youth has gone successful!}- through the ordinary 
 medical curriculum, he will be fitted to discharge the impor- 
 tant duties of a witness in a court of law. For, though his 
 professional learning is essential to him here as elsewhere, 
 yet the demands of the position are so exceptional — have so 
 much to do with applied science and a knowledge of circum- 
 stances which do not occur in his routine experience — that a 
 
424 SPHERE, EIGHTS, AND OBLIGATIONS 
 
 training over and above what is purely medical 'is necessary 
 to him. I will venture to assert as much of the legal profes- 
 sion, for I think that, had they the advantages of this practi- 
 cal education, we would hear at least fewer complaints from 
 medical men respecting their defective method of examining 
 medical experts. But, to be valuable, the education must be 
 unmistakably practical or experimental. Among those who 
 see and lament the great defects of our present system of 
 medico-legal tuition, the impression prevails that its proper 
 remedy will be found in the more universal establishment of 
 chairs of medical jurisprudence in our medical colleges. Now, 
 though this proposition is undoubtedly good, though it can- 
 not be questioned that such chairs are of great value and 
 worthy your esteem, I will not allow that they are the sole 
 and sufficient remedy for the evil complained of. I believe 
 nothing will do short of a real, practical school of legal 
 medicine, alive to the medico-legal issues of the day, with its 
 morgue, its laboratory, its appliances, its medical and law 
 libraries, its phj-sicians to teach the fundamental branches 
 of medicine, and its lawyers to expound the elementary prin- 
 ciples of jurisprudence. We know how valuable such a 
 course of instruction would be to ourselves ; and if, as Sir 
 Edward Coke has said, " Some knowledge of every science 
 and art is not only useful but even necessary " to lawyers, we 
 can estimate the essential service it would be to them. Con- 
 sider, again, the value of such a school of legal medicine in 
 the instruction of public functionaries such as coroners, and 
 in fitting them for the duties of their important office. No 
 reasonable man can doubt the advantages Which would accrue 
 to the whole community if all candidates for the coronership 
 were required to have a good grounding in the essential prin- 
 ciples of law and medicine. It is a. conviction with many 
 whose judgments are entitled to great respect, that coroners 
 should be medical men ; and, taking things in the chaotic 
 state in which we find them, there ought to be no doubt 
 about the truth and propriety of this assertion. Certainly, 
 in the present total absence of instruction for laymen in the 
 important duties of the coroner's office, medical men are the 
 
OF MEDICAL EXPERTS. 425 
 
 only persons at all competent to fill the position. Under our 
 present system — if system it is worthy of being called — cor- 
 oners do not understand their duties, and consequently they 
 do not fulfill them. This is no novel complaint, for, though 
 seldom spoken openly or where it can awaken serious thoughts 
 among the masses, it is often repeated from mouth to mouth. 
 Still it has been publicly yentilated. Among others I may 
 mention Dr. Semmes as having called attention to it in a 
 report to the American Medical Association, pointing out the 
 slovenly manner in which inquests are conducted in the 
 United States; charging that they are hastily gone through, 
 incomplete and valueless, and that the action of juries in 
 loosely inspecting the dead is " scarcely a formal compliance 
 with the law." Dr. Beck, also, in his work on medical juris- 
 prudence, declares, " That the duties of this office are imper- 
 fectly understood, and often most negligently performed, 
 hardly admits of a doubt. The individuals appointed are 
 frequently unfit for the situation, both from habit and educa- 
 tion, while the jury are too commonly desirous of hurrying 
 through the investigation." 
 
 It is not to be supposed that the scheme of education here 
 advocated would cure all the evils of our coroners' courts, of 
 which there is so much complaint, for many are no doubt this 
 result of abuses which slowly adhere to all institutions, as 
 barnacles gather round the good ship's bottom ; but it would 
 remedy some of the most flagrant of them, and contribute 
 largely toward increasing the efficiency of this branch of our 
 criminal service. 
 
 The necessity of this special training being conceded, there 
 are other qualifications necessary to medical experts, con- 
 cerning which a few words may be spoken. There are two 
 minor distinctions among medical men considered as possible 
 expert witnesses, one Ijased on acquired, the other on innate 
 qualities. The first is the full result of the special education 
 we have just been considering ; the last comes from the pos- 
 session of distinctive natural powers. This insures a well- 
 conducted witness, that one who is well-informed. It is 
 difficult to define what the innate peculiarities are, but they 
 
426 SPHERE, BIGHTS, AND OBLIGATIONS 
 
 help to make much of the difference between even welU 
 instructed medical men, when they appear on the witness 
 stand ; for, I may remark in passing, not all even well-versed 
 medical men pass successfully through the forms of an exam- 
 ination in this place. It is one thing to be a sound practi- 
 tioner, and quite another to be a good expert witness, because 
 the kind of knowledge necessary to make a good witness is 
 special over and above what is required for a good practitioner. 
 These innate or natural peculiarities are due to temperament 
 and habit of mental discipline. The temperament of some 
 men is such that, despite accurate information, they are 
 failures on the witness-stand, by reason of an unconquerable 
 nervousness the moment they encounter counsel in a cross- 
 examination. Others lack the logical faculty of drawing 
 proper inferences from facts, and again others lose presence 
 of mind altogether. 
 
 From all that I have now stated on this important branch 
 of the subject it may be inferred that the following qualities 
 are necessary in a good medical witness, namely, a thorough 
 practical training, the logical faculty, and a well-balanced 
 temperament. 
 
 The medical witness thus equipped has various important 
 duties to perform. The questions on which he is called to 
 pronounce " are vast and unlimited in their range, and many 
 of them soundless in their depths." He owes it to the cause 
 of justice above all else to thoroughly inform himself on all 
 the points of the case submitted to him. This means that he 
 should avail himself of all the steps for arriving at the truth. 
 What these steps are will depend on the nature of the inquiry, 
 but it is of great importance to the interests committed to 
 him that, before using them, he should have divested his 
 mind of all prepossessions respecting the merits or com- 
 plexion of the case submitted to him. This is avowedly 
 difficult, for the following reasons : First, the prevailing prac- 
 tice of the daily journals, who prejudge the merits of cases, 
 and who, wittingly or unwittingly, pervade the public mind 
 with a bias derived from reading their opinions. When a 
 case of unusual interest occurs, the journals take sides, and 
 
OF MEDICAL EXPERTS. 427 
 
 fight over again, with much effusion of ink, mimic wars of the 
 Guelphs and Ghibellines. Medical men are just as liable to 
 be influenced by what they read in these journals as other 
 people, and it will therefore ;not be out of place to caution 
 those who are employed as experts to forego the discussion 
 until the trial is over, or they have examined the facts on 
 which their evidence is to be based. 
 
 Second, the habit of hasty inference so common even 
 among well-instructed members of the community. It is 
 often verified by observation that those who jump to hasty 
 conclusions are generally most blindly obstinahe in adhering 
 to them, either from inherent narrowness of mind, or from 
 aversion to acknowledge an error of judgment. I need not 
 indicate how much all this is incompatible with the duties of 
 a medical expert. We all feel it to be of the last importance 
 that every medico-legal case should be approached with 
 minds free from prejudgments, that it should be allowed to 
 stamp its own impress upon us, that the facts should be 
 observed and examined in their true light ; for these are the 
 crude ore out of which subsequent thought and study must 
 produce the pure coin of expert opinion fit to pass current in 
 a court of law. In this stage of the inquiry, the expert can 
 follow no better guide than the following general rules taught 
 by Descartes in his " Discourse on the Eight Method of con- 
 ducting the Reason : " 
 
 1. "Never to accept anything for true which you do not 
 clearly know to be such ; that is to say, carefully avoid pre- 
 cipitancy and prejudice, and comprise nothing more in your 
 judgment than what is presented to your mind so clearly and 
 distinctly as to exclude all ground of doubt. 
 
 2. " Divide each of the difficulties under examination into 
 as many parts as possible, and as might be necessary for its 
 adequate solution. 
 
 3. " Conduct your thoughts in such order that, by com- 
 mencing with objects the simplest and easiest to know, 
 you may ascend by little and little, and, as it were, step 
 by step, to the knowledge of the more complex; assigning 
 in thought a certain order even to those objects which, in 
 
428 SPHERE, RIGHTS, AND OBLIGATIONS 
 
 their own nature, do not stand in a relation of antecedent 
 and sequence." 
 
 Lastly, in every case make enumerations so complete, and 
 reviews so general, that you may be assured that nothing -was 
 omitted. 
 
 The delivery of an opinion is the proper function of a 
 medical expert in a court of law. Yet he is not allowed to 
 be judge of the facts on which his opinion is asked. If a sick 
 man came into your office and stated to you a number of 
 symptoms which he alleged to be facts, but at the same time 
 debarred you from verifying by the proper methods of inves- 
 tigation, requiring you to base on them an opinion as to the 
 nature of his disease, your dilemma would be of the same 
 species as that of the medical expert in a court of law, with 
 the sole chief exception that in the court all witnesses are 
 under the obligation of an oath. I think I know what course 
 you would take 'in the case of the office consultation. You 
 would refuse to base an opinion or prescribe a course of treat- 
 ment on facts the truth of which you were not permitted to 
 judge for yourself. Yet this is just what a court of law will 
 not allow the expert. He must take facts as they are stated 
 to him. "For him to pronounce an opinion," says Prof. 
 Ordronaux, " either upon the truth of the facts given him for 
 interpretation, or upon the merits of the case, would be to 
 usurp the province of court, advocate, and witness." And the 
 same authority further states that this rule is not adopted 
 with the intention of diminishing the value of medical evi- 
 dence, but to prevent experts from usurping a power " which 
 they might be tempted to use for the benefit solely of the 
 party calling them." This last expression in reference to the 
 tendency of expert witnesses — a tendency by no means, how- 
 ever, peculiar to them — to assume a partisan attitude, leads 
 me to the point -which I argued in a paper I had the honor to 
 read to this Society a year ago. On that occasion, when 
 treating of expert-evidence in criminal trials involving the 
 plea of insanity, I dwelt at some length on the same question, 
 and pointed out that this tendency was in great measure due 
 to the prevailing, and, as I think, defective custom of calling 
 such witnesses, I suggested as the proper remedy that the 
 
OF MEDICAL EXPEKTS. 429 
 
 court alone should call and examine the medical experts, a 
 suggestion which I am pleased to find sustained by the weighty 
 authority of Prof. OrdrOnaux, although I must, at the same 
 time, say he throws doUbt on its practicability. " It would 
 be better," he writes, " were it possible, for the court alone to 
 examine experts upon those points on which their professional 
 opinions are needed, rather than to hand them over to counsel, 
 each of whom has an interest in making their testimony aid 
 his own side, and to that extent forcibly impressing upon it a 
 unilateral character " (" Jurisprudence of Medicine," p. 123). 
 It is very proper to say to the medical expert, You must come 
 to the discharge of your duty with a mind nearly if not abso- 
 lutely free from prejudice ; you must allow neither interest 
 nor pride, nor jealousy, nor party-feeling, to influence you ; 
 you must stand on neutral ground, neither leaning to one 
 side nor to the other, and deliver your opinion, whatever it 
 may be, solely on the merits of the facts, wholly irrespective 
 of its consequences. No one will question the propriety of 
 this advice, but few can help knowing how much it sounds 
 like a mockery. Because, should his mind escape the bias to 
 which it is exposed, from causes already stated, before he gets 
 to court, and should he succeed in coming on the witness-stand 
 without prepossessions in favor of one side or other, the 
 fact of his being called to do duty for one party, taken with 
 the efforts of counsel to lead or force him in a desired direc- 
 tion, must unavoidably get him into the very trap he is so 
 loudly warned to avoid. And this very testimony, which we 
 are told must be delivered in the interest of no other cause 
 but truth — ^how is it handled by the opposing counsel ? Does 
 he respect its neutrality ? Does he not rather try with all his 
 might of dialectic to bend it to the cause for which he con- 
 tends, or, failing here, does he not beat it down and belittle 
 it in the opinion of the jury ? What, now, is the fate of your 
 independent medical expert ? Does he fare any better than 
 if he were a partisan ? Is he not, like Issaehar, crouching 
 down between two burdens? Of two things one is true: 
 either the present mode of examining experts is very faulty, 
 or all the talk about the necessity of lofty dignity and absolute 
 
430 SPHEEE, BIGHTS, AND OBLIGATIONS 
 
 impartiality is "sound, and nothing else." Now, whatevei 
 may be thought of the practice of our courts in this respect, 
 we must all heartily wish that such noble sentiments will 
 always actuate and guide the medical expert. Appreciating, 
 as I have no doubt we do, the contradictory requirements of 
 the situation, we know that it would be a much greater public 
 misfortune should medical witnesses abandon these lofty prin- 
 ciples, than that the impartial spiz'it of medical testimony 
 should be outraged by partisan zeal. And, until a change is 
 made which will give the court the sole right of calling and 
 examining the medical witness, we must e'en bear our lot 
 with what equanimity we can. 
 
 In the formation of opinion it is well to be on guard against 
 the vitiating effect of certain fallacies. In the preparation of 
 evidence we are liable to fallacies of inspection, or a 'priori 
 fallacies, by which are meant those consequent on forming an 
 opinion hastily, and without seeking sufficient evidence of its 
 truth. I will take as an example of this kind of fallacy a 
 passage from the testimony of a celebrated surgeon of this 
 city deUvered at the trial of "Walsh v. Sayre. Being called, 
 this gentleman testified that he had examined the child, Mar- 
 garet Sarah Walsh, more particularly her hip joint, i. e., " the 
 posterior aspect of the hip, called the gluteal region," The 
 examination proceeded as follows : 
 
 Q. Well, did you examine any discharge of fluid that was 
 coming from the orifice ; was your attention attracted by 
 that? 
 
 A. Yes, my attention was attracted by a discharge coming 
 from the orifice. 
 
 Q. Was your attention attracted to the particular character 
 of the discharge ? 
 
 A. Yes. 
 
 Q. Well, what was it, to the best of your recollection ? 
 
 A. It was a glairy fluid, slightly colored. 
 
 Q. I need hardly ask you the question — you are acquaintetl 
 with the synovial fluid, the character and appearance of the 
 synovial fluid ? 
 
 A. Yes. 
 
OF MEDICAL EXPEHTS. 431 
 
 Q. In your judgment, did you find any synovial fluid dis- 
 charging from that orifice ? 
 
 A. It struck me so that it was. 
 
 Q. Did you examine it at all ? 
 
 A. 1 examined it with my fingers, and looked at its general 
 tenacity, color, etc. 
 
 Q. Was that the opinion you formed at the time, as well as 
 you remember ? 
 
 A. Yes. 
 
 Q. Did you state that opinion at the time ? 
 
 A. I think it is very likely I did. — {Alleged Malpractice Suit 
 of Walsh V. Sayre, p. 134. Slraw & Co., New York, 1870.) 
 
 The hasty impression snatched from the two facts — the 
 hole in the gluteal region, and the "glairy fluid, slightly 
 colored " issuing therefrom — was unadvisedly delivered as an 
 opinion, or delivered as an opinion without necessary confir- 
 mation from further evidence. This is one of the fallacies of 
 observation named non-observation, or the omission of facts 
 which are material to the inquiry. It partakes also of the 
 nature of mal-observation, which is the confounding of " a 
 perception with a rapid inference, or the mingling up of infer- 
 ences with facts " (Bain's " Logic," vol. i., p. 37). Great cau- 
 tion should always be exercised in the formation of an opinion. 
 This is a lesson not easy to learn. The sanguine, hasty dis- 
 position is naturally liable to overleap the details which to 
 the wary are the necessary steps to a conclusion. Hasty 
 inference and hasty action are by no means infrequent, owing 
 to a hurried, slovenly way of thinking, impatient of the work 
 on which an opinion entitled to consideration must be 
 based. 
 
 The proper method of forming an opinion falls under that 
 part of logic called analysis and synthesis. It comprehends 
 the details to which I have alluded, and some more, of which 
 the habit of abstraction is one of the most useful. By abstrac- 
 tion is meant the separation and separate consideration of 
 the qualities of a body or the terms of a proposition. It is a 
 habit of great value in preventing confusion of thought, and 
 in enabling the mind " to concentrate its powers on the one 
 
432 SPHERE, EIGHTS, AND OBLIGATIONS 
 
 subject of study at the time." * Of equal importance to the 
 witness is the " analyzing function of the syllogism." This 
 is the happy faculty of making explicit in the statement what 
 is implied in the thought (Hamilton's "Logic"), the use of 
 which, in the language of Mr. Mill, is " to make us aware 
 when something that claims to be a single proposition really 
 consists of several, which, not being involved in one another, 
 require to be separated, and to be considered each by itself, 
 before we admit the compound assertion " (Mill's " Logic "). 
 
 Finally, all who are asked to express a deliberate opinion 
 may profit by call-ng to mind the very pregnant remark of 
 Plato, that " opinion is at its best but a mean between knowl- 
 edge and ignorance." 
 
 Before quitting this part of the subject, allow me to make 
 a few observations on the differences between legal and medi- 
 cal definitions of diseases and injuries. Necessarily these 
 definitions are dissimilar, owing to the different objects or 
 intentions contemplated by law and medicine respectively ; 
 the object or intention of law being to settle the bearing of 
 these states on life, liberty, and property, while that of medi- 
 cine is to facilitate diagnosis, classification, and treatment. 
 As an example, let us take the term wounds. In medical 
 science a wound is " a solution of continuity of the skin 
 occasioned by external violence ;" in law it means " any lesion 
 of the body, whether cuts, bruises, contusions, fractures, dis- 
 locations, or burns." t In surgical works wounds are classi- 
 fied as incised, contused, and lacerated. But legal authorities 
 divide them into " slight, dangerous, and mortal," terms 
 which are obviously here used in their relation to the possi- 
 ble or probable contingencies of deformity or death. Thus, 
 a slight wound, in the legal meaning, is one neither dangerous 
 to life, nor likely to leave a deformity ; a dangerous wound 
 may do either, and a mortal wound is one fatal to life. This 
 distinction is of importance to the medical expert, for, in 
 delivering an opinion on the nature of a wound, he should be 
 
 * Bain, " Logic," vol. i., pp. 338, 339. 
 \ Wharton's " Law Lexicon." 
 
OF MEDICAL EXPEETS. 433 
 
 prepared to meet the legal as well as the medical require- 
 ments of the interrogatory. This is a circumstance which 
 gives undoubted advantage to the cross-examiner, and affords 
 him an opportunity of puzzling the medical witness. In their 
 mode of putting such questions, however, counsel often dis- 
 play a happy unconsciousness of the difficulty and even 
 impossibility of answering them, though they demand a 
 direct and positive answer. It seems to be a prevailing 
 impression with them that the site alone of the wound 
 governs its mortahty ; that all wounds of the head or chest, 
 for instance, are mortal. The question is often put thus : 
 "Are wounds of the head mortal? answer me, yes or no." 
 Now, it is evident to the merest tyro in medicine that no 
 such answer can be given, because the mortality of a wound 
 depends on other circumstances than its mere site, namely, 
 on its character, extent, depth, and on its involving vital 
 parts. But, I fancy I hear a disputatious lawyer exclaim, 
 *' What ! is not the head a vital part ? You are surely talk- 
 ing nonsense." Well, here is the answer. The integrity of 
 a man's scalp is not necessary to his life, as my outraged 
 legal friend may discover for himself by trailing the tail of 
 his coat on the Plains. But, to scalp a man is certainly to 
 wound his head ; therefore all wounds of the head are not 
 mortal. Some are, others are not ; anyway, it is impossible 
 to give the answer demanded by the question just cited. 
 
 The same difficulty presents itself in many of the questions 
 put about diseased states. A medical expert is sometimes 
 asked to define insanity. Now, to define a disease is to select 
 some essential character which will be true of it in all its 
 varying phases and circumstances. If insanity presented 
 any such constant condition, a definition could certainly be 
 framed which would stand for the abstract notion of it. The 
 modified states of these characters found in various phases 
 of insanity would stand for definitions of these phases. But 
 a definition of insanity is impossible, because it presents no 
 such condition. The truth is, however, that definition and 
 description are often improperly used synonymously. When 
 a medical witness is asked to define insanity, the intention 
 
 28 
 
434 SPHERE, EIGHTS, AND OBLIGATIONS 
 
 is to have him describe it, and then tlie proper return ques- 
 tion of the medical expert is. What kind of insanity do you 
 ■wish described ? While on this subject I may remark that 
 there is a strange diversity of opinion among legal men as to 
 the practical value of expert testimony in trials involving the 
 question of insanity. According to some, the courts are 
 chiefly guided by medical experts ; according to others, expert 
 evidence, instead of elucidating the subject, only involves it in 
 greater mystery. An English judge is reported to have ex- 
 pressed himself as follows on the subject : " His experience 
 taught him that there were Very few cases of insanity in which 
 any good came from the examination of medical men. Their 
 evidence sometimes adorned a case, and gave rise to very 
 agreeable and interesting scientific discussions ; but, after all, 
 it had little or no weight with the jury." It is also com- 
 plained that, in such trials the medical evidence is too freely 
 dashed with metaphysics. Now, with respect to the first of 
 these charges, I may remark that legal men seem altogether 
 to lose sight of the important fact that legal ideas about 
 insanity are formulated, or at least stereotyped, which the 
 medical are not nor can be. Medical views are undergoing pro- 
 gressive modifications to admit new experience of the nature 
 and bearings of this disease. And, with respect to the second, 
 I must in candor say that, granting its correctness, the mis- 
 take it complains of is often chargeable to the besetting ten- 
 dency of courts of law to drift into a sea of metaphysical 
 discussion, and to pay undue attention to the theoretical side 
 of questions of insanity. We may trace this failing through 
 the deprecatory remarks of the English judge just quoted, 
 especially where he states that the evidence of experts in 
 insanity " sometimes adorned a case, and gave rise to very 
 interesting scientific discussions." These words exactly inter- 
 pret the weakness to which men of education are prone when 
 they catch a scientist. They look upon him as a rara avis, 
 with whom they are glad to attempt a few intellectual flights 
 by way of innocent diversion. The trial is, in a measure, sus- 
 pended, that the court may enjoy the luxury of " an interest- 
 ing scientific discussion." During this interlude the lawyers 
 
OP MEDICAL EXPERTS. 435 
 
 rest from the fatigues of a hotly-contested combat, the jury 
 draw a long breath of relief, the judge leans calmly back in 
 his chair, a pleasing, drowsy lull steals over the wearied 
 court, and, in the general suspense, all eyes turn with pleas- 
 ing anticipation to the rising luminary. When the seance is 
 ended, the refreshed court applies itself with new vigor to the 
 knotty question of the hour. 
 
 Judging by incidents frequently occurring all over the 
 country, the plea of insanity would seem to be one of the 
 most recherche morsels which it is possible for lawyers to 
 enjoy. Certainly they have far transcended the zeal of the 
 medical profession in their efforts for the extension of its 
 boundaries. What has attracted their special favor is the 
 plea of moral insanity, a vague disorder, whose outlines are 
 yet indistinct, if not shadowy. Nevertheless, the legal pro- 
 fession experience no difficulty in detecting it in almost every 
 man whose crime is of a startling character. Is a man 
 clutched by the law after a life of successful villainj^, or does 
 he commit a murder under the governing influence of pas- 
 sions pampered for j'ears, or is he a bigamist, he will find 
 counsel ready to establish his insanity. And so it goes on 
 until, finally, insane impulse will be the accepted cloak for 
 crime, and the little moral resentment or indignation against 
 wrong-doing that survives will die out from among this indif- 
 ferent, self-seeking generation. 
 
 There is danger lest the medical profession become inocu- 
 lated with the loose dilettanti notions of the day on this sub- 
 ject, and so be swept away with the popular current. It is a 
 failing with educated men that they often give indiscreet 
 adhesion to new-fangled notions. The ignorant do not ; their 
 want of intellectual unrest or earnestness leaving them to hug 
 the old and traditional. But lovers of progress have this 
 weakness, that, like the Athenians of old, they are ever run- 
 ning after something new. No doubt the temptation to overdo 
 the plea is very great both for lawyers and physicians — for 
 lawyers, because insanity is a plausible, an imposing defence ; 
 for physicians, because it is a truly captivating study, both in 
 itself and by reason of its close affiliation to metaphysics, in 
 
436 SPHERE, EIGHTS, AND OBLIGATIONS 
 
 turn, a branch of learning dear to many of the most gifted 
 sons of men. But beware of hobbies, for the time may come 
 when the use of the plea will be confounded with its abuse, 
 and both condemned together. 
 
 Finally, I will briefly consider some of the duties of medi- 
 cal men to each other, as witnesses and otherwise, in trials for 
 malpractice. Allow me to introduce the subject by a hurried 
 sketch of the legal nature of the business relation between 
 physician and patient. 
 
 Prof. Ordronaux, in the able work I have already many 
 times quoted, and for reference to which I am indebted to the 
 kindness of the President, states that " the character of a pro- 
 fessional service is that of a mandate, and the obligations 
 incurred under it, when no special contract has been entered 
 into by the parties, belong to that class termed in the civil 
 law quasi ex contractu." In Wharton's " Lexicon," a mandate 
 is defined to be " a judicial command, charge, or commission," 
 having as necessary qualities, 1. Some object of the contract, 
 i. e., " some act or business to be done ; " 2. That this act or 
 business should " be to be done gratuitously ; " 3. That the 
 contract should be voluntary. Certain obligations were cre- 
 ated on both sides by the mandate ; on the side of the pro- 
 fessional (mandatory): 1. "An obligation to do the act; 2. To 
 do it diligently ; 3. To render an account of his doings to the 
 mandator. On the part of the mandator to reimburse the 
 mandatory for all expenses and charges incurred in the execu- 
 tion of the mandate." I will pass over any further allusion 
 to the mandatory character of the service, and merely content 
 myself with calling your attention to what seems to be an 
 error in the classification of the obligation — Prof. Ordronaux 
 and Mr. Wharton placing it among quasi contracts, which 
 they state to be implied contracts, while Mr. Maine, at p. 332 
 of his celebrated work on "Ancient Law," declares this to be 
 an error : " For," he writes, " implied contracts are true con- 
 tracts, which quasi contracts are not." The question may 
 seem to have only a speculative or historical interest, but in 
 reality it has more, because if the relation between physician 
 and patient be that of q'uasi contract only, which according to 
 
OF MEDICAL EXPEETS. 437 
 
 the highest authority of the day means no contract at all, it 
 can have no definite legal obligations. If there be really the 
 distinction between the terms as pointed out by Mr. Maine, I 
 should prefer classifying professional contracts under the 
 heading predicated by the word implied. And it is easy to 
 trace in the early history of medicine, in Rome, the origin of 
 this, relation between physician and patient. The well-to-do 
 class of the Roman people entertained a strong aversion to 
 the physicians of their day who practiced for money, as shown, 
 among other evidences, by Cato's rudeness to the Greek phy- 
 sicians practicing in the city, and his urgent admonitions to 
 his son to avoid them and the study of their art. Actuated 
 by this aversion, which was mainly born of distrust, they dis- 
 carded the services of qualified men, and relied chiefly on 
 prescriptions contained in such books as the " Oommentarius," 
 or on the empirical skill of trustworthy slaves or freedmeu. 
 Now, as, by the Roman law, slaves and freedmeu (when these 
 latter were not citizens) were excluded from all civil rights, 
 being "only subject and liable to duties" (Austin's "Juris- 
 prudence," vol. ii., p. 741), they were debarred from entering 
 into contracts, though they would doubtless always receive 
 an honorarium for their services in so important a matter as 
 the preservation of health. And, from always receiving the 
 honorarium, they would come at last to have an implied right 
 to it ; thus the service being done, the honorarium would fol- 
 low as its implied condition. The idea of the implied obliga- 
 tion of professional services passed into English common law 
 — which we know to be chiefly derived from Roman civil law, 
 first filtered through canon law — and has lasted there even 
 to the present time, two thousand and more years after the 
 circumstances originating it have ceased to possess a living 
 meaning. And to this day no member of the Royal College 
 of Physicians can sue for his fees. But, in our country, this, 
 like many more of the lifeless traditions of the past, has never 
 been resuscitated. " Whatever," said Chancellor Walworth, 
 " may be the practice of other countries . . . the princi- 
 ple never has been adopted in this State, that the professions 
 of physicians and counselors are merely honorary, and that 
 
438 SPHERE, EIGHTS, AND OBLIGATIONS 
 
 they are not of right entitled to demand and receive a fair 
 compensation for their services." * 
 
 The physician or surgeon who undertakes the treatment 
 of a diseased person has the following duties to fulfill : 1. He 
 shall exercise ordinary skill and diligence ; 2. He shall devote 
 ordinary care and attention. You will remark the recurrence 
 of the expletive " ordinary " in both of these injunctions. It 
 gives an important interpretation to the meaning of the law. 
 It is plain from the language of commentators that the mean- 
 ing is not common unlearned, skill, but ordinary professional 
 skill — namely, that average skill which results from having 
 the necessary degree of professional knowledge. And again, 
 it does not mean the ordinary skill of the great lights of the 
 medical art, but that which is displayed in the practice and 
 deemel necessary in the judgment of medical men generally. 
 Such is the meaning of the expression as applied to the gen- 
 eral body of the profession ; but for specialists, for those who 
 claim a higher degree of knowledge and skill in their depart- 
 ment than most other physicians, being employed on that 
 account, and charging higher fees for their services, it has a 
 particular meaning. It then signifies extraordinary skill by 
 comparison with the ordinary skill of the profession, which 
 is equivalent to ordinary skill as compared with the prevail- 
 ing standard of skill among specialists. 
 
 Now, as skill implies the possession of knowledge, so the 
 remaining requirements of the law have reference to the 
 application of this knowledge. It is not alone required that 
 the physician should display ordinary skill, he must also use 
 ordinary care and diligence. The term ordinary, as a predi- 
 cate of care and diligence, has the same forcfe here as when 
 it is used in reference to skill ; which is to say, it means that 
 degree of care and diligence which is displayed in the prac- 
 tice, and deemed necessary by the collective judgment of 
 medical practitioners. But further, it also means care and 
 diligence proportionate to the difficulty or danger of the case. 
 It is important to bear this last interpretation in mind, as 
 
 * Ordronaux, "Jurisprudence of Medicine," p. 39. 
 
OF MEDICAL EXPERTS. 439 
 
 teaching us how fully courts of law are alive to the fact that 
 severe cases require one degree of ordinary skill and judg- 
 ment, mild cases another; that what is ordinary skill in some 
 cases is defective skill in others ; that, in a word, the physi- 
 cian is to exercise skill, care, and diligence, in proportion to 
 the gravity of the circumstances of each case. Besides the 
 three qualities just mentioned, the medical practitioner is 
 required to use his judgment as to the best means of effect- 
 ing a cure. We all know that the end of medicine and sur- 
 gery is the cure of diseases and injuries, but we sometimes 
 forget that this end may be attained by different means, just 
 as two travelers setting out from one starting point may 
 reach a given city by distinct roads. Nearly every physician 
 and surgeon has experience of some particular and favorite 
 method of attaining this end. There is not necessarily any 
 uniformity among them in this respect, nor, in the interest of 
 progress, is it desirable there should be. A return to ithe 
 prohibitory laws of Egypt, which obliged practitioners to 
 conform to the stereotyped rules written in the books of 
 Hermes under penalty of capital punishment, would be a 
 movement too reactionary for even the most conservative of 
 the present day. It is merely enjoined on the practitioner 
 that he shall use his judgment in selecting proper means for 
 effecting the cure of his patient. 
 
 At one time it was held that, if the practitioner escaped an 
 indictment for gross negligence, he could not be judged guilty 
 of malpractice. But, in reference to this interpretation. Judge 
 Story remarked that there is no legal meaning attached to 
 such an expression as " gross negligence," which could be 
 made good in practice, and that the distinction it is said 
 to denote is " utterly repudiated by the late civil law 
 reports." 
 
 I believe there are few, if any, members of the community 
 more conscientious or disinterested in the discharge of their 
 duties than medical practitioners. Liable to be called at any 
 moment to the most complicated case, and expected to be 
 prompt and decided in the application of necessary skill, their 
 movements are suspiciously watched by critical eyes, and 
 
440 SPHERE, EIGHTS, AOT) OBLIGATIONS 
 
 their words treasured up, it may be for the day of wrath, by 
 attentive ears. Bearing the whole burden of a great respon- 
 sibility in a serious case, they must often contend singly 
 against its difficulties incidental as well as natural, sometimes 
 without hope of reward if they succeed, but generally sure 
 of unsparing condemnation if they fail. They who are famil- 
 iar with this state of facts, and with the obstinacy, perver- 
 sity, and ignorance of many to whom the services are 
 rendered, cannot but feel a lively sympathy with the medical 
 practitioner. But, when to this is added the lawsuit entered 
 against him, maybe by the very person whom in his heart he 
 felt he had most befriended — the sting from the serpent he 
 liad eased of suffering or saved from death — his case appeals 
 loudly not only for the moral support of the community, but 
 equally for the material aid of his profession. Putting aside 
 the loud boasters, the selfish, inconsiderate, and even igno- 
 rant men to be found in the profession, whose conduct may 
 sometimes deserve the infliction of a lawsuit, I do not hesi- 
 tate to assert that a very large proportion of actions for mal- 
 practice brought against medical practitioners are instigated 
 by unworthy motives. Some, indeed, go further, asserting 
 that were the secret of such cases known it would unveil the 
 promptings of malevolent professional rivals. This may be 
 true, although I prefer to think not to the extent asserted. 
 I have no doubt many lawsuits are unintentionally originated, 
 or at least encouraged by the indiscreet or inconsiderate Judg- 
 ments which medical men are too much in the habit of pass- 
 ing on the conduct and treatment of their professional con- 
 freres in presence of lay people. It is impossible to exercise 
 too much caution in expressing opinions on the character of 
 the professional services of a brother practitioner. Ten 
 chances to one the listeners will misunderstand you, will take 
 your condemnatory words without the qualifications with 
 which you accompany them, will magnify their meaning and 
 add to their substance, until a damaging and irritating griev- 
 ance is built up against the intended medical victim. The 
 rule of the consulting physician should be avdi alteram par- 
 tern, and in all his dealings with men of his own cloth — and 
 
OF MEDICAL EXPERTS. HI 
 
 .of all cloths, for that matter — to exercise more of that eliar- 
 ity of which St. Paul speaks as thinking no evil. Besides, 
 simple reflection should remind him how puerile it must be 
 to accept as conclusive the statement of a patient or his 
 friends, ignorant as they must be of the nature of the disease, 
 of the difficulties attending its treatment, and who, in eager- 
 ness to establish their case, suppress those facts in their own 
 conduct which would effectually tell against them. JRecently 
 I was asked my opinion on the result of treatment a former 
 patient had undergone for a fractured collar-bone. Union 
 had taken place, but the broken ends could be easily felt, 
 and even plainly seen projecting beneath the skin, for they 
 were overriding to the extent of fully an inch. To all appear- 
 ances this was the most careless or the most ignorant surgery, 
 and seemed, prima /''icie, to justify the threat of damages 
 which he held dangling, like the sword of Damocles, over the 
 head of his medical attendant. But, on sifting the facts, I 
 found the result wholly attributable to himself. It appeared 
 that several times daring treatment he became intoxicated, 
 tore the appliances off, and escaped from the control of his 
 medical adviser and friends. Now, if I had inconsiderately 
 given an opinion of this case, if I had condemned its treat- 
 ment, another might have been added to the long list of vexa- 
 tious and ruinous suits brought against members of the 
 medical profession. 
 
 It is said that nine-tenths of the suits for malpractice are 
 founded on the treatment of fractures, amputations, and dis- 
 locations; and the habit of bringing them is increasing so 
 much that honest and capable surgeons have seriously de- 
 bated the necessity of retiring from a profession whose emolu- 
 ments are so scanty in comparison with its risks, and in which 
 the hard-earned reputation of almost a lifetime may be de- 
 molished in a day. I cannot altogether acquit the legal pro- 
 fession of some share in the production of this feeling of 
 insecurity among medical practitioners. It is their duty, of 
 course, to hear the complaints of their cHents, but they should 
 see to it that these complaints are justified by the facts, and 
 they should acquire sufficient knowledge of these facts to 
 
442 SPHERE, BIGHTS, AND OBLIGATIONS 
 
 enable them to judge whether, even if true, tliey justify an 
 action which may entail such lamentable results. Have they 
 such knowledge? I fear not. I fear they share to some 
 extent, to too great an extent indeed, the popular error that 
 whatever deformity results from a fracture is the fault of the 
 surgeon, I think they are not sufficiently aware of the differ- 
 ences in the nature and termination of fractures; that, in 
 their nature, they are simple and compound ; that simple 
 fractures are transverse or oblique ; that oblique fractures are 
 ihe rule, transverse fractures the exception; that the transverse 
 get well without deformity, provided the patient obeys in- 
 structions, but that the oblique and compound almost inva- 
 riably, and in spite of the most admirable surgery, leave 
 shortening or other disfigurement; consequently, that most 
 fractures only unite at the expense of the length or shapeli- 
 ness of the limb. These, with other facts of a like character, 
 have been established by Prof. Hamilton, of this city, 
 who proved, by the results of investigations conducted in a 
 rare and exemplary spirit of candor and impartiality, that, 
 " in fractures of the tibia and fibula, both compound and sim- 
 ple, perfect results are in the proportion of only one to about 
 three of the cases treated ; and, in fractures of the femur and 
 clavicle, complete cure results in about one case in five ; in 
 fractures of the patella, a perfect cure happens only in one 
 case in six." Is it not time for the legal profession to have 
 a knowledge of these facts ? Is it not a reasonable hope that, 
 with this knowledge in their possession, they will, even apart 
 from moral considerations, lend the weight of their great 
 influence to discountenance ruinous and vexatious conspira- 
 cies against medical practitioners? 
 
 At the Eleventh Annual Meeting of the Ohio State Medical 
 Society, held in 1856, the question of suits for malpractice 
 was discussed, and it was asked, ''What course shall the pro- 
 fession take in regard to the matter?" "Severe implica- 
 tions," it was said, " are being meted out to our professional 
 brethren on account of imperfections, resident, not in them- 
 selves, but in their art." And it was suggested as a remedy, 
 that there should be among the profession a distinct under- 
 
OF MEDICAL EXTEETS. 443 
 
 Btauding and general consent that brethren going through 
 3uch suits are entitled to the " sympathy and assistance of as 
 many of their professional " confreres " as may be necessary 
 to sustain them," and that " if avoidable, no member of the 
 profession should give his services to the prosecution." I 
 willingly acknowledge the goodness of this advice, but at the 
 same time I must say it has but little force, nor is it applica- 
 ble to any emergency. It is too vague ; it has too much the 
 air of a compromise. Further, it seems to ignore the fact 
 that there are unprincipled, self-seeking men in the hierarchy 
 as well as in the rank and file of the medical profession. So 
 long as this remains a sad truth, which will be as long as 
 human nature is unregen crated, it will be vain to appeal to 
 the " sympathy and assistance of as many professional breth- 
 ren as may be necessary," etc. There must be some means 
 uncontrolled by sympathy or other transient feeling ; some 
 certainty on which the surgeon can rely in that trying hour 
 when he must face round, and fight singly in a cause which 
 is vital to his whole profession. That something is a profes- 
 sional fund of national extent, to which all qualified medical men 
 in the United Slates should be called upon to contribute, and 
 which should be used solely for the purpose of defraying the 
 legal expenses of such suits and of paying some at least of 
 the damages inflicted. I cannot enter now into the details of 
 this scheme, though at a future time I may be permitted to 
 do so; suffice it for the present to sny that it would be neces- 
 sary to restrict such aid to those cases only wherein, in the 
 opinion of a medical council duly appointed, it should be 
 proved by careful examination of the evidence that the defend- 
 ant had suffered unmerited punishment. 
 
THE LEGITIMATE INFLUENCE OF EPILEPSY 
 
 UPON 
 
 CRIMINAL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 By MEREDITH CLTMER, M. D.* 
 
 Thebe is great unanimity in the testimony of writers on 
 epilepsy, that it exercises, in its lesser as well as in its more 
 classical form, a pernicious influence on the mental faculties 
 of its victims. I believe that in every case of epilepsy there 
 is some modification of mental tone. 
 
 That the existence of this malady is compatible with ex- 
 traordinary intellectual power is not to be denied. I have 
 myself known many examples, and there are several famil- 
 iar stock cases cited by authors, the most remarkable being 
 those of Caesar, Mahomet, and Napoleon Bonaparte. The 
 imperial biographer of the great Roman captain denies that 
 the two nervous attacks which he had, one at Cordova and 
 the other at Thapsus, were fits of genuine falling siokne'ss. 
 There is no real proof that the first Napoleon was subject to 
 epilepsy, whilst there is much to discredit it. But where 
 genius and epilepsy have co-existed, there have been always, 
 so far as my knowledge and experience go, a nervous consti- 
 tution, eccentricities of thought and ways, and which, sooner 
 or later, have developed into some form of mental disease. 
 The late Professor Trousseau said, in one of his lectures on 
 
 * Bead by invitation before the Society, May 11, 1871. 
 
KESPONSIBILITY OF EPILEPTICS. 4A5 
 
 tkis subject, — " If there have been epileptics who, in spite of 
 more or less frequent attacks, have retained to the end of even 
 a pretty long career, not only the perfectness of their reason, 
 but also the full force of their intellect, and like those men 
 of genius, whose names history has handed down to us, pre- 
 served that superior intelligence which enabled them t(j rise 
 above the ordinary level of their fellow-men, instances of this 
 kind are too exceptional to invalidate in the least the general 
 law. In the large majority of cases, although in the begin- 
 ning and when the attacks are infrequent, the patients are in 
 the full possession of all their faculties ; although a marvel- 
 ous aptitude for conceiving things quickly, or viewing them 
 under their most brilliant and poetical aspects, may distin- 
 guish some of them, yet in proportion as the fits recur and 
 increase in frequency, in proportion as the disease progresses, 
 the faculties fail, and become gradually extinct, and insanity 
 follows." 
 
 Children, who in after life become epileptic, are often 
 remarkable examples of precocious cleverness; they are 
 bright, quick, full of imagination, and have astonishing mem- 
 ories, but are apt to be shy, tetchy, quick in quarrel, and 
 liable to sudden gusts of temper. These unnatural gifts too 
 are not lasting; the promise of the child is not fulfilled ; he 
 becomes stupid, morose, fearful, and blustering. The early 
 cerebral exaltation is the evidence of the morbid germ which 
 later is to be known by its fruit. 
 
 Of 339 epileptics, Esquirol found 269, or four-fifths, with 
 some form of mental disorder, leaving only one-fifth in the en- 
 joyment of their reason, and he exclaims, " W^hat sort of rea- 
 son ? " The celebrated French alienist, Falret, observes : " It 
 is certain that very many cases of epilepsy are accompanied 
 by some disorder of the intellect which has a decided analogy 
 to that met with in a large number of the chronic diseases of 
 the brain. This trouble is as natural a consequence of the 
 principal disease as those partial paralytic attacks so frequent 
 after epileptic fits, and should not be separated from the 
 affection on which it depends. We have cases of mental 
 derangement accompanied by epileptic vertigo, or genuine 
 
446 BESPONSiBiLirr of epileptics. 
 
 convulsive attacks ; which are chiefly characterized by theii 
 short duration, intermittent type, outrageous exhibitions of 
 passion, and by hebetude and want of memory after the 
 paroxysms ; cases so distinctive in their character as to war- 
 rant the name of epileptic insanity. 
 
 In -most instances an uneasy, depressed, and irritable state 
 of the mind immediately precedes an attack, and there is con- 
 stantly some disturbance of the affective and intellectual 
 faculties manifest directly after it, which may persist during 
 a large part or the whole of the interval between the fits. 
 The affective faculties chiefly suffer. The disposition is apt 
 to be moody, suspicious, wayward, spiteful, and wrathful. 
 Offense is readily taken ; there is a fancy to tease and annoj-, 
 and to be troublesome ; and a dread of insult or injury. The 
 moral qualities are perverted, and the sense of propriety, 
 decency, and duty obscured or lost. 
 
 The physical derangements to which the epileptic is liable 
 are exhibited under varied expressions. In many cases there 
 is gradual failure of intelligence ending in total mental anni- 
 hilation ; others show anomalies of character and disposition 
 which hardly go beyond harmless eccentricities of conduct, 
 or at most, involve a change of temper and habits ; in some 
 there may be an extreme perversion of affective life, and occa- 
 sional explosions of automatic temper-fits, in which he loses 
 the knowledge of himself, but is generally content to unpack 
 his mind in words — 
 
 ■ tantum maledicit utrique, vocando 
 
 Hanc, Furiam ; hiinc, aliud, jussit quod splendida bilis ; 
 
 or there may be those terrible outbursts of maniacal fury, 
 accompanied by homicidal or suicidal impulses, or both. 
 
 We must admit, too, that epilepsy may be manifested, at 
 least for a while, by some mental disorder alone, constituting 
 the masked epilepsy of Morel, and for which I prefer the term 
 psychical epilepsy. 
 
 These psychical perturbations are characterized by sudden 
 and in-esistible impulses often of the most dangerous charac- 
 fer, and their disposition to manifest themselves in convulsive 
 action is curious and interesting. They are distinctive in 
 
EESPONSIBILITY OF EPILEPTICS. 447 
 
 their character, and are, sometimes, the only objective indica- 
 tion of the disorder. Though of so much importance to the 
 psychologist and medical-jurist, they have not received the 
 attention they merit, but little notice being taken of them by 
 the majority of authors, whilst a few have made them the 
 object of particular study. 
 
 Maudsley well remarks : It is not so clearly understood 
 that the mental derangement so occurring may have the form 
 of profound moral disturbance with homicidal propensity 
 without manifest intellectual arrangement. This writer points 
 out the frequency of these precursory phenomena in children 
 who subsequently become epileptic. He says, children three 
 or four years old are sometimes seized with sudden fits of 
 shrieking, desperate stubbornness, or furious rage, in which 
 they bite, tear, and destroy whatever they can lay hold on ; 
 these may occur periodically, and may either pass in the 
 course of a few months into developed epilepsy, or alternate 
 with epileptiform attacks, representing a vicarious epilepsy. 
 
 From the large number of cases, personal and collected, 
 of which I have notes, I shall select a few, for the purpose 
 of illustrating the several varieties of mental disturbance to 
 which epileptics are liable. It should be borne in mind that 
 the morbid psychical phenomena of which I am treating may 
 happen before, at the time, or immediately after, the epileptic 
 seizure ; that they frequently replace it, and may be manifest 
 only so long as the regular fits are absent. 
 
 Marc mentions a case of vicarious epilepsy in a peasant, 
 twenty-seven years of age, who had been subject to epilepsy 
 since he was eight years old. At twenty-five, the convulsive 
 attacks ceased, and he then began to have irresistible homi- 
 cidal impulses. Often for days before he felt the Avarnings 
 of a coming access, when he would beg to be confined, that 
 he might be prevented from committing a crime. " When 
 the feeling comes over me," he would say, " I must kill some 
 one, if only a child." 
 
 In the commune of Cravent, Loiret, France, lived the 
 family Piednoir, consisting of a man and his wife, sexagena- 
 rians, and their son, aged twenty-seven, an epileptic. Except 
 
448 EEsroNSiBiLiTy or epileptics. 
 
 some extravagant ideas, the young man had shown no signs 
 of mental derangement, and had always been affectionate 
 towards his parents. On Easter Sunday, he had had three 
 epileptic seizures; that night he suddenly, and as quietly as 
 possible, got out of bed, armed himself with some weapon at 
 hand, and going to his mother, who slept in the same room 
 with him, killed her with a single blow. He then went into 
 the adjoining room, where his father was asleep, and killed 
 him too. He next attempted to force his way into the adjoin- 
 ing house, but its inmate made her escape, and by her cries 
 aroused the neighbors, who, coming to her aid, tried to secure 
 the murderer, but he eluded them, and proceeded to the house 
 of a brother-in-law, a mile or two off, where he remained 
 awhile, but made no mention of his deed. He returned home, 
 barricaded himself in the house, and was only finally secured 
 by a ruse. After he had become quiet, he confessed his 
 crimes, the manner of their perpetration, etc. 
 
 A lady, forty-eight years old, had had two attacks, accom- 
 panied by violent acts and threatening language, at intervals 
 of eighteen months. For some time after her admission to 
 Dr. Morel's asylum he was quite undecided as to the state of 
 this patient's mind, she was so calm, rational, and industri- 
 ous. There was not the slightest evidence of any mental 
 disturbance. One day, however, she suddenly began to use 
 threatening language, and very soon followed the menace by 
 an overt act of violence, and it became necessary to shut her 
 up. So violent was this attack of rage that she was no longer 
 recognizable, and it was impossible to believe that it was the 
 same woman who, only the evening before, was considered a 
 model of gentleness and good behavior. After some days she 
 resumed her duties with her usual willingness and good-humor. 
 Other attacks followed ; the fits became more frequent, and 
 after a while her character began to change, and during the 
 lucid intervals she was apt to be irritable and easily provoked. 
 
 At the meeting last summer of the Association of Medical 
 Superintendents of American Institutions of the Insane, Dr, 
 John P. Gray, of Utica, mentioned the following case : 
 
 A man was tried for the murder of his wife. The plea of 
 
BESPONSIBILITY OF EPILEPTICS. M9 
 
 insanity was put in, but the counsel having given their entire 
 attention to the fact of insanity, and little or none to the 
 question of epilepsy, the evidence presented did not warrant 
 the experts in considering the case one of insanity or irre- 
 sponsibility. During the progress of the trial the prisoner 
 had a well-marked epileptic seizure. Dr. Gray sat beside 
 him at the time, and sent a note to the judge that the accused 
 was unconscious of what was going on. The court immedi- 
 ately adjourned; no witnesses were examined subsequently; 
 the jury found a verdict of guilty, but sentence was not pro- 
 nounced. The prisoner was committed to an asylum by a 
 later investigation before a county justice, on the ground 
 that he had been an epileptic,'was then an epileptic, and was 
 therefore a person of doubtful responsibility. He remained 
 in the asylum for several years, had epileptic fits, and became 
 quite deranged. Subsequently, he had an attack of fever, 
 and regained his mental vigor ; he was detained several 
 years longer, but had no return of his epilepsy. By the 
 repeal of the law under which he was convicted he was dis- 
 charged. Dr. Gray added that he has since followed the 
 case, that the man had conducted himself well, is earning a 
 livelihood, and is now neither insane nor epileptic. 
 
 I will quote here another instructive case, which attracted 
 a good deal of attention in England three years ago, where the 
 man was tried, condemned, and about to be executed, without 
 any suspicion on the part of his counsel of his condition. 
 
 Bisgrove was an illegitimate child, badly cared for from his 
 birth, and had been always of weak health and intellect. For 
 several years he suffered from frequent epileptic fits, in con- 
 sequence of which, and his inability to take care of himself, 
 he was discharged from the colliery where he worked. In 
 the intervals between his fits, he was good-natured and 
 amiable, and liked by his companions, but immediately after 
 one of them he was dangerous, seizing upon anything that 
 might be at hand, and ready to attack those near. Hoping 
 that a sea-voyage might do him good, he shipped, but returned 
 after a few months, unimproved. He is represented as hav- 
 ing had the heavy, lost look so common in the confirmed 
 
450 iJESPONsiBiLrrY of epileptics. 
 
 epileptic. Such was his condition when, one evening, after 
 drinking a little, he saw a man unknown to him lying asleep 
 in a field ; he took up a big stone which was by and dashed j 
 out the sleeper's brains. Having done this he lay down byl 
 the side of his victim, and went to sleep. When he awoke he | 
 was taken into castody, tried, defended by counsel assigned 
 at the last moment by the court, who said not one word 
 about this creature's epilepsy, and was condemned, along 
 with a perfectly innocent man, who was charged with being 
 an accomplice, and who gave a perfectly true account, as it 
 appeared afterwards, of his whereabouts and doings on the 
 night of the murder, but was not believed. Soon after sen- 
 tence, Bisgrove made a confession, exculpating his supposed 
 accomplice. A clergyman, struck with the strange character 
 of the murder, made inquiries about the prisoner's former 
 life, found out that he was an epileptic, and had proper 
 representations about the case made to the Home Secretary; 
 a medico- judicial inquiry brought out the facts ; a reprieve was 
 granted, and Bisgrove was sent to Broadmoor, the English 
 asylum for insane criminals. 
 
 Dr. Reeves, of "Wheeling, "West Virginia, sent me last 
 autumn the following interesting case, which I will briefly 
 relate. 
 
 F. "W. D., set. 34, born of healthy parents, of good consti- 
 tution, and of quick intellect. At the age of twenty he had 
 already shown so much ability as a business man that he 
 was put at the head of very extensive iron works as manager, 
 and conducted them successfully during the next eight or 
 ten years. After assuming his arduous duties, he had a 
 sudden seizure of momentary loss of consciousness, there was 
 a vacant stare, and he staggered for an instant. Soon after- 
 wards he suffered from a severe attack of typhoid fever, 
 accompanied by delirium and stupor. He was dangerously 
 ill for four weeks. Three months after his recovery, he had 
 another transient attack of vertigo and loss of consciousness ; 
 and the seizures from this time became more frequent, until 
 five years after his first "vacant stare," when he suddenly 
 fell senseless to the ground, and was convulsed — in other 
 
BESPONSIBILiry OP EPILEPTICS. 451 
 
 words, he had a regular epileptic fit. Two years before this 
 he had married, and was to all appearances in full health. 
 Two years after, having had in the meanwhile several seizures 
 of more or Jess severity, he began to complain of loss of 
 memory, and his constant forgetfulness annoyed him. About 
 this time, his friends noticed a change in his disposition, and 
 that he had become very irritable and impatient. In Decem- 
 ber, 1863, that is about seven years after his first seizure of 
 'pelil mal, he had a very severe epileptic fit which lasted for 
 more than a hour, and on getting out of it, he took up an old 
 violin which he had occasionally before played on, and, 
 instead of using the bow, he " picked" on it, banjo-fashion, 
 unremittingly for twenty-four hours, an old tune he had 
 learned in his boyhood. The fits now happened every three 
 or four weeks, of variable intensity, to April 4, 1870, each one 
 being followed by an uncontrollable impulse to make hur- 
 ried music of the same old tune, from twelve to forty-eight 
 hours. During this exercise he took neither food nor drink. 
 At such times he could not be interfered with without the 
 risk of producing fits of violeflt and unmanageable rage ; and 
 if, on his demand, he was not instantly given some musical 
 instrument, his fury was terrible. His friends never allowed 
 him to go from home without putting into his pocket a jew's- 
 harp, on which, after an attack, he would quietly play his 
 favorite air, so long as he was not interfered with. 
 
 The fits invariably came on at midnight, and during the 
 next twelve hours he would have as many as a dozen ; for the 
 next twelve to forty-eight hours he continued busy with his 
 music, neither eating, drinking, nor sleeping, and then, some- 
 times, for thirty-six hours he might be a raving maniac, who 
 could be coaxed but not coerced. On one occasion, when 
 his father attempted to thwart him, he fell on him, and nearly 
 choked him to death. At another time he was taken to the 
 station-house in Baltimore, for resisting a policeman who had 
 interfered with him. He once rushed into a court-houso in 
 Maryland, to the astonishment of the bench and jury, and 
 tried to arrest sentence of death which was being pronounced 
 on a negro, and he was sent to prison for contempt of court. 
 
452 RESPONSIBIXITY OF EPILEPTICS. 
 
 For several hours immediately preceding a fit his memory 
 is wonderful, and he will then after reading anything once, 
 repeat page after page, scarcely making a mistake. 
 
 His general health is good ; ho sleeps well in the intervals 
 of the fits ; reads a good deal, particularly religious books, 
 but, with the remarkable exception just, mentioned, forgets 
 everything almost as soon as read; is fond of company, 
 delights in ccirds and dancing ; is an immoderate water- 
 drinker as well as smoker. His only complaint is of occa- 
 sional pain in the right side of the head, and at such times 
 his face is flushed. 
 
 He has had two children by his marriage ; the eldest had 
 an attack of convulsions when five years old. 
 
 No treatment had had an}' influence upon the disorder. 
 
 In a letter lately received from Dr. Eeeves, he informs me 
 that this unfortunate man had become a violent lunatic, and 
 had been sent to an insane asylum. 
 
 Dr. Thorne Thorne, of London, has lately published a case 
 well worthy of mention, on account of the peculiar psychical 
 symptoms, which, in a measure* replaced the ordinary con- 
 vulsive attacks. 
 
 H. S., a coach-builder, set. 36, and of temperate habits, had, 
 fourteen years previous to the present history, been exposed 
 to the sun's rays for some time, and suffered from severe pain 
 in the head for three weeks afterwards. After a rheumatic 
 illness three years subsequently, the pain returned, and he 
 had never been free from it for any time since ; he had, too, 
 occasional attacks of dimness of sight and trembling. He 
 married, and became the father of several children. Nine or 
 ten years after his partial sunstroke he had several well- 
 marked epileptic fits, and they continued increasing in fre- 
 quency uatil he had one on an average every third week. Up 
 to this time in the clinical history we have nothing but a 
 well-marked eawe of epilepsy ; about this time a train of mor- 
 bid mental phenomena appeared. Whilst in hospital for a 
 slight bronchitis, he is reported to have become " strange in 
 manner," and to have had some delusions. One night he 
 suddenly jumped oat of bed, rushed wildly to the door of the 
 
BESPONSIBILITY OF EPILEPTICS. 453 
 
 ward, which he quickly opened, and then fell to tl e ground 
 on his back. He was picked up and carried to his bed ; he 
 seemed to retain consciousness, but gave no explanation of 
 his conduct. During his stay in the hospital, which was 
 about a month, he was liable to these attacks, that is, spells 
 of mental excitement, associated witli delusions and followed 
 by periods, of depression. In the intervals he was cheerful, 
 his manner was calm, and he was always ready to make him- 
 self useful. Before his admission into the hospital he had 
 never had any mental symptoms, but during the next two 
 years they frequently recurred in a very marked form. He 
 had occasionally suffered from spells of mental depression, 
 but these gradually were transformed into paroxysms of acute 
 mental excitement. In these attacks he becomes suddenly 
 wild, his intellect is confused and he will snatch up a knife, 
 and declare aloud tha;t he is going to kill his children, rush- 
 ing after them into the closets, etc., where, terror-stricken, 
 they may hide. After his wife has removed everything with 
 which he might do himself or others harm, and locked up 
 with him trying to pacify him, more than once it has required 
 all her strength and tact to hinder him from throwing him- 
 self out of the window. After remaining in this state for 
 several hours, and sometimes for an entire night, he will 
 gradually get quiet and go to sleep. On awaking, he has but 
 a dim recollection that he has in any way been ailing, and 
 none whatever of what he has said or done during the seiz- 
 ure. These attacks are preceded by the same warning symp- 
 toms as his regular epileptic fits, namely, a sensation of cold 
 and trembling. 
 
 It is also stated that this man subsequently became a sub- 
 ject of kleptomania. On one occasion, when it was noticed 
 that he was suffering from a good deal of mental dullness, 
 several parcels of violet and other scented powders were dis- 
 covered on his person, which he could have had no object in 
 purchasing, and about which he positively declared he knew 
 nothing. Later, he was arrested for stealing his fellow- 
 workmen's tools, which had been found in his possession. 
 He most emphatically asserted that he had not- taken the 
 
ioi KESrONSIBILITY OF EPILEPTICS. 
 
 articles. His well-known honesty and previous history favored 
 the notion that the theft had been done during an access of 
 epileptic vertigo. On medical evidence to that effect being 
 given, the charge was withdrawn, and he was released. The 
 medical officer of the prison who examined him, however, was 
 unable to state that he could at that time find any indications 
 of mental unsoundness, although, having heard of his former 
 attacks, he said that he could not doubt that such indications 
 had from time to time manifested themselves. This man is 
 unquestionably liable during an access of his disorder to com- 
 mit some serious criminal act. It wiU be remembered that his 
 first morbid impulsive act was to rush madly, and apparently 
 without purpose, to the door of the ward of the hospital, and 
 he might just as well have made a motiveless, murderous 
 attack upon a feUow-patient. 
 
 A few weeks ago, a lad, about ten years of age, was brought 
 to me with the following history. In infancy he had had two 
 severe attacks of convulsions, but nothing of the kind since. 
 He was the youngest of a family of several children, of whom 
 some were grown up, and all bright except this boy. His 
 intellect did not develop, and he made small progress at school. 
 Some two years since, twitchings of his hands were noticed ; 
 he kept them in constant motion, as well as the muscles of his 
 mouth ; about this time he became irritable in his temper, 
 and, when reproved or thwarted by his mother, would get 
 very angry, use bad language, which, it was stated, was not 
 habitual with him, and throw anything that he could seize at his 
 mother, and then run off, staying away for a while. On his re- 
 turn home he was always very penitent, expressed much contri- 
 tion for his conduct, would burst into tears, beg to be forgiven, 
 and promise to sin no more. Later it was noticed that every- 
 thing eatable which came into his way he would appropriate, 
 gorging himself till he became sick. The state of the article 
 made no difference with him, and just before I saw him he 
 had had a severe attack of illness from eating a quantity of 
 rotten apples and spoiled peanuts which had been thrown 
 into the street. He soon, too, began to pick up and put in 
 his pockets everything he saw and could conveniently stow 
 
RESPONSIBILITY OF EPILEPTICS. 455 
 
 away. At night he would empty his day's pUferings into a 
 drawer, never thinking of looking after them again unless he 
 was questioned about any missing article, and asked if he had 
 it, when, if such were the case, he would immediately go and 
 fetch it. "With the exception of articles of food, he was never 
 known to use, or convert into money, anything which he might 
 have taken. Indeed, after his pockets were sewn up, he 
 would carry openly in his hands his spoils. His mother had 
 become fearful that his habits might get her into trouble and 
 apphed for advice. Regarding the motory troubles, taking 
 the whole history of the case, as more of an epileptic than of a 
 choreic nature, and that his impulse to steal was reaUy irre- 
 sistible, and his fits of rage might lead him to the commission 
 of some dangerous act, I advised his being immediately sent to 
 an asylum. Whilst he was under examination, and his mother 
 was stating the case, I noticed that his expression of coun- 
 tenance suddenly changed, and that his face was quite pallid. 
 I asked if this happened often, and I was told that he was 
 angry at what was being said about him, and that one of his 
 temper-fits was working in him ; that he was restrained by 
 my presence, otherwise that he would seize hold of the first 
 thing handy, and " shie it " at his parent. A little while after- 
 wards he began to sob violently. 
 
 It is undeniable that freqiiently the epileptic seizures hap- 
 pen only during the night, and may be so slight as to be over- 
 looked. The nature of the mental troubles following these 
 nocturnal attacks may, from this fact being overlooked, not be 
 imderstood, and mistakes made fatal to the liberty or even Hfe 
 of the individual. 
 
 Dr. Dumenil relates an instance in point. A soldier subject 
 to sudden fits of passion was tried by court-martial for striking 
 an officer. A medical inquest showed that he had had shght 
 attacks of periodical mania. A long while afterwards. Dr. 
 Dumenil discovered that each of these attacks was preceded 
 by epileptic fits during the night, of which the man had no 
 knowledge, and which had escaped the notice of those who for 
 several years had slept with him. The same physician men- 
 tions that several of his patients had passed several years in 
 
456 RESPONSIBILITY OF EPILEPTICa. 
 
 asylums before the real nature of their infirmity was made 
 out. 
 
 Morel mentions the case of a boy at a boarding-school, who 
 was suddenly attacked during the night without apparent 
 cause ; he rushed wildly up and down the haU of the dormi- 
 tory, shouting and gibbering loudly, and seized one of his 
 fellow-pupils who was trying to quiet him, and attempted to 
 strangle him. After some difficulty he was secured and put 
 to bed, when he had an epileptic fit. The next morning he 
 recollected nothing that had happened, but complained of 
 feeling weary and exhausted. 
 
 About a year ago I was consulted by a middle-aged gentle- 
 man, who told me of his troubles as follows : Without warning 
 or any immediate provocation, he would suddenly have the 
 most horrible homicidal impulses towards certain persons who 
 either really, or at the moment he imagined, had injured, or 
 slighted, or offended him. In his room, or in the street, or 
 crossing a public square, the fit instantly seized him, and fan- 
 cying the supposed evil-doer before him, he would strike at 
 him with some fantastic murderous weapon — stabbing him in 
 the neck, or breast, or belly with a sharp instrument, or giving 
 a blow on the head with a blunt one, the act being accompa- 
 nied with the most violent, reproachful language. He said he 
 was not aware that in the street, or when any one was present, 
 the gestures or speech were more than subjective ; but if 
 alone he knew that he spoke aloud, and suited the words to 
 the action. The fit over, he always felt very much exhausted, 
 with more or less loss of muscular power, particularly recently, 
 of the left extremities. Although occasionally in the company 
 of some of the menaced persons, he had never at such time 
 felt any disposition to harm them, or to behave towards them 
 in any way that showed the feelings he at periods involun- 
 tarily experienced regarding them ; but he was tormented by 
 the apprehension that the time might come when he would 
 be attacked whilst in their presence, and thus commit some 
 horrid crime. He was a man of high moral tone and Chris- 
 tian training and practice, irritable, subject to temper-fits 
 from childhood, but naturally of an amiable and generous dis- 
 
EESPONSIBILITY OF EPILEPTICS. 457 
 
 position. He was greatly distressed at his infirmity, had for 
 some time concealed it, and at last, dreading the possible con- 
 sequences, sought advice. He said he had more than once 
 decided to go voluntarily to an asylum, but was withheld from 
 the fear of exposure and injury to his prospects and family. 
 I found out in the course of my examination that he had had 
 also at times suicidal thoughts, or, rather, that more than 
 once the idea of the effects of the several methods of self- 
 murder had been, as he said, irresistibly obtruded on his mind, 
 and particularly the sensation of a discharge of a pistol in his 
 mouth ; but, as he observed, he had never seriously meditated 
 at any time suicide ; it was rather, as he called it, an sestheti- 
 cal contemplation of the means of self-destruction, without 
 any especial desire to practically test them on himself. 
 Although he had had many vexations from pecuniary losses 
 and general bad luck, he was usually cheerful, not cast down 
 by, nor given to brooding over, his troubles, and performed 
 the daily duties of his calling, which did not demand any very 
 great mental strain, easily and creditably. He had no head- 
 ache, and his general health was excellent. After one of 
 these spells his left arm would feel weary and his left leg 
 weighted, along with some numbness and tingling in the parts ; 
 these sensations would soon pass off. He had had neuralgic 
 attacks occasionally for many jeaxa, but they had become 
 Ughter and rarer. He never had suffered from epileptic fits, 
 or, as he thought, anything like them ; nor had any of his 
 family. One day he asked me to prescribe something for a 
 sore tongue, and on examination I found evidence of its hav- 
 ing been bitten, which led me to believe that he was subject 
 to nocturnal attacks ; and, on being questioned, he admitted 
 that often before falHng asleep he had remarked that his jaw 
 snapped, and sometimes his limbs jerked. I looked upon 
 these phenomena, apparently so insignificant, as really the 
 key to the psychical troubles, and the effects of treatment 
 have tended to confirm the opinion. 
 
 He remained measurably free from his mental disorder for 
 many months ; a few days ago he returned to me, saying that 
 he was nearly as bad as ever. 
 
458 EESPONSIBILITy OF EPILEPTICS. 
 
 An epileptic may liave his attacks at long intervals and 
 immediately after one of them have an irresistible disposition 
 towards some criminal act, and then become apparently sane. 
 Here, we may have no indication- to account for the morbid 
 impulses if the antecedents are not known, or are over- 
 looked; and an error in such cases is very possible if 
 we form a judgment only by the present condition of the 
 accused. 
 
 The following case happened about a year since in Mis- 
 souri, and at the time excited much attention and gave rise 
 to a sharp discussion about its medico-legal merits. The 
 general facts are : Max KHngler, a boy about eighteen years 
 of age, was a tailor's apprentice to his uncle. The day pre- 
 ceding the homicide his uncle had reproved him concerning 
 his work, and also, about the removal of a pistol from a drawer. 
 The next morning, while the uncle was making a fire in the 
 stove, Khnger approached him from behind, and putting the 
 muzzle of a pistol close to his head, fired, and killed him. 
 The wife of the murdered man on rushing into the room on 
 hearing the shot, was seized by the boy, who struck her sev- 
 eral blows on the head with a hatchet, which rendered her 
 insensible. The murderer then took what money there was 
 in the drawer, about thirty dollars, and ran for the railway 
 depot, and such was his, haste that he did not stop to pick up 
 his hat which had been blown from his head in the sbreet during 
 his flight. Taking a train that was leaving for the West, he 
 was arrested at a station a few hours afterwards, his hands 
 and clothes being covered with blood. At the coroner's 
 inquest he made a confession, admitting that he had killed 
 his uncle because Tie had made him angry, and was not pleased 
 with his work. He said that he had made up his mind on 
 the previous Saturday to shoot him, and added that when he 
 came down stairs on the morning of the murder, he bade his 
 uncle goodTmomiiag as usual, but received no answer. He 
 said that he then went to work and opened the shutters, and 
 when he came back to the room, he saw his uncle making the 
 fire, and, without saying anything further to him, shot him 
 from behind. He further stated that when coming down 
 
RESPONSIBILITY OF EPILEPTICS. 459 
 
 stairs he had no intention of shooting him, but had loaded 
 the pistol in the garret. The prisoner was tried and con- 
 victed. A new trial was moved for on the ground of impor- 
 tant depositions having been received from his native town in 
 Germany, whicli showed (1) that Klingler, in early childhood, 
 while playing in a barn had had a fall from a height of thirty 
 feet, which had rendered him insensible with a wound of the 
 head, which had caused a depression of the skuU stiU apparent ; 
 (2). that since his faU he had been subject to fits, and on 
 several occasions had suffered from temporary insanity; 
 (3.) that his mother and sister and two daughters of the latter 
 had been subject to epileptic seizures, and that the daughter 
 of a maternal aunt was insane. 
 
 Another trial was had, and tbo jury not agreeing, there 
 being seven for conviction and five for acquittal, a third one 
 took place, and Klingler was again convicted. His counsel, 
 having failed to secure a reversal by the Supreme Court of 
 Missouri; took an appeal to the Supreme Court of the United 
 States, the result of which is not stated in the report of the 
 case from which I have made my abstract. i 
 
 Admitting the fact estabhshed, that Klingler was an epilep- 
 tic, and that his disorder was hereditary, it was contended by 
 the prosecution that he was not seen in, or known to have 
 had, a fit for many years previous to the act. It is true that a fel- 
 low-prisoner who slept with Klingler testified that he had acted 
 very strangely, waking up and seizing the witness by the throat, 
 Beeming wild, strange, and bewildered. If such was the fact, 
 there was possibility of nocturnal epilepsy, and Klingler should 
 have been closely watched during sleep for many nights. In 
 Dr. Bauduy's medico-legal report of the case I can find no 
 evidence that the alleged depression at a point of the skuU 
 had been verified by any of the medical witnesses who had 
 examined the prisoner, or that there was any proof that pre- 
 viously or subsequent to the murder, Klingler had had anything 
 like an epileptic fit, except the doubtful evidence of his feUow- 
 prisoner. In a statement which he wrote subsequent to con- 
 viction he, with much shrewdness, throws all the responsibUity 
 for the crime on his epileptic disorder. He shows much 
 
460 EESPONSIBILITY OF EPILEPTICS. 
 
 adroitness in his plea, and such perfect memory about all the 
 details of the deed, that I will quote a portion of it. " This 
 event would not have happened," he writes, "if I had not 
 received the sickness just on the 29th of November, [1869, the 
 day of the murder], for I did not think that I would get the 
 sickness on account of all these troubles. I had often said it 
 in German that I would get the sickness about this time, and 
 nobody should enter the room until I unlocked the door 
 myself, for I get so crazy that I do not know what I am 
 doing. It is dangerous for any one to be seen by me when I 
 get the sickness. The doctor ia Germanj^ said to my parents 
 that I would become dangerous during my sickness. I am 
 very sorry that I was so unfortunate. I had the sickness on 
 the 25th November, and unhappily the boss entered ; I saw 
 him ; he came toward me and looked at me, when I struck at 
 something. Then I saw that he wanted to come at me, and 
 wanted to hold me, so I got so intensely crazy that I did not 
 know what I was doing. How I got the revolver in my hand 
 I do not know, nor how he lay there. Then she [the wife] ran 
 towards me and wanted to strike me. I did not know with 
 what I struck her. But when I came to my senses I saw 
 what I had done, and was scared. Then I left immediately. 
 If I had premeditated this I would have sent my clothes to 
 some place. I kept the pistol by me every morning, because 
 we had in our neighborhood about ten Indians. Every morn- 
 ing I was first in the store and was afraid of these fellows." This 
 account of the assassination by the murderer himself, an 
 alleged epileptic, with the avowed object of extenuating the 
 deed by the fact that he was undergoing a paroxysm at the 
 time, shows, admitting the correctness of the occurrence as 
 given by him, which is not the case, for it conflicts with the 
 evidence, is at variance with the statement made by him at 
 the time of his arrest, and is evidently distorted to his own 
 advantage. Admitting, I say, its truth, it proves perfect recol- 
 lection of all the circumstances attending the murder, and is 
 so ingeniously constructed as to weaken -very much the theoiy 
 of mental disorder from any form of epilepsy, which it 
 attempts to substantiate, and it has all the appearance of a 
 
RESPONSIBILITY OF EPILEPTICS. 461 
 
 lie coined after the plea of epilepsy had been imagined to 
 avoid the consequences of his temper-fit. He had avowed on 
 his first examination premedltalion ; he told the coroner that 
 he "had made up his mind to kill his uncle the night before." 
 Professor Bauduy, in his ingenious argument in favor of 
 Klingler's irresponsibility, on the ground of his alleged epilep- 
 tic attacks in Germany, argues in extenuation of the supposed 
 premeditation, that " Klingler felt a morbid impulse the pre- 
 vious evening to kill his uncle, but through the supremacy of 
 his will, coupled with intellectual power not whoUy impaired, 
 he was able to resist or correct such impulsive tendency. He 
 did not kill his uncle until the following morning, after his 
 usual salutation, and subsequently had opened the store for 
 the day's business. Would not an ordinary criminal, pre- 
 meditating his crime, . have perpetrated the act during the 
 darkness and stiUness of the night, when his victim would have 
 been completely at his mercy ? Would he have courted pub- 
 hcity by opening the shutters in dayUght, almost inviting the 
 attention of passers-by on a greatly frequented thoroughfare? 
 Then, again, what motive existed to incite the boy to such a 
 terrible crime ? " The argument, I confess, seems to me falla- 
 cious, and is urged more after the manner of a clever advo- 
 cate supporting a specious theory, than a calm appreciation 
 of the facts of the case. From the evidence before me, I am 
 satisfied that Max Elingler was justly convicted of a premedi- 
 tated murder, and was properly amenable to the penalty 
 incurred. What the final result was, and whether the sentence 
 was executed, I have not learnt. 
 
 In this connection the case of the Belgian, Eoegiers, may be 
 cited here. Although the fact of epilepsy was admitted by the 
 prosecution, the fact of premeditation having been estabhshed, 
 the prisoner was held responsible for his act, and condemned 
 accordingly. 
 
 Eoegiers was thirty years of age at this time ; he had been 
 subject to epileptic fits far three years, the consequence of 
 sudden fright. After awhile the seizures were attended with 
 attacks of maniacal fury. He had a foreknowledge of the 
 onset, and would warn those about him. The fit over, he was 
 
462 RESPONSIBILITY OF EPILEPTICS. 
 
 himself again, quiet and gentle, with no recollection of what 
 had happened. The seizure was usually during the night, 
 and whilst the fit was on him he would struggle violently. 
 Ecegiers had had a quarrel with a companion, in consequence 
 of which he had been sent for some months to prison. On 
 quitting the prison he assured B*** that he had no grudge 
 against him, as he was not responsible for the act of the court. 
 Some time afterwards Ecegiers was seen quietly sharpening a 
 knife on a grind-stone for over two hours, exclaiming from 
 time to time, " I'U have your head." He left his house in 
 broad daylight, knife in hand, and ran to the house of B., who 
 hved in a populous quarter, and entered boldly. B. seeing 
 Ecegiers come in armed with a knife, attempted to escape, but 
 was pursued by Ecegiers, who struck a blow at B.'s sister while 
 attempting to shelter her brother ; reaching the latter, he threw 
 himself on him hke a tiger, and inflicted a terrible gash in his 
 throat, thrusting in his fingers to enlarge the wound. The ter- 
 rified bystanders refused any assistance until Ecegiers fell ex- 
 hausted. Tried at the Brabant Assizes, he was condemned to 
 death. He had no recollection of the horrid deed he had perpe- 
 trated, answering all the questions of the judge : " Since you say 
 so, I suppose it is so, but I know nothing of it." Subsequently 
 his sentence was commuted to the gaUeys for life and one 
 hour in the pillory. Whilst he was undergoing the latter part 
 of his sentence he was seized with a terrific attack of convul- 
 sions. 
 
 At the beginning of this paper I expressed the opinion that 
 the mind of the epileptic is rarely, if ever, whole ; though, 
 unquestionably the alteration may be of a kind and degree 
 not to affect either the moral or legal responsibility of the 
 individual. But an epileptic dwells on the border line of 
 iosanity, and may, at any moment, pass the limit, and live 
 there forever. We may in these cases have the whole gamut 
 of insanity sounded from mere irascibility and capriciousness 
 of thought, feeling, and conduct, to the most terrible explosions 
 of maniacal fury. 
 
 The question then arises : Are aU epileptics who have com- 
 mitted a criminal act to be considered necessarily as insane, 
 
KESPONSIBILITY OF EPILEPTICS. 463 
 
 and consequently irresponsible ? Should the proof of being 
 subject to epilepsy alone insure acquittal ? I do not believe 
 that the simple fact of an individual being subject to epilepsy 
 will ever come to be admitted by legists as naturally divesting 
 him of responsibility for his acts ; and the medical expert v\rho 
 maintains such a doctrine runs the risk of seriously compro- 
 mising himself. In some cases, as I have said, the state of 
 mental deterioration or perversion is such as not to admit of 
 question ; lasting traces of the disease leaving its mark on the 
 mind. Again we meet with epileptics who are fulfilling all the 
 duties of life, and whose real condition is not suspected ; it is 
 hard to assert that these persons are absolved from moral 
 responsibility. We should be wrong then in always arriving 
 at the conclusion that an epileptic is necessarily deprived of 
 moral Hberty, and therefore may claim immunity from the 
 consequence, of a criminal act. He may, in committing the 
 offense, have obeyed some interested motive, and there may 
 have been criminal premeditation, and at the time of the act 
 full power of self-control, so that he could have refrained from 
 the act had he hked so to do. There may be, then, no small 
 difficulty in distiaguishing the responsible criminal from the 
 irresponsible lunatic. The mere fact of the commission of 
 extravagant and vicious acts by an epileptic is not sufficient 
 to divest him of responsibiUty, and secure to him immunity 
 for his acts. There must be proof and demonstration, beyond 
 reasonable doubt, of his inability to control his vicious in- 
 stincts. It must be shown, to quote Mx. Erskine's language, 
 that " the act in question is the immediate unqualified off- 
 spring of the disease." And we should always have in mind 
 that we are bound to protect the rights of society as well as 
 the rights of individuals. A general plea of insanity should 
 not therefore absolutely protect every epileptic against the 
 consequences of his act. A careful inquiry is to be made into 
 the circumstances of each case, and the evidence thoroughly 
 sifted. The period of the seizures should be learned ; whether 
 near to or remote from the time of committal of the act 
 charged ; the slowness or rapidity with which the seizures are 
 recovered from ; the mental state during the intervals — are all 
 
4G4 EESPONSIBILITY OF EPILEPTICS. 
 
 to be fully considered before you can decide whether the 
 accused has been the victim of horrible imaginings, or yielded 
 to a criminal suggestion of his free will. 
 
 Many of these unfortunates are quite aware of and appre- 
 ciate their terrible infirmity ; they have a correct notion of 
 right and wrong, but cannot control or resist their morbid 
 impulses. They may have a foreknowledge of what wiU 
 inevitably happen, and beg to be protected against them- 
 selves. Marc tells of an epileptic who, after being several 
 times in an asylum, decided to remain there permanently, for 
 his seizures were commonly preceded or followed by transitory 
 fury, and he several times had attempted to kill his wife and 
 servants. These mental impulses are not always irresistible, 
 and may for a time be successfully opposed, but are hable at 
 anj^ moment to be transformed into acts against aU the efforts 
 of the wiU. After a criminal deed the epileptic may use this 
 language : " I was urged on, something forced me, in spite of 
 myself ; I understood fuU well the atrocity of the act I was 
 about to commit. I resisted for a while with all my might, 
 but the time came when the horrid impulse mastered me. I 
 had no power over myself, and had to yield to the horrible 
 suggestion. No sooner was the act done, and I was myself 
 again, than I saw it in its true light ; I realized aU the conse- 
 quences, and was horror-stricken at what I had done ; I 
 lament my weakness, but I feel that my wiU had nothing to 
 do with it." 
 
 Now, if the legal test of responsibility — the full knowlege of 
 right and wrong at the time of the act — be applied to such 
 cases, most monstrous injustice would be done, aiid yet this 
 has been the EngHsh law since it was laid down by Lord Hale, 
 and is constantly quoted by leadir^ authorities. As Profes- 
 sor Laycock remarks of this bloody-minded persecutor of old 
 women : " He disregarded in his dicta alike the principles of 
 pathology and of common sense, and of ethics founded 
 thereon." 
 
 I know that the theory of " irresistible impulse " hivs but 
 little favor in courts of law, and, perhaps, with good n>a8on. 
 It has too often been the plea of those who, as Edgar tells us, 
 
EESPONSIBILITY OF EPILEPTICS. 465 
 
 " when sick in fortune make guUty of their disasters the sun, 
 the moon, and the stars ; as if they were villains on necessity; 
 fools by heavenly compulsion ; knaves, thieves, and treachers 
 by spherical predominance ; drunkards, Hars, and adulterers 
 by a forced obedience of planetary influence ; and all that we 
 are evil in by a divine thrustiag on. . . . An admirable 
 evasion of the surfeit of our own behavior." 
 
 And yet I cannot but believe, — when the doctrine comes 
 to be properly understood, — that in certain cases of epilepsy 
 the mind is, as it were, conditioned to insanity ; that the 
 faculty of the will may be smothered for a time ; that the 
 individual so afflicted is not responsible as a free agent ; and, 
 when discreetly and properly urged, the plea will meet with 
 recognition. 
 
 Until quite lately the notion of mental disease, which has 
 been most generally held, and is still the doctrine of the law- 
 courts, is that insanity is an intellectual and not an emotional 
 disorder. The validity of this view was first questioned by 
 Dr. Bucknill, and he attempted many years ago to establish 
 the important principle that morbid emotion is an essential 
 part of all affections of the mind. " With the exception," he 
 writes, " of those cases of insanity which arise from injuries, 
 blood poisons, peripheral irritations, and other sources of an 
 unquestionably physical nature, the common causes of insan- 
 ity are such as produce emotional changes, either in the form 
 of violent agitation of the passions, or that of a chronic state 
 of abnormal emotion, which exhibits itself in the habitually 
 exaggerated force of some one passion or desire, whereby the 
 healthy balance of the mind is at length destroyed. From 
 these and other reasons, from the definite operation of the 
 reasoning faculties, and their obvious inabUity to become 
 motives for conduct without the intervention of emotional influ- 
 ence, and also from the wide chasm which intervenes between 
 all the legal and medical definitions of insanity founded on 
 the intellectual theory and the facts as they are observed in 
 the broad field of nature, — the conclusion appears inevitable 
 that no state of the reasoning faculty can, by itself, be the 
 cause or condition of madness, congenital idiocy and acquired 
 
466 EESPONSIBILITY OF EPILEPTICS. 
 
 dementia being alone excepted. The corollary of this is, that 
 emotional disturbance is the cause and condition of insanity. 
 This is especially, obvious in the periods during which the 
 disease is developing. Disorders of the intellectual faculties 
 are secondary ; they are often, indeed, to be recognized as the 
 morbid emotions transformed into perverted action of the 
 reason. In no cases are they primary and essential." 
 
 In a late text-book on Insanity, Dr. Blandford insists 
 strongly on the importance of the emotional trouble. " This 
 emotional alteration," he says, " points not to a disturbance of 
 one portion of the brain, but to a morbid condition of the 
 whole nervous system of the highest significance." 
 
 Finally, the question comes up as to the length of time before 
 and after a seizure, that an epileptic should be considered as 
 irresponsible before the law. Zacchias has laid it down that 
 every epileptic should be held as irresponsible for any crim- 
 inal act he may commit three days before and three days after 
 a seizure. I think, from what has been said in this essay, 
 that no absolute rule can be laid down, and that each indivi- 
 dual case must be considered on its own merits, and the dif- 
 ferent circumstances under which the several forms of mental 
 troubles in the epileptic may be developed must be borne in 
 mind.* 
 
 * It has always been a question in legal medicine, within what period 
 before or after a fit an epileptic can claim immunity for a criminal offense. 
 In cases of this kind, bearing in mind the cases that liave been recorded, are 
 wp able to fix upon sucli a period ? Is there any time when the epileptic can 
 be considered as clearly free from the pathological effects of the disease 1 
 Can he ever commit a crime without being entitled to excuse ? At any rate 
 the criminal acts of epileptics should ever be regarded by the expert with 
 great distrust, and receive the most exhaustive investigation. I think he is 
 bound to accept the single alternative, either that the patient has entirely 
 recovered beyond the reach of the epileptic disease, or that he is, in some 
 degree of probability, still suffering from it. He is clearly entitled to the 
 benefit of every doubt (Dr. Isaac Ray — Proceedings of the Asscciation of 
 Medical Superintendents of American Institutions for the Insane. American 
 Journal of Insanity for October, 1870) 
 
MEDICO^LEGAL SUGGESTIONS 
 
 ON 
 
 I]SrS^N"ITY. 
 
 By CHARLES A. LEE, M. D.* 
 
 Among the various questions with which medical men have 
 to deal, those relating to mental diseases are the most difficult, 
 and at the same time the most important. They stand separ- 
 ate and apart from all others. They especially involve the 
 momentous question whether an individual is to lose social 
 and civil rights and privileges, personal hberty, and even life 
 itseK, and these issues are to be determined by the opinions 
 of men who have never made such subjects a matter of special 
 study. They do not enter into the curriculum of the schools. 
 Shotdd not such a strange anomaly as this attract the serious 
 attention of the medical profession, if not that of the com- 
 munity generally ? More than sixty thousand otherwise happy 
 homes in these United States are to-day made wretched and 
 sad by the fact that one of its beloved members is deprived of 
 reason, perhaps kept within the family precincts, to the fear 
 and discomfort of all the other members, at an expense ill- 
 afforded, or what is still more likely, a suffering, neglected 
 inmate of some wretched, God-forsaken poorhouse, abandoned 
 by hope, and waiting that relief, which death, sooner or later, 
 brings to all. Our noble, palatial State lunatic asylums give 
 shelter and care to seven thousand of this unfortunate class ; 
 
 * Read before the Society, February 15, 1871. 
 
468 SUGGESTIONS ON INSANITY. 
 
 but there are sixty thousand others of the same class, a major- 
 ity of whom are inmates of poorhouses and jails, and the 
 numbers are increasing far more rapidly than provision for 
 their rehef. These facts certainly deserve not only the atten- 
 tion of medical men, but ot governments and legislators, for 
 no civiHzation can be called advanced, or worthy a rehgious 
 people, that leaves its poor insane in a more wretched condi- 
 tion than its domestic animals. 
 
 It cannot be said of this country what Manderley says of 
 England, that the land has been covered with overgrown and 
 overcrowded asylums, to which almost the whole lunatic popu- 
 lation of the country has been assigned, but it is very evident 
 that all has not been done which can be done to secure the 
 best medical treatment for those who are curable, and the 
 greatest comfort of those who are incurable. Let our 
 wretched almshouses answer this question. 
 
 I have no desire to disparage or depreciate our lunatic asy- 
 lums. They are a glory, an honor, an inestimable blessing to 
 our country. They deserve most richly the moral support of 
 our profession. They need all the encouragement that phy- 
 sicians can give. Facts, which need not here be stated, show 
 very conclusively that there exists a wide-spread jealousy of 
 lunatic establishments, and those who superintend them ; they 
 are weighed down by an undeserved odium and unjust sus- 
 picion ; pubho legislation in regard to them grows more and 
 more stringent ; the motives of their managers are more and 
 more impugned and questioned, and their services rewarded 
 by a mere pittance of a salary. 
 
 The profession, also, have a duty to perform in regard to 
 enlightening the pubHc mind with respect to the nature, causes, 
 and proper treatment of mental diseases. The annual reports 
 of our superintendents cannot reach the public ear but to a 
 very limited extent. Few, indeed, read these reports, alad few 
 of these reports are calculated to diffuse the information 
 needed. Let medical men inform themselves of the great and 
 leading facts regarding mental alienation, and then as they 
 have opportunity disseminate this knowledge among the com- 
 munity, where it is so much needed. This wUl inevitably 
 
SUGGESTIONS ON INSANITY. 469 
 
 react upon those who have charge of our asjlums, and cheer 
 their hearts and strengthen their hands. In this way the 
 shame, horror, and dread of insanity which now infect the 
 public mind will be, in a great degree, removed. Then, too, 
 the gross neglect, the too often cruel and inhuman treatment 
 of this unfortunate class — the offspring of unjust suspicion 
 and fear — ^wiU be replaced by kindness, sympathy, and real 
 moral treatment: that is, the influence of the sane mind 
 brought to bear upon the insane. We have inherited, to a 
 considerable extent, the false views and hostile feelings of our 
 British ancestors regarding the insane — ^legacies of that ancient 
 superstition which regarded this class as possessed and tor- 
 mented with evil spirits, as a punishment either for their own 
 sias or those of their parents. This diabolical notion can only 
 be exorcised by reason and facts. 
 
 But my object in this paper is to offer a few medico-legal 
 suggestions that may possibly aid in discharging the diities 
 of an expert in cases in which the subject of lunacy is 
 involved. 
 
 In regard to a correct definition of insanity, which would 
 not be justly open to criticism, I hold it to be an impossi- 
 bUity. If we say it is the result of physical disease of the 
 brain, in consequence of which the sound and healthy action 
 of the mental faculties is impeded or disturbed, we necessarily 
 include the varieties of delirium which occur sympathetically 
 in fevers and inflammation, in narcotic poisonings of various 
 kinds, as well as from retention of morbid matters in the 
 blood — as in albuminuria, etc. Our object in these cases 
 evidently cannot be attained except by enumerating the his- 
 tory and circumstances of the particular case in hand — the 
 actual disturbances which the mental faculties have under- 
 gone. Owing to the almost infinite forms which mental alien- 
 ation assumes in different cases, writers on mental diseases 
 have made a great number of classifications of the disease, 
 and, doubtless, a great many more might be made if any use- 
 ful end could be attained by such classification. We might, 
 for example, suppose the mind divisible into the perception, 
 the intellect, the emotions, and the will, and that either may 
 
470 SUGGESTIONS ON INSANITY. 
 
 act independently of the other ; but in insanity this is not tlie 
 case ; no sanitary cordon is or can be drawn around the dis- 
 eased portion ; all these faculties are more or less involved in 
 the morbid action, some more, some less, but all to a greater 
 or less degree ; and, hence, these various forms have but a 
 shadowy foundation to rest upon. At present, owing to the 
 unnecessary hair-spUtting attempted by different writers on 
 mental diseases, the whole subject is involved in unnecessary 
 confusion and difficulty. The first question the expert is 
 usually called upon to answer in our courts, as already stated, 
 is, what is insanity ? and if he can give an answer satisfactory 
 to himself, a million to one it will be caviled at by the bar. 
 Out of a score or more of definitions given in standard author- 
 ities, I have said I do not know one but what is obviously 
 liable to objection. The one given in fewest words is open to 
 fewest objections. 
 
 I have encountered least opposition and querulous carpinga 
 when I have replied promptly, and as if there could be no 
 other proper answer to the question, and as if any lawyer who 
 could even " put such a question was himself non compos :" 
 " Insanity is a derangement of the mental faculties, consequent 
 on disease of the brain, the seat and organ of these faculties." 
 This answer by no means involves the necessity of ascribing 
 every criminal action to some abnormal or morbid condition 
 of the cerebral organization, as some have supposed, but only 
 that every manifestation of healthy mind depends on the 
 healthy organization and action of its material investment, 
 the brain, and that it is not the functiod of a sound and 
 healthy brain to give rise to any other than healthy manifes- 
 tations. It does not deny the desperate depravity of human 
 nature. I am not aware that, out of Germany, the psychologi- 
 cal theory, which is based on the assumption that the primi- 
 tive source of mental diseases is in the soul itself, has any 
 advocates among us. One thing is certain, and that is, that 
 the pure psychologist who relies entirely on the psychological 
 method of self-consciousness in investigating mental phenom- 
 ena, who regards the mind as an entity, actiag independently of 
 a material organism, and aims to discover the laws of the 
 
SUGGESTIONS ON INSANITY. 471 
 
 human mind by contemplating it in itself, must confess that, 
 if his theory be admitted, the mind or soul itself must be dis- 
 eased in insanity, and if diseased, it may perish like the body. 
 
 For all medico-legal purposes, insanity may be divided 
 into mania, dementia, and idiocy, and each of these subdivided 
 to any extent. The more common forms of mania enumer- 
 ated in books are monomania, melanchoha, homicidal-mania, 
 suicidal-mania, kleptomania, pyromania, fanatico-mania, po- 
 Htico-mania, pseudo-nomania, etc. 
 
 According to Pritchard, mania is synonymous with " raving 
 madness," a form of disease where the mind is perpetually in 
 a state of confusion and distiirbance which affects all the in- 
 tellectual faculties, and interferes with their healthy exercise 
 even for the shortest period. But such cases, if they now exist 
 at all, are an exception to the general rule. Dr. Mandesley, 
 son-in-law of the late Dr. OonoUy, of Hanwell, England, who 
 has been in charge of a lunatic hospital for many years, states 
 that " it is most certain that the horrible type oi furious mania, 
 which was common enough in olden times, is seldom, if ever, 
 met with in English asylums now, simply because the old sys- 
 tem of restraint has been abolished. The yeUing, and the 
 bawHng, and the violence which were thought to be insepara- 
 ble from insanity are not witnessed now in asylums, because 
 the insane are not brutalized by degrading restraints. In 
 fact, exhibitions of madness were then witnessed which are 
 no longer to be found, because they are not the simple pro- 
 ducts of malady, but of malady aggravated by mismanage- 
 ment." 
 
 I can testify to the truth of this important statement from 
 my own personal observation, not only in foreign lunatic asy- 
 lums, but in those in our own country, where nothing is more 
 common than to see patients boisterous and violent under the 
 indifference and harsh usage of ill-tempered persons, becom- 
 ing mild, quiet, and manageable under the sympathy and 
 gentle behavior of kind and considerate attendants. 
 
 Is it at all remarkable that an insane patient shotdd mingle 
 the realities of the treatment to which he is subjected with 
 his delusions of suspicions or fears ? and if this be harsh and 
 
472 SUGGESTIONS ON INSANITY. 
 
 iinsympatlietic, he ■will naturally become furious, and resist it 
 with all the energy of his frenzy. As Mandesley says, " it is 
 easy to perceive that if a patient imagines himself to be in 
 hell, or about to be murdered, and those around him to be 
 devils or murderers, as happens now and then, he is not likely 
 to be disabused of his morbid idea by devil-like treatment." 
 Few will be disposed to question the correctness of this 
 writer's statement, that the use of mechanical restraints in an 
 asylum, public or private, is an indication of a badly-man- 
 aged institution, and that, in the treatment of private cases, 
 they are unnecessary and prejudicial. Independent, then, of 
 wrong management, very few cases of mania can, with pro- 
 priety, be called " raving madness." Like most other dis- 
 eases, nearly every case has its period of incubation, but as 
 no one can tell where health ends and disease begins, so no 
 one can say in what degree mental alienation is sufficient to 
 constitute insanity. How useless and unsatisfactory then, in 
 all such cases, are the elaborate and subtle definitions of the 
 term insanity. As no one can say where twilight begins or 
 ends, so no one, but He who formed the mind and created its 
 laws and gave it a material instrument for its varied manifes- 
 tation, can decide when such manifestations on the border 
 line are normal or abnormal. But where is the human skill 
 the knowledge, the experience, the penetration, or the tact 
 that can decide such a question infallibly ? and yet the expert 
 is expected to do it, and that with positive certainty. Slight 
 experience may enable us to decide a typical case of insanity, 
 but in how many points might it not vary from any we have 
 ever had to manage, or commit to the asylum ? When asked 
 to describe such typical case we might, perhaps, say it com- 
 menced in emotional disturbance and eccentricities of con- 
 duct ; there was at first a morbid perversion of the feelings, 
 affections, and habits of the individual, without any particular 
 illusion or hallucination, and for a time there was no percep- 
 tible or particular disturbance of the intellectual faculties ; 
 finally, symptoms of decided mania made their appearance, 
 which eventually passed into dementia ; and yet one of the 
 most lamentable cases of madness I ever saw was in a lacry, 
 
SUGGESTIOXS ON INSANITY. 473 
 
 who became suddenly, and I may say, instantaneously and 
 totally insane from seeing the death, by violence, of a favorite 
 son, and she has remained so till the present moment, though 
 several years have since elapsed. It is, no doubt, a difficult 
 question to solve, whether a person can suffer from one of the 
 recognized forms of mental derangement without ever falling 
 victims to another, or whether these different varieties can 
 run their particular course uncomplicated, each having its 
 own special diagnosis and prognosis, as well as special treat- 
 ment ? From aU I have seen, and I have made this subject a 
 life-study, I am disposed to give a negative answer to this 
 question. I look upon them all, not as natural pathological 
 entities, but different degi-ees of degeneration of the mental 
 organization, or degeneration from healthy mental life, now 
 intermixed, now replacing one another, now succeeding each 
 other, in the same person. Let us not impose divisions on 
 nature where she has made none herself. Artificial creations 
 may aid the memorj-, but they are not all favorable to the real 
 progress of science. The Moral Insanity of Pritchard, synony- 
 mous with the Mania Line Delirio of Pinel, the dlonomanie 
 Affective of Esquirol, &c., all point to that form of mental 
 derangement, where the predominant feature of the case is a 
 deep perversion of the feelings, propensities, sentiments, and 
 acts, which, if not arrested, is certain to end in positive intel- 
 lectual disorder and dementia. It is undoubtedly the most 
 dangerous form of insanity, not characterized by incoherent lo- 
 quacity, hke intellectual dnsanity, but rather by sudden and 
 violent, perhaps murderous actions, and unconscious deeds. 
 We meet with all manner of hallucinations and illusions, dan- 
 gerous impulses, requiring constant watchfulness on the part 
 of the attendant. A characteristic feature of these cases is 
 the lo3s of the directing power of the will. The individual is 
 no longer a free or responsible agent. He is neither justly 
 bound by civil contracts, nor is he amenable to punishment 
 for criminal acts. The records of medical jurisprudence 
 abound with cases where such individuals have alienated their 
 estates into the hands of strangers, or been executed as male- 
 factors, It would doubtless be wrong to infer insanity from 
 
474 SUGGESTIONS ON INSANITY. 
 
 simply the act alone, but this shoiild go a great way, in coi.nection 
 "with other suspicious circumstances ; if a mother should mur- 
 der her children, for example, without the sHghtest appearance 
 of a motive, few, if any, could doubt her positive insanity. 
 
 Every one must acknowledge that, in many cases, there is 
 great difficulty in drawing the hue between extreme moral 
 wickedness and depravity and insanity, in deciding at what 
 precise point an individual ceases to be a responsible moral 
 agent and amenable to the laws. If medical men are inclined 
 to adopt the most charitable view in such cases, and lean to 
 the side of mercy, it may be because they entertain more 
 favorable views of human nature than people generally; or 
 because they better understand the influence of organization 
 and physical causes- in modifying and shaping human charac- 
 ter. At any rate, while the idea of the sacredness of human 
 life so extensively prevails as at present, and the opposition 
 to capital punishment is so strong in the community generally, 
 it is by no means strange that medical witnesses should lean 
 towards that theory that commits the accused to the quiet 
 wards of an insane hospital rather than the hands of the 
 executioner ; knowing, moreover, that time, the true revealer 
 of secrets, will, ere long, reveal the true nature of the case. 
 Owing to the total neglect of early moral and religious train- 
 ing, how often do we find individxials among the lowest classes 
 of society totally dead to every moral principle and feeling, 
 incorrigible, and destitute of all sense of shame or remorse, 
 when reproved for their crimes or their vices ? Are these 
 persons, for whose conduct society should be held in a great 
 measure responsible, to be mercilessly subjected to the ex- 
 tremest rigors of the law? ' Whether the doctriae of moral 
 insanity be admitted or not, where the question, at least, of 
 insanity is raised, would it not equally subserve the ends of 
 justice, and those of humanity still more, were such cases 
 committed to the safe custody of a lunatic asylum than the 
 walls of a prison, or the ultimo ratio of the gallows ? I know 
 that in many of these cases there has been no specific mani- 
 festation of cerebral disease ; but who can tell how much may 
 be owing to defective and bad organization ? Phrenologists 
 
SUGGESTIONS ON INSANITY. 475 
 
 have thought that their doctrmes laid a good fouudation for a 
 division of hmatics into two great classes : First, those who 
 were insane or irresponsible from original orgcmization ; and, 
 second, those who had become insane from diseased actions 
 of the brain produced by hereditary predisposition, or ordi- 
 nary causes. Of the former, numerous cases are given by 
 Gall, Spurzheim, Combe, Pinel, Esquirol, and other writers^ 
 vices of conformation in the cranium are met with only among 
 idiots, imbeciles, and Cretins. 
 
 Our judges, as well as the legal profession generally, are 
 tmwiUing to admit the existence of moral insanity without any 
 hallucination, illusion or delusions ; and I think not without 
 good reason. It is virtually saying that wherever there is a 
 perverted state of the active and moral powers included under 
 feeling and volition — the affections, propensities, temper, 
 habits, and conduct — tliere is insanity ; ignoring wilful vice, a 
 wicked heart, the influence of bad associates, evil example, and 
 reckless depravity. That there may be insanity without de- 
 lusion, all must admit ; but where permanent delusion does 
 exist there must be insanity. Where the feelings, affections, 
 and habits are as much affected, as they must be in all cases 
 ranked under moral insanity, there all the modes of thinking 
 and reasoning must be tainted by the self-feeling which exists ; 
 in short, the intellectual faculties are more or less involved. 
 The very reason why the patient is so eccentric and perverse 
 in conduct, so destitute of natural affection, so changed in 
 sentiment, is that he no longer truly realizes his duties and 
 his relations — all his ideas in regard to himself are false ; but, 
 pari passv,, as his natural healthy feelings are restored, the 
 intellectual powers once more gain the ascendancy. 
 
 "We see no necessity, therefore, in medico-legal investiga- 
 tions, in recognizing any such form as moral insanity ; and it 
 would remove a great weight of prejudice against our profes- 
 sion, on the part of our legal brethren, to repudiate any siich 
 doctrine from our medical creed. The influence of extreme 
 hereditary taint in determining insanity in the offspring is a 
 fact dependent solely on observation. Whether this hereditary 
 predisposition signifies some unknown defect of nervous ele- 
 
476 SUGGESTIONS ON INSANITY. 
 
 meut, causing an innate disposition to irregularities in the 
 social relations, or whatever may be its modus operaridi, must 
 remain among the mysteries of causation ; but that it is moi-e 
 likely to act upon our moral rather than our intellectual pow- 
 ers remains to be proved. 
 
 How often do we see a retrograde metamorphosis of mind 
 going on in particular families. By successive stages of cul- 
 tivation and favoring circumstances, they have reached a very 
 respectable intellectual, moral, and social status ; they rank 
 among our most useful, respected, and refined members of 
 society ; their mental evolution has reached its highest point ; 
 henceforth its progress is downward — family degeneration 
 succeeds ; improvement seems no longer possible, and fortu- 
 nate may it be considered if all its members escape the custo- 
 dy of a lunatic asylum. 
 
 I have divided insanity into mania, dementia, and idiocy — 
 including under the latter imhedlity ; but, perhaps, a more 
 natural division would be into two classes, viz. : First, insanity 
 without positive delusion ; and second, insanity with delusion 
 — or affective and ideational insanity. Each of these could be 
 divided into several varieties — each variety marked by alter- 
 nate fits of excitement or depression; but as such division 
 leads to no. useful, practical results, it may be dismissed with 
 the others. It should be the aim of physicians to divest in- 
 sanity, as far as possible, of all mystery — to show that it is a 
 physical disease, observing the same pathological laws as 
 other diseases, and as no more owing to a "visitation of God" 
 than any other affection. The more we investigate its nature, 
 the more shall we be convinced that it observes the same 
 course of iucubation, development, and termination in cure or 
 death, as disease of any other vital organ. Like any other 
 disease also, it may remain for a long time latent ; or, mani- 
 festing itself, may be checked or controlled by curative meas- 
 ures, or warded off by proper precautions and remedies. 
 
 The expert is sometimes asked to describe the phenomena 
 of insanity — as well describe the hues of the chameleon. They 
 are as various as the different cases, and changing every hour. 
 
 have already said it was impossible to draw the line between 
 
SUGGESTIONS ON INSANITY. 477 
 
 soundness and unsoundness of mind. Eccentricity so strongly 
 marks the conduct of some in individuals that actions natural 
 to thpm would be, marks of insanity in others. The best and 
 easiest test to decide the question in any individual case, is to 
 inquire whether there has been any strongly-marked change 
 of character, or departure from the ordinary habits of think- 
 ing, feeling and acting, without any adequate external cause. 
 In short, a man should be compared with himself and not 
 with others to decide whether he is insane or not. If there 
 has been no departure from his ordinary conduct and charac- 
 ter, he may very safely be declared sane ; if there has been a 
 marked change in these respects, such a judgment would 
 hardly be safe. For this reason, no persons are proper judges in 
 regard to the mental condition of many individuals, but such 
 as have long known them intimately. They must be well 
 acquainted with their peculiarities and idiosyncracies of 
 thought and feeUng ; but it is a delicate point to decide, 
 whether the change has reached such a degree as to vitiate 
 civil contracts or to exempt from criminal responsibility. 
 
 The division of insanity into general and partial, doubtless 
 exists in nature, and forms the foundation for monomania and 
 melancholia, which were used synonymously by the older writers. 
 Acute and chronic are also varieties found in the books, and 
 existing in nature, while mdanchoUa is simple melancholy with- 
 out delusion. Impv.lsive insanity is any form where danger- 
 ous impulses may arise, and homicidal where such impulse 
 results in a deadly attack on human life. In Hke manner sui- 
 cidal insanity explains itself, as do aU the other varieties by 
 the names by which they are indicated. That there are such 
 forms as Jdeptomania, pyromania, and oinomania, and pseudo- 
 m,ania, or a morbid propensity to steal, burn, to drink, and lie, 
 is conceded by some of our standard writers, but whether that 
 new form discovered in a well-known banker and broker in 
 "Wall street a few years since, viz. : " an irresistible propensity 
 to make paper," in other words, to forge, be so generally admit- 
 ted, may well be doubted. Still the law will persist in regard- 
 ing these vices rather as indications of moral delinquencies 
 than of insanity. 
 
478 SUGGESTIONS ON INSANITY. 
 
 There is, in reality, a better foundation for making a 
 division of mania into general and partial than into intellectual 
 and moral, for reasons ah'eady stated. For purposes of 
 description merely such a classification may possibly answer 
 some useful purpose, but I think it would be difficult to find 
 any such distinction existing in nature. It is very possible 
 that derangement of the moral powers may be more strongly 
 manifested in some given case than that of the intellectual 
 faculties, or vice versa, but there can be no question that both 
 are more or less involved in every decided case of insanity. 
 
 Pritchard has made dementia synonymous with incoherence, 
 but this latter is surely nothing more than one of its conse- 
 quences or concomitants. The term implies a general 
 enfeeblement of the moral and intellectual faculties, which 
 were originally sound and well-developed, and this in conse- 
 quence of disease, old age, or injury. Its chief characteristics 
 are loss of memory, indifference to the present or future, with 
 childishness of disposition. It is essential that this be not 
 confounded with idiocy or imbecility, for these are congenital, 
 and imply a natural destitution of powers that were never 
 possessed. Some writers make them simply shades of the 
 same mental condition, but they are not so to be regarded. The 
 knowing faculties have never existed, and hence knowledge 
 has never been acquired. The mind is not capable of acquir- 
 ing ideas, but always remains the same. But in dementia the 
 faculties have existed, but have been enfeebled, deranged, or 
 even destroyed. This is often seen in old age. We say a person 
 is " demented " when he has lost his faculties, he is an " imbecile " 
 when he naturally lacks mental capacity ; a lower grade stiU 
 would constitute idiocy, which is always congenital. Idiocy and 
 imbecility run into each other, they are only different degrees 
 of the same mental condition — a perpetual state of childhood, 
 Dementia takes place after the age of puberty, except from 
 injm-ies or sickness, while the former are always manifested 
 even in childhood. In dementia the past may not be forgotten, 
 but the mind constantly wanders from one thing to 
 another, hence it is called incoherence by Pritchard. He says 
 "the mind in this state is occupied, without ceasing, by 
 
SUGGESTIONS ON INSANITY. 473 
 
 unconKected thoughts and evanescent emotions, it is incapa- 
 ble of continued attention and reflection, and at length loses 
 the faculty of distinct perception or apprehension." Pinel 
 has described it as '• consisting in a ■\yant of coherence, or of 
 the usual and natural connection or association between ideas, 
 thoughts, and emotions." Dementia may be either a primary 
 disease, produced by the action of exciting causes on a consti- 
 tution previously healthy, or it may be secondary, the result 
 of other disorders of the brain and nervous system, which, by 
 their long duration or severity, give rise to disease in the 
 stracture of those organs. The original causes of dementia 
 are the same as those of insanity in general. I have already 
 referred to a case of acute dementia in a lady, brought on by 
 a severe mental shock, on seeing a distressing accident. I 
 saw this woman five years afterwards, in the New York State 
 Asylum at tJtica ; her dementia had passed into a chronic and 
 incurable state. Indeed, chronic dementia is the form of 
 insanity which we most often meet with, and we meet with 
 every degree of mental decay in different cases, as it often 
 follows an attack of acute insanity, the mind often being in a 
 state of comparative weakness for a considerable time. Many 
 of these chronic patients are able to do considerable work, 
 their bodily health being pretty good. 
 
 In its extreme degree dementia must, of course, in vali.1 ate 
 any civil contract, and exempt from criminal responsibility. 
 Legal capacity depends on the degree of enfeeblement and 
 state of the reflective powers. When the mind is in this 
 transition state, which may require months or years, it is next 
 to impossible to draw the line and say, up to such a point, a 
 patient has entire freedom of will ; beyond it, this freedom of 
 action is lost. These are those difficult cases, in both civil 
 and criminal jurisprudence, which puzzle courts and confound 
 juries, and which can never be decided by any infallible test. 
 ProbabiUties are all that Ue within the scope of human judg- 
 ment. If the will be a reasonable one, (if a will be in ques- 
 tion,) one which the testator would probably have made in 
 health — one suitable under all the circumstances of the case 
 —then it should be regarded as valid, and should stand ; 
 
482 SUOGESTIONS ON INSANITY. 
 
 mental unsoundness does exist there will always be greater or 
 less perversion of the mental faculties present. " A propen- 
 sity to theft," says Pritchard, who originated the theory, " is 
 often a feature of moral insanity, and sometimes it is its lead- 
 ing, if not its sole characteristic," p. 28. But can kleptomania 
 exist unless there be more or less derangement of the intel- 
 lectual faculties, the judgment, and the understanding ? That 
 form of mental alienation which usually goes under the name 
 of melancholia, and which is a very common form of monoma- 
 nia in our country, may, as in the case referred to above, be 
 the consequence of some strong moral emotion, as grief or 
 fright, or it may follow an attack of mania. In the case of a 
 deceased lady whose will is being contested on the ground of 
 insanity, in which I am now employed as an expert, the 
 malady was slow in its development, brought on by domestic 
 unhappiness. For nearly twenty years she was subject to 
 alternate fits of exaltation and depression, long fits of crying, 
 and keeping her bed ; then an immoderate elation of spirits, 
 and constant motion, her talk at aU times incoherent and 
 wonderfully rapid — at times laboring under the strangest 
 delusions and hallucinations — her physical health all this time 
 tolerably good. She at last made a will, which was duly 
 attested and executed, giving all her property to a stranger, 
 cutting off an only sister and other near relatives without 
 assigning any reason whatever. This case is still pending, 
 but the result is not doubtful. 
 
 In this, and all other cases of dementia with which I have 
 been concerned, the mind has not only been enfeebled, but 
 actually perverted and deranged. There has always been 
 more or less delusion and strange hallucinations — much iras- 
 cibility when thwarted or oppressed ; and not unfrequently 
 acts of violence. Society must always be exposed to more or 
 less danger from this source, because it cannot always be fore- 
 seen or prevented. An asylum is always the proper place for 
 patients subject to sudden impulses, or who are at all dis- 
 posed to acts of violence! A large majority of the chronic 
 insane, however, are entirely safe, quiet, and manageable. 
 
 The duties of superintendents of asylums are not only often 
 
SUGGESTIONS ON INSANITY. 48S 
 
 extremely difficult and dangerous, but in the highest degree 
 responsible ; and one of the most delicate and important 
 questions they have to decide is, whether or not a patient is so 
 far restored to sanity as to justify his discharge from an asylum 
 or render valid any civil acts he may perform ? The frequent 
 return of patients to the hospital, after they" have been dis- 
 charged as cured, shows that such discharge is often prema- 
 ture. These frequent discharges multiply the ratio of cures 
 without the reality, and exposes society to unnecessary dan- 
 gers. I am disposed to hold that, where insanity is proved to 
 have existed, it should exclude from responsibility, as the dis- 
 ease is so intricate in its nature and the symptoms so liable 
 to be mistaken, and especially where the act itself indicates 
 insanity. These distinctions between partial and total insanity 
 cannot be maintained, nor can the line of responsibility ever 
 be safely drawn. In criminal cases, where lunacy is suspect- 
 ed, the accused should always have the benefit of the doubt, 
 "and society be protected by his safe confinement. Besides 
 insanity, even if slight or partial to aU appearances, is never 
 safe from sudden paroxysms and aggravations of symptoms. 
 It is worthy of serious inquiry, whether the time has not 
 arrived for reconsidering the rulings of our courts and the 
 opinions heretofore prevalent among medical men in regard to 
 the existence of "alcoholic mental affections, as causes for legal 
 interference with the liberty of the individual, or with his 
 responsibihty for crime."* The statistics of our lunatic asy- 
 lums show that intemperance is the most frequent cause of 
 insanity in the United States, ranging in different institutions 
 from fifteen to sixty per cent ; in foreign asylums it is twenty- 
 five per cent. — (Carpenter.) t "It is stated in the petition for 
 estabhshing the Inebriate Asylum at Binghamton, New York, 
 in 1857, that fifty-five per cent, of all our insanity and sixty- 
 eight per cent, of all our idiocy springs directly or indirectly 
 from inebriety alone." X 
 The point to which attention should be directed is Ihis— 
 
 * Journal of Psychological Medicine, April, 1869, p. 334, at the top. 
 
 t From the same. 
 
 i P. I. April, 1869, bottom of p. 330 
 
484 SUGGESTIONS ON INSANITY. 
 
 Does there exist a peculiar form ol disease of the brain caused 
 by alcohol, and involving mental alienation, called by recent 
 writers methomania, (by some alcoholism^ which renders the 
 victim of it irresponsible for his acts during his paroxysms ? 
 " The late Dr. Woodward, of the Worcester Lunatic Asylum, 
 wrote a pamphlet twenty years ago urging the establishment 
 of an asylum for the cure of such inebriates, on the gi'ound 
 that they were the victims of a disease over which they had 
 no control, and which rendered them irresponsible for their 
 acts and dangerous if left at large." * It would be absurd to 
 maintain, with Dr. Turner, that " every case of inebriety is a 
 suicidal case of insanity, which needs the control and medical 
 treatment of an asylum more than any other class of insane." 
 It is enough to say that "pathological investigations show 
 that the brain in such subjects is changed from a healthy to a 
 diseased state by the action of alcohol ; that healthy thoughts 
 and healthy moral sentiments are not evolved by a diseased 
 brain ; that to its possessor we should attach no moral respon- 
 sibihty ; that an habitual inebriate has always a diseased 
 brain ; that no will or agency of his can bring forth therefrom 
 other than diseased mental and moral products ; that a per- 
 TtOu governed by an uncontrollable appetite, or by any uncon- 
 trollable influence, is not a responsible being, and should be 
 so treated." t There can be no doubt whatever, I think, 
 " that the metkomaniac is a victim of uncontrollable appetite, 
 and dangerous both to himself and those about him ; and hence 
 a fit subject for the interference of the State." | 
 
 "In the year 1857, more than fifteen hundred medical men 
 in the State of Massachusetts petitioned the legislature of that 
 State in favor of the estabhshment of an inebriate asylum, in 
 which they urge that, ' without such an institution, the phy- 
 sician has been compelled to turn from his patient discour- 
 aged, disheartened and defeated, and the victim of this pain- 
 ful malady has found a drunkard's grave. With this institu- 
 tion, we can save hundreds who are now crowding our insane 
 
 * Misquoted from same at p. 340 about the middle of the page. 
 
 j- From same p. 341, top. J Idun p. 341 in the last line. 
 
SUGGESTIONS ON INSANITY. 48c 
 
 asylums, inundating our courts, dying in our prisons, and 
 perishing in our streets.' " § 
 
 Some of the characteristic signs of " methomania are : First, 
 periodic secret drinking to intoxication, attended by studied 
 secrecy regarding it, and persistent denial of the act. Second, 
 periodic solitary drinking to drunkenness, though not in 
 secret, attended by the same determined denial of the act, 
 Thu'd, gulping down alcoholic liquors on all possible occa- 
 sions to drunkenness, without regard to taste or quality." i 
 
 Considering, then, that sudden impulses and morbid per- 
 version of the feelings and desires, so frequently seen in the 
 insane, are peculiarly liable to appear in the methomaniac, and 
 liable also, to impel the victim to acts of an appalling char- 
 acter, taking iato view, moreover, " the total loss of self-con- 
 trol during the paroxysm ; the disregard of all business and 
 domestic obligations, with the prospective ruin of family ; is 
 it not a question for serious inquiry whether it would not be 
 merciful to the patient and his family, as well as a matter of 
 safety to them and the pubhc, that he should be prevented 
 from committing crimes and from squandering property, by 
 placing him under restraint, rather than to allow him to incur 
 the risks of trial for crime, and his family that of reduction to 
 penury, by permitting him the Hberty which his disease irre- 
 sistibly impels him to abuse ?" * (See chapters on " Bespon- 
 sibilUy in Delirium Tremens, and Legal Halations of Drunken- 
 ness," by the writer, in his Am. Ed. of Guy's Principles of 
 Forensic Medicine, pp. 271, 275, etc.. Harper's N. Y., 1845.) 
 
 Lucid Intervals. — ^It is well known that the law of periodi- 
 city governs mental diseases as well as all those belonging to 
 the nervous class of affections to which these belong, but to 
 what extent this law operates, has never been definitely ascer- 
 tained. As connected with the doctrine of lucid intervals, so- 
 called, it is a question of vast importance, for if it can be 
 made to appear that, from any cause, the outward manifesta- 
 tions of the various forms of insanity may disappear, while 
 
 § Misquoted from same p. 342 at the toi). 
 I From same p. 347, near tlie bottom. 
 * From same p. 349, at the bottom. 
 
488 SUGGESTIONS OX INSANITY. 
 
 the pathological condition of the brain, which caused them, 
 remains, as is highly probable, then this whole question of 
 lucid intervals requires reconsideration, and the doctrine of 
 responsibility founded on it, needs also to be reconsidered. 
 Let us see what statistics teach us on this subject. Tlie sta- 
 tistical reports of our lunatic asylums are, at the best, very 
 crude and inaccurate, with the exception, perhaps, of those of 
 the Bloomingdale Asylum, N. Y., previous to 1845, as ana- 
 lyzed by Dr. Pliny Earle, then superintendent. By these it 
 appears that, although the admissions or cases had been 2,308 
 up to that time, the number of persoivs was but 1,841. The 
 number admitted twice each was 81, four times each 33, 
 5 times each 18, and thus the number diminishes until it ends 
 with one patient who was admitted 22 times, and discharged 
 cured every time ; of the 1,841 persons, 742, or 40.3 per cent, 
 were cured, whjch is about the average. 
 
 These statistics would seem to show that, in a considerable 
 proportion of cases, where the cure of insanity is supposed 
 to be affected, the physical morbid condition, on which the 
 disease originally depended, still remains, though latent, and 
 ready to burst forth under the influence of numerous existing 
 causes. Who can pronounce when the morbid condition of 
 the brain disappears, or at what period there is no more dan- 
 ger of a return of the disease ? Of course it is only in mania 
 proper that there is a liability to a complete intermission of 
 the symptoms. 
 
 Recoveries from insanity, then, may be said to be complete 
 or incomplete ; and, of the latter, there are many who, although 
 apparently rational, are never capable of returning to the 
 sphere they formerly occupied, or of performing the duties which 
 they previously fulfilled ; but in the vast majority of cases, if 
 the treatment be commenced early, the patients will remain a 
 longer or shorter time in such a state of susceptibility that 
 the slightest causes may occasion replases ; and they preserve 
 their sanity only by continuing to live where no mental agi- 
 tion or inquietude is likely to befall them and throw them back 
 into their former state. 
 
 One of the most difficult and responsible duties for the 
 
SUGGESTIONS ON INSANITY. 487 
 
 superiuterdent of an asylum to perform is to determine when 
 a patient may be considered sufficiently restored to render his 
 discharge safe and proper. It needs no statement to show 
 that mistakes are often made on this point. As long as uneasy 
 sensations, pains, or confusion in the head are complained of, 
 I believe no confidence can be placed in the stability of the 
 cure ; butwhere allhead symptomshaveceased, and the healthy 
 functions of the different organs of the body are restored, while 
 the mental manifestations are sound and healthy, the disease 
 may be regarded as cured ; and, if it appears again, we may 
 regard it as a recurrence and not a relapse ; but I am satisfied 
 such cases are very rare indeed. The improbability of a re- 
 currence of iasanity increases with the length of time which 
 has elapsed without any sign of renewed disease ; and it is 
 also greater in proportion to the completeness of the recovery. 
 That the liability to recurrence or relapse in this disease is 
 greater than in most others, is owing to the fact that a large 
 proportion of insane patients have the diathesis of insanity, 
 or a predisposition to the disease, constitutional and often 
 hereditary. 
 
 Now, an expert may be called on to decide whether a civil 
 or criminal act be committed during a lucid interval — -a ques- 
 tion impossible in many cases to be determined with anything 
 like certainty. A complete remission of insanity can only be as- 
 certained by attentive and reiterated observation. The sub- 
 ject would be divested of much of the difficulty in which it is 
 involved were it not that the insane have great power of self- 
 control, and that there are degrees of insanity, for the mind is 
 rarely totally insane, and on all subjects. Judging of in- 
 sanity, as of aU other physical diseases, we should say that it 
 is cured when all the symptoms by which it was manifested 
 disappear, but as in intermiffenfs and epilepsy, etc., the inter- 
 mission may be considered a part of the disease. The patient 
 Should be regarded as laboring under the affection, although 
 its leading characteristic symptoms are temporarily absent. 
 No doubt there is a peculiar irritability or impressibility of the 
 brain remaining, rendering the individual subject to extraor- 
 dinary excitement from slight causes. Such provocations, as 
 
CHARLES S. WOOD, M.D. 
 
 Dr. Chaeles S. Wood was born in Litchfield, Conn., Fel)ni- 
 ai-y 27, 1825. He took his degree of M.D. at the Jefferson 
 Medical College, Philadelphia, in 1851, and connnenced prnt-- 
 tice as a physician at Greene, Clienango Connty, ]S'. Y. Li the 
 War of the Rebellion, in 1862, he joined the Army of the 
 Potomac as Assistant Surgeon of the Sixty-sixth Xew Yoik 
 Regiment, was promoted to Surgeon in 1SG3, and was ordered 
 to San Francisco, where he served on the staff of General 
 Wright, and later was in charge of the (xeneral Hospital of the 
 Army. He served during the war and until 1866, when he set- 
 tled in New York City, where he has since resided. 
 
 He is a fellow of the JN'ew York Academy of Medicine, was 
 one of tlie charter members of the Xew York State Medical 
 Association, organized at Albany in 1884, is now Pj'esideTit (if 
 the New York County Medical Association. He was a mem- 
 ber of the Chenango County Medical Society-, the ±sew Yoik 
 State Medical Society, the American Medical Association, 
 was President of the JSTorthwestern Medical and Surgical So- 
 ciety of 'New York, and is now a member of the Judicial Coun- 
 cil of the American Medical Association of the United States. 
 He united with the Medico-Legal Society in 1873, and served 
 in important offices connected with its management. He was 
 chosen vice-president for several terras, and in 1878 was elected 
 president of that body, and was re-elected in 1879, thus servinij; 
 two terms. 
 
 Dr. Wood has given considerable attention to forensic medi- 
 cine, and took a deep interest in the woi'k and progress of the 
 society. He has been successful in his practice as a phj'sician, 
 and has an interesting family. He has not written upon the 
 subject to any extent, but is a careful student and deeply 
 interested in the study of forensic medicine. 
 
MEDICO-LEGAL NOTES 
 
 ON THE CASE OF 
 
 ED^V\^^RD H. RXJLOFF: 
 
 WITH OBSERVATIONS UPON, AND MEASUREMENTS OF, UlS 
 CRANIUM, BRAIN, ETC. 
 
 By GEORGE BURR, M. D., Binghamtok, N. Y. 
 
 In rising to submit for your consideration what I am about 
 to present, I do so with a certaia degree of embarrassment, 
 caused by a distrust of my own abiUty to do justice to your 
 expectations, and an apprehension that my paper may not be 
 sufficiently complete to make it anything hke a suitable con- 
 ti'ibution to the objects of your Society. If what I am now 
 about to lay before you shall be deemed worthy of your 
 approval and commendation, I shall be abundantly compen- 
 sated. If, on the other hand, its faults should be too glaring, 
 and its deficiencies too apparent, I respectfully beg permis- 
 sion to bespeak, beforehand, your hberal indulgence. 
 
 Edward H. Eulojff was executed at Binghamton, N. Y., on 
 the 18th day of May last (1871), for the murder of Frederick 
 A. Mirrick. 
 
 In order the better to comprehend the various points of 
 alleged error on the trial ; the several medico-legal questions 
 connected with the case, as well as the more satisfactorily to 
 compare the peculiar characteristics of the man with the post- 
 
 * Read before the Society, September 14, 1871. 
 27 
 
MEDICO-LEGAL NOTES 
 
 ON THE CASE OP 
 
 EDA^^^RD H. RULOFF 
 
 WITH OBSERVATfONS UPON. AND MEASUREMENTS OF, UlS 
 CRANIUM, BRAIN, ETC. 
 
 By GEORGE BURR, M. D., Binghamton, N. Y. 
 
 In rising to submit for your consideraliiou what I am about 
 to present, I do so with a certain degree of embarrassment, 
 caused by a distrust of my own ability to do justice to your 
 expectations, and an apprehension that my paper may not be 
 sufficiently complete to make it anything like a suituble con- 
 tribution to the objects of your Society. If what I am now 
 about to lay before you shall be deemed worthy of your 
 approval and commendation, I shall be abundantly compen- 
 sated. If, on the other hand, its faults should be too glaring, 
 and its deficiencies too apparent, I respectfully beg permis- 
 sion to bespeak, beforehand, your liberal indulgence. 
 
 Edward H. Ruloff was executed at Binghamton, N. Y., on 
 the 18th day of May last (1871), for the murder of Frederick 
 A. Mirriok. 
 
 In order the better to comprehend the various points of 
 alleged error on the trial ; the several medico-legal questions 
 connected with the case, as well as the more satisfactorily to 
 compare the peculiar characteristics of the man with the post- 
 
 * Read before the Society, September 14, 1871. 
 
 37 
 
490 MEDICO-LEGAL NOTES ON THE 
 
 mortem examinations, and the size, form, and other peculiari- 
 ties of the cranium and brain ; the circumstances attending the 
 homicide, and the previous history of Buloff, should be briefly 
 recapitulated. The circumstances of the murder for which 
 he was convicted and executed are substantially as fol- 
 lows : 
 
 Mirrick was a clerk in the store of Halbert Brothers, dry- 
 goods merchants, doing business in Binghamton, and, in com- 
 pany with a fellow-clerk, Gilbert S. Burrows, occupied the 
 store as a sleeping-apartment — a bed or cot was so arranged, 
 that it could readily be prepared for such a purpose after the 
 business of the daj- had closed. On the morning of Wednes- 
 day, August 17, 1870, at about half-past one or two o'clock, 
 these young men were awakened by some unusual noise, when 
 they discovered three men standing near their bed. These 
 men had burglariously entered the store, and had made some 
 progress in removing packages of silk goods. Two, at lenst, 
 of the men wore masks. The two clerks sprang from their 
 bed, and a conflict immediately ensued — they attacking the 
 burglars. Mirrick drew a pistol and snapped it twice at them, 
 when two of them retreated down-stairs into a lower story. 
 The third remained, and struck Burrows on the head with an 
 iron chisel ; but he was immediately thrown down by Burrows, 
 who wrenched the chisel from his hand, and with it struck 
 him a blow, inflicting a wound over the right eye. Mirrick 
 likewise struck the prostrate burglar a blow with the round 
 top of a stool, such as is used in counting-rooms ; upon which 
 he (the burglar) called loudly upon his retreating comrades 
 for help. They immediately returned. The first, as he 
 reached the head of the stairs coming from the lower story, 
 was seized by Mirrick, and a violent struggle ensued, during 
 which the burglar (now known to be Jands) was thrown upon 
 his back over a counter, and Mirrick was above or over him, 
 holding him in that position. As the other or third burglar 
 came up the stairs. Burrows, supposing his first man disabled, 
 advanced to meet him, and threw his chisel at him, which 
 took effect upon his scalp. This burglar returned the assault 
 by firing a pistol three times in quick succession; the last 
 
CASE OF EDWARD H. EULOFP. -191 
 
 shot, striking the bannister, caused slivers to fly into Burrows' s 
 face, when he, supposing himseK seriously wounded, made no 
 further attempts at resistance. The third burglar then passed 
 directly to where Mirrick and Jarvis were engaged, and, seiz- 
 ing Mirrick's head by his left hand, drew it on one side, and 
 discharged the contents of his pistol into its back part. The 
 ball entered on the right of tlie occiput, passed into the cavity 
 of the cranium, wounding the right lateral sinus, and a portion 
 of it was afterward found upon the floor of the right lateral 
 ventricle. Death ensued in about an hour. The burglars 
 immediately fled. Meantime, Burrows had given the alarm, 
 and ofiicers and citizens rallied. Pursuit was instituted, but 
 no trace of the burglars could be found. During the ensuing 
 day the authorities, both of the county and city, were actively 
 engaged ; and measures were taken to secure, it' possible, the 
 arrest of the perpetrators of the crime. Patrols were stationed, 
 during the succeeding night, to watch every avenue of egress 
 fi'om the town. Ruloff was arrested about one o'clock that 
 night by the patrol stationed along the Erie Eailway track, 
 east of Binghamton. When first observed, he was stealthily 
 making his way along the track in an easterly direction. He 
 was ordered to halt several times, but refused ; just then a 
 train of cars, coming up, intercepted the approach of the pa- 
 ti-ol to him, and when the train had passed, he was nowhere 
 to be seen. Two hours later he was discovered in an out-^ 
 house on premises adjoining the railway. He was then taken 
 to town, and locked up in jail. The next day he was brought 
 before the coroner's jury, when he gave his name as Charles 
 Augustus ; afterward it was George Wilhams. Up to this 
 time he was unknown to every person present. While before 
 the coroner's jury, and undergoing an examination, he w-as 
 recognized as Edward H. Euloff by Hon. Eonsom Balcom, a 
 justice of the Supreme Court, before whom, in former years, 
 Euloff had been on trial. After having been examined at 
 some length, the coroner discharged him ; but, soon after, new 
 facts coming to light, he was pursued, retaken, and brought 
 back to jail. The next morning (Friday) the bodies of two 
 men were discovered floating in the Chenango Eiver. On 
 
492 MEDIOO-IiEiAL NOTES ON THE 
 
 bringing them to the shore, portions of false faces were found 
 hanging by strings about their necks ; one had received a 
 wound, as from a blow upon the left side of the forehead ; a 
 ball of twine, corresponding in all respects with that with 
 which the bundles of silk goods had been secured, was found 
 in one of their pockets ; the bits, with which the back-door of 
 the store had been bored, were also found in another pocket ; 
 and other circumstances, which fully identified them as the 
 bodies of two of the three perpetrators of the crime. In at- 
 tempting to wade across the Chenango Kiver, in their flight 
 from the store, they had plunged into deep water, and had 
 been drowned. During the day a photographic picture of the 
 bodies, as they lay side by side, was taken, with a view to sub- 
 sequent identification. Euloff, on being brought to view the 
 bodies, denied all acquaintance with or knowledge of them. 
 The coroner now decided to hold him (Euloff) in custody, to 
 await the action of the next grand jxixj. 
 
 A bill of indictment was found against Buloff at the Sep- 
 tember term of the Court of Oyer and Terminer. On being 
 arraigned, he interposed the general plea of not guilty. The 
 trial, on his o^vti motion, was put over until the next January 
 term. 
 
 At the ensuing January term of the Court of Oyer and Ter- 
 miner held in and for the county of Broome, the trial took 
 .place : Hon. Henry Hogeboom, of the county of Columbia, 
 and a justice of the Supreme Court, presiding. Hon. M. B. 
 Champlain, Attorney-General, Peter W. Hopkins, Esq., Dis- 
 trict Attorney for the county of Broome, and Ijewis Seymour, 
 Esq., a counsellor of the Supreme Court, appeared for the 
 people ; and George Becker and N. D. Whitney, Esqrs., of 
 Binghamton, and Hon. Charles L. Beale, of Columbia county, 
 for the prisoner. The trial continued for eight days, at the 
 end of which the jury returned a verdict of guilty of murder 
 in the first degree ; and the prisoner was sentenced to be 
 hanged on the 3d day of March following. On the 25th day 
 of January, 1871, Judge Hogeboom allowed a writ of error, 
 which brought the case before the General Term of the Su- 
 preme Court, held at Albany on the 7th day of February ; but, 
 
CASE OF EDWARD H. EULOFF. 493 
 
 in allowing the writ of error, Judge Hogeboom refused to 
 grant a stay of proceedings. The case was argued at this 
 General Term of the Supreme Court, and the judgment and 
 sentence of the Broome Oyer and Terminer were affirmed. 
 On the 28th day of February, three days before the time ap- 
 pointed for the execution. Judge Eapallo, of the Court of Ap- 
 peals, allowed a further writ of error, and a stay of proceed- 
 ings, thus bringing the case before that tribunal. The Court 
 of Appeals sustained the finding of the courts below, and Ku- 
 loff was taken before the General Term of the Supreme Court 
 in session at Elmira in April, and was there sentenced to be 
 hanged on the 18th day of May. The sentence was carried 
 into effect on that day, and Kuloff paid the penalty of his ' 
 crime with his life. 
 
 The points of alleged error upon which the case went up 
 to the Court of Appeals were of a purely legal character, and 
 do not involve questions in medical or physiological science. 
 There was no pretence of insanity at the trial — no question 
 as to the effect of the pistol-shot wound in causing the death 
 of Mirrick. 
 
 It may not, however, be entirely useless to refer to at least 
 two of the points of alleged error which the plaintiff in error 
 (Euloff) urged before the Supreme Court and the Court of 
 Appeals. It will be remembered that the two clerks began 
 the affray. "When first awakened, they discovered the three 
 burglars standing near the bed, and they at once attacked 
 them, Mirrick snapping his pistol two or three times. Two 
 of the burglars retreated down-stairs, the other returned the 
 assault by striking Burrows on the head with a chisel. It 
 was argued by the prisoner's counsel that the subsequent kill- 
 ing could not be, as the jury had found, " murder in the first 
 degree," but that at most it was one of the lower grades of 
 manslaughter ; that at the time Mirrick himself was engaged 
 in " a felonious attempt unnecessarily to kiU an intercepted 
 felon, and was doing him great bodily harm ; that the killing 
 was done in resisting such attempt, without felonious intent," 
 and that "in making this attempt, Mirrick was himself a 
 wrong-doer, and not under the full protection of the law." 
 
494 MEDICO-LEGAL NOTES ON THE 
 
 During the trial, tlie counsel for the prisoner requested the 
 judge to charge in favor of this view, of the transaction as a 
 matter of law ; this his Honor decHned to do, holding 
 that they were questions of fact upon which the jury must 
 find. 
 
 Another point was somewhat novel. It was important that 
 the bodies of the two disowned men should be identified. No 
 one who saw them, recognized either one. They had lain in 
 the water two days ; Avere now exposed to a warm atmosphere, 
 and decomposition was rapidly progressing ; and unless their 
 present appearance could be preserved, in a few hours all 
 hopes of recognition would be gone. A photograph picture 
 was therefore taken of the bodies, which, by means of a stereo- 
 scopic instrument, enabled acquaintances subsequently to 
 recognize in them tlie persons of Jarvis and Dexter, both as- 
 certained to be comrades and associates of Buloff. Counsel 
 for the prisoner objected on the trial to any evidence of identi- 
 fication being received, founded upon an examination of the 
 pictures. The objection was overruled, and exception taken. 
 In this case there were other circumstances which corrobo- 
 rated the testimony of the witnesses who identified the bodies 
 from viewing the pictures, and which established their iden- 
 tity beyond all doubt ; but as this kind of evidence is quite 
 likely hereafter to be employed in various ways upon the trial 
 of cases, the remarks of Judge Potter, one of the judges of 
 the Supreme Court, holding the General Term, in discussing 
 the point, may very properly be quoted. He says : " It is the 
 every-day practice to use the discoveries in science to aid in 
 the investigation of truth. As well might we deny the use of 
 the compass to the surveyor or mariner ; the mirror to the 
 truthful reflection of images ; or spectacles to aid the failing 
 sight, as to deny in this day of advanced science the correct- 
 ness, in greater or less degree depending upon the perfection 
 of the machine, and the skillful admission of light to the pho- 
 tographic instrument, its power to produce likfenesses ; and 
 upon the principle, also, that a sworn copy can be proved 
 when the original is lost or cannot be produced, this evidence 
 was admissible." As germane to this point, I add the follow- 
 
CASE OF EDWARD H. EULOFF. 495 
 
 ing, taken from the New York Evening Post, which, although 
 a newspaper paragraph, is somewhat significant of the future 
 employment of photographs upon the witness-stand : 
 
 " An Australian gentleman, examining a mining claim, was 
 seized, stripped, and covered with tar and wool. He went 
 and got himself photographed in this guise, and sued his as- 
 sailants for two thousand dollars' damages, putting in his pic- 
 ture as evidence." 
 
 All the points of alleged error made in the case of Euloff, 
 as is well known, were overruled by the Court of Appeals, and 
 the decisions and rulings of Judge Hogeboom on the trial 
 confirmed, as also the finding of the jury. It is proper now 
 to state that Kuloff, before his execution, admitted that the 
 bodies found in the Chenango river were those of Jarvis and 
 Dexter ; that he had been associated with them for years ; 
 that he was the third man present in the store that night ; and 
 that he fired the shot which was fatal to Mirrick. He, how- 
 ever, disclaimed aU intention of murder on entering the store, 
 and declared that, if the young men had kept quiet, they 
 would not have been harmed. 
 
 This admission of Euloff of the correctness of all the pro- 
 ceedings in his case, while it ought not perhaps to lead us to 
 believe in the infallibility of our courts, yet it shoulc^ inspire 
 us with confidence in their abihty to ferret out crime, and in 
 the correctness of their findings, when the law is administered 
 by an able and upright judge, and the facts are passed upon 
 by a conscientious and fearless jury. 
 
 Long before the murder of Mirrick, Euloff had attained an 
 extensive and wide-spread notoriety for crime. Not only in 
 the public estimation was he thus connected, but in the re- 
 corded judicial proceedings of our State his name stands con- 
 spicuous. Nearly thirty years ago (in 1842) he first appeared 
 in the vicinity of Ithaca, in the county of Tompkins. He 
 here engaged in various avocations — ^laboring, teaching school, 
 studying medicine with a botanic physician, and finally prac- 
 tising in the neighborhood as a botanic physician. He also 
 gave some lectures on phrenology. He married a young lady 
 of that vicinity, and in due time a daughter was added to his 
 
496 MEDICO-LEGAL NOTES ON THE 
 
 houseliold. Both his wife and child suddenly disappeared. 
 Neither has been seen or heard from- since the 24th day of 
 June, 1845. The accounts which Euloff gave for their, disap- 
 pearance were contradictory and evasive. It was known that 
 disputes and bad feeling had been engendered between him 
 and his wife, and her family, and it soon came to be generally 
 believed that he had murdered his wife and child, and that he 
 had sunk their bodies in the waters of the Cayuga lake. That 
 belief prevails to this day. 
 
 Euloff was soon after arrested for the supposed crime. An 
 indictment for forcibly abducting and imprisoning his wife 
 was found against him, and in January, 1846, he was found 
 guilty of this offence and sentenced to the State-prison at 
 Auburn for ten years. This term he served out in prison. At 
 the close of his term of imprisonment, and while in the oifice 
 of the warden, before he had passed outside the walls, he was 
 agaia arrested by the sheriff of Tompkins county on an in- 
 dictment charging him with the murder of his wife, and he 
 was at once taken back to the Tompkins county jail. This 
 indictment was never brought to trial, a nolle prosequi having 
 been entered in the matter ; but in June following (1856), an 
 indictment for the murder of his child was found against him, 
 upon which he was arraigned and pleaded not guilty. On 
 application to the Supreme Court, it appearing that an impar- 
 tial trial could not be obtained in the county of Tompkins, an 
 order was made that the indictment be tried in the county of ' 
 Tioga. The cause (having previously been removed from the ' 
 Oyer and Terminer to the Supreme Court by writ of certiorari) 
 came on for trial at the Tioga Circuit, before the Hon. Charles 
 Mason, one of the justices of the Supreme Court, on the 28th 
 day of October, 1856. — ( Vide 3 Parker's Criminal Reports, p. 
 401.) Upon this trial the prosecution rehed upon certain facts 
 and circumstances to make out their case, they having no 
 proof by direct evidence that the child was dead or had been 
 murdered, or that her dead body had ever been found or seen 
 by any one. The jury, instructed by the court that the corpus 
 delicti, the body of the crime, could be " established by cir- 
 cumstances proved so strong and intense as to produce the 
 
CASE OF EDWAED H. RULOFF. 497 
 
 full certainty of death," brought in a verdict of guilty, and 
 Kuloff was sentenced to be hanged. 
 
 Thus, according to the finding of the several juries engaged 
 in this case, the anomalous fact was estabhshed that Euloff 
 abducted his wife and murdered his child, although they both 
 disappeared at the same time, and neither has been heard 
 from since. 
 
 The General Term of the Supreme court of the Sixth Ju- 
 dicial District, composed of Judges Mason, Gray, and Balcom, 
 affirmed the rulings and findings of the Tioga Circuit, Judge 
 Balcom dissenting; and at a subsequent term of the same 
 court, Eiulofl' made a motion for a stay of proceedings, which 
 he argued in person, but which was denied, and he was again 
 sentenced to be hanged. A stay of proceedings was, however, 
 at length obtained by his counsel, and a Avrit of error allowed; 
 which brought the case to the Court of Appeals, where the 
 verdict and judgment of the Supreme Court were set aside, 
 and a new trial ordered. 
 
 It was pending these proceedings, while lying in jail at 
 Ithaca, that Euloff became acquainted with young Jarvis, then 
 a sprightly lad, and also with his mother, the wife of the jailer, 
 over both of whom Euloff obtained a most powerful and fatal 
 influence, and by whose agency it is supposed he was enabled 
 to break jail and escape. This he did, and while a fugitive, 
 and wandering about the hills of Western Pennsylvania, he 
 froze his foot, causing the deformity which connected him 
 with so much certainty with the crime at Binghamton. 
 
 Euloff was in time retaken and brought back to Ithaca. 
 About this time the decision of the Court of Appeals having 
 been made known, the public indignation culminated in a de- 
 termination on a day appointed to force the jail and to inflict 
 upon Euloff the punishment which they believed he had 
 evaded by the technicahties of the law. The day before the 
 appointed time, the sheriff quietly removed him to the jail of 
 Cayuga county, where he remained until the order for his re- 
 lease was received. 
 
 At this result the disappointment and excitement of the-^ 
 people of' Tompkins county and vicinity became intense. 
 
498 MEDICO-LEGAL NOTES ON THE 
 
 They believed that a felon had escaped a just and well-de- 
 sevved punishment. And when the enormity of the crime 
 was remembered, no less than the murder of his own wife and 
 child, the successful concealment of the bodies, the tact and 
 ability he had displayed in the various legal proceedings, his 
 reputation for scholastic attainments, and the success with 
 which they believed justice had been foiled, all conspired to 
 produce a degree of exasperation throughout the entire com- 
 munity heretofore unequalled. With the lapse of years this 
 excitement had died away, but the deep conviction of Buloff 's 
 guilt remained. When, therefore, he appeared again upon the 
 scene as a participant in the murder of Mirrick, at Bingham- 
 ton, the popular excitement was renewed with the utmost fury. 
 The pixbhc sentiment now demanded that justice should not 
 again be evaded ; but that the law should be vindicated and 
 its penalties paid. And when subsequent events connected 
 with his life were made known, exaggerated and colored as 
 they undoubtedly were by the newspaper press, he came to be 
 regarded as a criminal of the deepest dye ; while his attain- 
 ments in learning, and the intellectual ability he had displayed 
 in various ways — his plans, his successes, his trials, his escapes 
 — had in the imagination of the people surrounded his history 
 with a tinge of romance not inferior to that of Eugene Aram. 
 
 After Kulolf 's release from the custody of the sheriff of 
 Tompkins county, in 1860, he seems to have at once fallen into 
 a life of criminal associations and practices. If we can believe 
 his own declaration, however, he desired to pursue an honor- 
 able course, and was actually engaged in teaching in North 
 Carolina, when a cry of distress from Jarvis, who was in jail 
 at Buffalo, induced him to give up his situation at the South, 
 and go to the relief of his former friend. 
 
 From this time the associations of the two were intimate. 
 They established their headquarters in the city of New York, 
 whence they made incursions upon various parts of the coun- 
 try for the purposes of plunder, and to obtain the means of 
 support. Buloff also was engaged upon the work on philolo- 
 gy, which he had projected, and of the success of which he 
 seems to have had the most extravagant anticipations. He 
 
CASE OF EDWABD H. RULOFP. 499 
 
 was, however, unfortunate in being frequently caught whUe 
 making his forays upon the public. During the ten years 
 from 1860 to 1870, under various aliases, he served terms of 
 imprisonment in the State-prison at Sing Sing, in the Connect- 
 icut State-prison at Wethersfield, and in the New Hampshire 
 State-prison at Concord. 
 
 Buloff, as has been stated, was executed by hanging, on the 
 18th day of May, 1871. The mode selected was by jerking him 
 up while standing upon his feet, by letting fall a heavy weight. 
 
 For the observations made at the time of the execution, the 
 post-mortem appearances, the preparation of the specimen, 
 the measurements of the cranium and face, and the notes 
 upon the brain, I am indebted to my son, Daniel S. Burr, 
 M. D., who was present at the execution, and who conducted 
 the examinations with accuracy and care. 
 
 A few involuntary movements, of the arms particularly, 
 immediately foHow^ed Ruloff's suspension ; but there was no 
 strugghng, no convulsions, no discoloration or distortion of 
 the features, and in fifteen minutes lite was extinct. Thirty 
 hours after death, the head was severed from the body by 
 dividing the neck between the fifth and sixth cervical verte- 
 bras. No examination of the body was had. 
 
 The Neck. — A dissection of the neck was first made. The 
 mark of the cord around the neck was distinct. There was 
 no ecchymosis in the subcutaneoiis tissue ; but the skin where 
 it had been compressed by the cord had become hardened, 
 and somewhat resembled a nan-ow strip of parchment. The 
 vertebr£e were all entire, the odontoid process was unbroken, 
 and the transverse hgament was not ruptured. 
 
 The Head. — The countenance was pale, no tumefaction of 
 the face. The lens of the right eye was found to be fractured. 
 The brain was removed and weighed, the soft parts dissected 
 away, when the bones of the head were subjected to the pro- 
 cess of maceration, and a preparation has since been made. 
 
 Tlie Cranium. — The outhnes of the craniam are not unsym- 
 metrical. The outer surface is uniform, and presents the 
 usual regular convexity, with the exception of several promi- 
 nent points. The occipital and two parietal protuberances 
 
500 MEDICO-LEGAJIi NOTES ON THE 
 
 are unusually large, and tlie summit in front of the vertex is 
 markedly prominent. 
 
 , In size, the cranium is much beyond the average, as w.iU he 
 seen by reference to the several measurements hereinafter 
 given. In shape it is more circular than the best-formed 
 crania. There is great breadth in the posterior and inferior 
 regions. The base is also broad. The general expression 
 jvhich an external view gives, is that of a dull, heavy, and 
 somewhat coarse organization. The forehead is not high, and 
 is retreating, although the facial angle is not lessened, owing to 
 the projecting of the superciliary ridges. On sawing through to 
 remove the calvarium, the unusual thickness of the walls came 
 under notice. The thickest portion is over the left orbit, and 
 measures half an inch in thickness, the thinnest is in the right 
 temporal region, where its thickness is one-quarter of an inch. 
 
 The internal surface of the walls of the cranium presents 
 some points of interest. It will be noticed that this surface 
 is not as distinctly indented by the convolutions of the brain 
 as is usual ; neither is it as regularly concave or dome-like. 
 That portion which is over the anterior fossa is very thick, 
 and runs down from the groove for the longitudinal sinus in 
 a straight, smooth plane, like the roof of a house. 
 
 WhUe the base of the cranium and the inferior portion of 
 its sides are diaphanous, and transmit a certain degree of light, 
 the upper portion is comparatively opaque. This may be 
 regarded as an indication that the lower convolutions and in- 
 ferior portions of the brain were more active than the superior. 
 
 The following are the measurements of the cranium made, 
 following the suggestions of Dr. J. Aitken Meigs,* viz. : 
 
 1 Occipito-frontal or longitudinal diameter 7\i indies 
 
 3. Frontal or anterior transverse diameter 6-,% " 
 
 a. Depth of supra-orbital plates I'lJ " 
 
 .4. Frontal altitude SiV " 
 
 5. Bi-temporal diameter 6-,% " 
 
 6. Parietal altitude, or height of middle lobes 4i\ " 
 
 * " The Mensuration of the Human Skull," by J. Aitken Meigs, M. D., 
 etc., etc. (Reprinted from the North American Medico-Chiriirgical Review, 
 September, 1861.) Philadelphia : J. B. Lippiucott & Co., 1861. 
 
:CASE OFEDWAED H. BULOFF. 50] 
 
 ' 7. Antero-posterior diameter or length of middle lobea 2\ inclies 
 
 y. Bi-parietal diamet«r 6 " 
 
 9. Posterior transverse diameter 4f J " 
 
 11. Vertical diameter, or depth of skull 5}^ " 
 
 14. Occipito-f rontal arch 15H " 
 
 15. Frontal arch 12|J " 
 
 16. Parietal arch H-pg •< 
 
 ] T. Occipital arch ll-ft " 
 
 18. Horizontal periphery 32-"^ " 
 
 19. Meato-frontal diameter 4-iij 
 
 30. Meatoparietal diameter 3^| •' 
 
 31. Meato-occipital diameter 4-Ag " 
 
 33. Meato-malar diameter 3,% " 
 
 33. Meato-alveolar diameter 4-,!ir " 
 
 34. Meato-mental diameter 5 " 
 
 40. Inter-auricular diameter, or breadth of base 4-,^ " 
 
 45. Position of the foramen magnum : 
 
 a. From anterior margin of foramen to incisor alveoli. . . . 8^- " 
 
 6. From posterior margin to the occiput 1|J " 
 
 40. Antero-posterior diameter of the foramen magnum 1|J " 
 
 47. Transverse diameter of the foramen magnum l-i% " 
 
 48. Shape of the foramen magnum. 
 
 The size or capacity of the cavity of the cranium has been 
 estimated according to the suggestions of Dr. Meigs, by mul- 
 tiplying certain measurements of different portions of the 
 external cranium togetPier, with the following result : 
 
 Anterior fossa 34J cubic inches 
 
 Middle fossa 54 J " " 
 
 Posterior fossa 66-,^ " " 
 
 Total 1451=0% " 
 
 This, at best, is only an approximation to the actual size of the 
 cavity, and the total seems too large. A careful revision of the 
 calculations discovers no error, and the result is given as above. 
 
 A further calculation was made by multiplying the average, 
 length, the average breadth, and the average height of the 
 skull together, and the result by this calculation gave, as the 
 size of the cranial cavity, 140 cubic intfhes. 
 
 It must be remembered, however, that these measurements 
 are external, and that, on account of the unusual thickness of 
 the skull (twice, at least, that of ordinary skulls), they would 
 .indicate a larger cavity than actually existed. 
 
502 MEDICO-LEGAL NOTES ON THE 
 
 The entire cavity was subsequently filled with tlie meal ol 
 Indian corn ; this was poured out into a square box, and 
 measured 109 cubic inches. This is probably a little below 
 the actual capacity of Euloff's cranium, as the meal may not 
 have filled up every part of the cavity. In estimating its size at 
 120 cubic inches, we shall not be far from its true measurement. 
 
 The Face. — The outlines of the face are broad and angular 
 and, but for the projection of the chin, the facial line would 
 be nearly perpendicular. The zygomatic arches are M'ide 
 apart ; the cheek-bones prominent ; the nasal bones short ; 
 the upper jaw not projecting, but broad ; the lower jaw like- 
 wise broad ; the chin square and prominent ; the rami strong, 
 and standing at nearly a right angle with the base. But for 
 the loss of the molar teeth, the lower jaw would be lai'ge and 
 stout. It is likewise deeply indented by the action of its 
 powerful muscles. 
 
 The following measurements of the face were made : 
 
 35. Naso-alveolar diameter 2^-J inches, 
 
 26. Naso-mental diameter, or length of face 4VJ " 
 
 27. Bl-zygomatic diameter, or breadth of face 5}^ " 
 
 28. Depth of the temporo-zygomatic fossa 1 inch. 
 
 29. Height of the anterior opening of the orbit X-f-g inches. 
 
 30. Breadth " " " " 1|J " 
 
 31. Direction of the transverse axis of the anterior opening of the 
 
 orbit — the outer extremity inclined downward. 
 
 32. Shape of the anterior opening of the orbit — nearly square. 
 
 38. Inter-orbital diameter, or breadth of nose at the root » ..lA' " 
 
 34. Distance between the external angular processes 4,\' " 
 
 35. Suborbital diameter, or breadth of the superior maxilla 3Vf " 
 
 36. Length of nose 2/0"^ " 
 
 37. Breadth of nasal orifice l-,\' " 
 
 38. Circumference of the upper jaw 
 
 39. Circumference of the lower jaw 
 
 41. Length of the hard palate 1|J " 
 
 43. Depth " " fg " 
 
 43. Breadth " " 1-ft " 
 
 The weight of all the bones of the head is 2 lbs. 8 oz. \\ drs 
 avoirdupois. 
 
 Of the Brain. — ^The brain was removed from the cranial 
 cavity Avithin thirty-six hours after death.' There was no apo- 
 plectic extravasation. The convolutions were numerous and 
 
CASE OF EDWARD H. RULOFF. 503 
 
 very distinct. The entire enceplialon weighed fifty-uine 
 ounc.es avoirdupois. 
 
 Weight of the cerebrum 50t ounces. 
 
 " " cerebellum, pons Varolii, and medulla oblongata 8} " 
 Relative weight of cerebellum, etc., to cerebrum 1 to 7 " 
 
 After having been immersed in alcohol for several weeks, 
 the following observations upon the brain were made : 
 
 Depth of fissure of Sylvius J of an inch. 
 
 " of external layer of vesicular matter or cortical sub- 
 stance -i=^j " 
 
 " of space between convolutions at vertex f " 
 
 The largest development of brain at the cavity of the cra- 
 nium, and the relative proportions of the mass itself would 
 indicate, was in the posterior and inferior regions. The pro- 
 portion between the weight of the cerebrum and the remaining 
 divisions of the encephalon was less than the average ; or in 
 other words, the relative weight of the cerebellum, pons Va- 
 rolii, and meduUa oblongata, to the cerebrum in Buloff's brain, 
 was as 1 to 7 ; while the average^ proportion, as made out by 
 Prof. Eeid, in brains of persons between fifty and sixty years 
 of age, seventeen having been examined, was as 1 to 8^. 
 
 The proportion of the weight of the brain to that of the 
 body was as 1 to 46. 
 
 In appearance, Euloff was "a man about five feet eight 
 inches in height. . . . Mouth rather large, with closely-com- 
 pressed lips ; nose small ; eyes dark gray, with large pupUs 
 and steady ; the whole expression of the face concentrated, 
 showing great self-control and power of attention ; shoulders 
 broad, chest full, in fact a compact, vigorous frame, small 
 hands, and well-shaped arms." * His hair was coarse, standing 
 out from the scalp, and coming low down upon the forehead. 
 
 His countenance, when in repose, was stolid and indifferent ; 
 when giving vent to his frequent ebullitions of passion, it was 
 repulsive and forbidding ; but, when animated by some sub- 
 ject in which he took an interest, Hke his favorite theme phi- 
 
 * Report of Drs. Gray and Vanderpoel to Governor Hoflfman. 
 
504 MEDICO-LEGAL NOTES ON THE 
 
 lology, liis features assumed an active, lively, and intelligent 
 expression. His voice in ordinary conversation, and when in 
 an undertone, was agreeable ; but when speaking, as in ad- 
 dressing the court, which he frequently did during his trial, it 
 was shriU and harsh. In walking he stooped forward, and 
 had a shambling, shuffling gait, such as he would be very likely 
 to acquire during his long confinements in the various prisons 
 in which he had been incarcerated. 
 
 His entire organization, as has been remarked of the cra- 
 nium, was coarse. It was not without vigor or powers of en- 
 durance, but its material was not of the best quaUty, and was 
 wanting in that fine finish which is now regarded as the best 
 development of the human structure. In some respects his 
 organization resembled that deteriorated condition or that 
 low type of physique which has been declared by Mr. Bruce 
 Thomson to be characteristic of criminals as a class. 
 
 It is extremely difficult to analyze or even to comprehend 
 all the points in the character of Kuloff ; there were so many 
 antagonistic features, and so many opposing traits. In fact, 
 he seemed to have possessed two distinct natures. In one he 
 was a pleasant, sprightly, and intelHgent gentleman ; in the 
 other he was a coarse, violent, and repulsive hrute. In his 
 better nature, his aspirations were honorable and praiseworthy. 
 He wished, as he not unfrequently expressed himself, to be a 
 gentleman, and respected by his fellow-men. He was ambi- 
 tious of praise and consideration. In his other phase, he was 
 regardless of aU consequences, opinionated, self-willed, and 
 determined in his own way, without the slightest deference to 
 the opinions of others. In the struggles between these two 
 natures, the worse appears generally to have been victorious. 
 This must have been the case at the beginning of his career, 
 so far as it has been made public. A waif upon the tide of 
 human life, he drifted to a remote town in the county of Tomp- 
 kins — inexperienced, and without fixed plans for the future. 
 He had a taste for literary and scientific pursuits — ^wished to 
 be a gentleman, and desired to follow a respectable calling, 
 and so, without much credit to his sagacity or good judgment, 
 he chose to become a botanic physician. He married, and 
 
CASE OP EDWARD H. EULOFP. 50c 
 
 commenced practice in that vicinity. As his experience en- 
 larged, and his true position began to be understood by him- 
 self, he became dissatisfied, and would have sought a wider 
 and a different sphere of operations. In this, he was opposed 
 by his wife and her family, who doubtless had seen more or 
 less of his bad nature cropping out. Euloff now began to 
 regard his wife as an obstacle to Lis plans, an impediment in 
 the way of his success ; and soon after, by his own hand, her 
 lifeless body, and probably that of their child, found a resting- 
 place at the bottom of the Cayuga lake. 
 
 In such a fearful manner first openly appeared that promi- 
 nent propensity in Euloff's character, which impelled him to 
 remove aU obstacles in his way at the sacrifice even of human 
 Hfe, or that iaduced him, as will be hereinafter claimed, to 
 plunder and steal, in order to promote his favorite plans and 
 undertakings. This was a prominent feature in his character. 
 
 Euloff had a strong mental organization, and many of the 
 operations of his mind were performed with vigor and force. 
 His perceptions were not acute nor active ; on the contrary, 
 they were dull, and at times almost stupidly so. In an emer- 
 gency he was slow to perceive or to appreciate the circum- 
 stances surrounding him, and consequently, if pursuit was in- 
 stituted after any of their depredations, he would be arrested 
 and convicted, as was the case in Dutchess county, in Connect- 
 icut, and in New Hampshire, while his associates escaped. 
 The circumstances attending his arrest at Binghamton strik- 
 ingly illustrate this stupidity of character, if it may be so 
 termed. The murder of Mirrick took place between two and 
 three o'clock on the morning of August 17th. During the 
 ensuing day active and effective measures were taken' to cap- 
 ture the perpetrators of the crime. The next night every 
 avenue out of town was strictly guarded by patrols under the 
 direction of the police, the Erie Eailway track being one of 
 them. The patrol on this track brought to several persons 
 during the night, and among them a young medical gentleman, 
 then as now a resident of the city of New York, but who, 
 bom and bred in Binghamton, was home on a short visit to 
 hi-s parents ; and, on the night in question, returning at a late 
 
COB MEDICO-LEGAL NOTES ON THE 
 
 hour, having been out on an errand not dissimilar to that for 
 which " Leander swam the Hellespont," found himself sudden- 
 ly surrounded by a body of armed young men, seized by the 
 collar, and ordered to surrender. A very few words of expla- 
 nation to his old associates and playfellows of course released 
 the doctor. It was before the face of this patrol that Buloff 
 came shambUng along apparently unsuspicious that any watch 
 or guard would be placed over the thoroughfares of the town. 
 And wheji released by the coroner, knowing as he did his own 
 participation in the crime, instead of taking measures to elude 
 pursuit in case any circumstance should be brought to light 
 against him, he openly took the railroad- track again, and as a 
 matter of course was easily followed and retaken. A similar 
 unaccountable course of conduct and numerous contradictory 
 explanations characterized him after the disappearance of his 
 wife and child. Whatever intellectual ability may be hereaf- 
 ter claimed for Euloff, it is certaia that he was not an expert 
 in concealing crime, or in eluding the vigilance of officers and 
 detectives. 
 
 Euloff 's intellect was of a superior order. It may have been 
 somewhat overrated in the estimation of many, yet I am quite 
 sure his intellectual capacity would compare favorably with 
 the best minds. It was more in abstract pursuits — in meta- 
 physics, in discussing some subtle philosophical proposition, 
 and in certain branches of science — ^that his mind displayed 
 its vigor, rather than in subjects of a more practical character, 
 or that had reference to the present time. Like every one 
 else, perhaps, his intellect had its range, beyond which it ex- 
 hibited no remarkable features. 
 
 When about sixteen years of age he says of himself he first 
 became interested in the study of languages. From that time, 
 under every circumstance, during his prison-hfe, and even 
 under sentence of death, it was his favorite and all-absorbing 
 pursuit. The history of the formation and the philosophy of 
 various languages, especially the Greek, were his constant 
 study, and he acquired an extensive and critical knowledge, 
 not only of the Greek and Latin, but also of the more ancient 
 as well as the modem European tongues. His favorite study, 
 
CASE OF EDWARD H. RULOFP. 507 
 
 however, was the Greet, and his proficiency and familiarity 
 with this language and its literature excited the surprise and 
 admiration of his better-educated visitors. 
 
 While a convict in the Auburn prison, he prepared a criti- 
 cism "upon parts of Prof. Taylor Lewis's edition of one of 
 Plato's dialogues," which he sent to a gentleman then, I be- 
 lieve, a member of the Theological Seminary, but who is now 
 a professor in Amherst College. This criticism having been 
 seen by Prof. R. H. Mather, Ukewise of Amherst GoUege, in- 
 duced him, while at Binghamton, to seek an interview with 
 Ruloff, which took place the day succeeding his final sentence. 
 The following extract from the pubhshed account of the inter- 
 \-iew, as related by Prof. Mather, is most certainly corclusive 
 as to the attainments and scholarship of Ruloff in the lan- 
 guages : 
 
 " The next morning, about nine o'clock, the advocate and I 
 went down to the prison, and the gentlemanly high-sheriff at 
 once consented to the interview, if Ruloff were wiUing. The 
 doomed man at first refused, as he had done of late to all vis- 
 itors, but, when told that I was a student and teacher of Greek, 
 he at once consented. He approached the heavy latticed iron 
 door, and asked very politely if I could remain long enough to 
 learn something of the beauties of his theory of language. 
 "Without replying, I turned to the officer and asked if I might 
 be permitted to go-into the cell. He said yes, and proceeded 
 to unlock the massive padlocks. It was a long, narrow, gran- 
 ite-built room, but high, and furnished with plenty of light 
 and pure air. As we entered, Ruloff approached with two 
 dilapidated chairs, and, with the most winning courtesy, asked 
 us to be seated, and offered to relieve me of my hat. He sat 
 down on his rude pallet opposite me, and I told him thai I 
 had seen the criticism referred to above, and that I had desired 
 to learn how he had acquired his knowledge of the old lan- 
 guages. He replied, with a smUe, that he had obtained it all 
 by honest work ; that he had never been in a college or imi- 
 versity, but that from boyhood he had had a most intense in- 
 terest in the beauty and strength of the Greek tongue. He 
 somplained that he had been laughed at by the public as a 
 
508 MEDIGO-LEGAL NOTES ON THE 
 
 superficial scholar, and wanted me to satisfy myself on tliat 
 and then hear what he had to say about the formation of lan- 
 guage. I replied that as we had no text-books I could not 
 examine him, to which he rejoined that many of the classical 
 authors he knew by heart, and would try and repeat portions 
 if I would suggest where he should begin. Thinking that 
 something from the 'Memorabiha' might be appropriate to 
 his present needs, I suggested the third chapter, first book, 
 where the sentiments of Socrates with reference to God and 
 duty in their purity and exaltation approach so nearly to 
 BibUcal revelation; and he at once gave me the Greek. Other 
 parts of the same work, as well as the ' Iliad ' of Homer and 
 some of the plays of Sophocles, he showed great familiarity 
 with. Then, in order to show his thoroughness, he criticised 
 the common rendering of certain passages, and he did it with 
 such subtlety, and discrimination, and elegance, as to show 
 that his critical study of these nicer points was more remark- 
 able than his powers of memory ; in fact, I should say that 
 subtlety of analysis and of reasoning was the marked charac- 
 teristic of his mind. On one or two passages of Homer, in 
 particular, he showed great acuteness of criticism, and a most 
 thorough appreciation of the grandeur of the sentiment. One 
 or two renderings of President Felton he opposed most vigor- 
 ously, and, when I supported the common version, he quoted 
 fi-om a vast range of classics to confirm his view." 
 
 Euloif possessed the power of adapting himself to different 
 pm-suits with facility, and of employing his intellect in various 
 ways. While in prison at Auburn he was most of the time 
 engaged in the carpet-shop of J. Barber & Co., " where he 
 was employed," writes Hiram Whiting, Esq., the clerk, "in 
 making patterns and designs for carpets. He was successful 
 in this business, being industrious and ingenious, exhibiting 
 much capacity, tact, and skill." 
 
 Euloff, I believe, had never been admitted to practise in 
 any of our courts, and was not consequently an attorney and 
 counsellor. He, however, was well versed in the law applica- 
 ble to the trial of criminal cases, in the rules of evidence, etc. 
 On his trial for the murder of Mirrick, he in person cross -ex- 
 
CASE OF EDWARD H. BULOFF. 509 
 
 amined many of the witnesses, made objections to the course 
 of the prosecution, and argued his points before the court. 
 In some of the proceedings connected with the disappearance 
 of his wife and child, he appeared without counsel, prepared 
 his papers, made his motions, and argued them with abiUty 
 and tact. In 1869, under the name of James E. Dalton, he 
 appeared before the Cortland County Court, as counsel for 
 Dexter, who had been arrested and held in jail for stealing 
 sillis. He there made an argument in behalf of his associate, 
 and was successful in obtaining his discharge. 
 
 His answers to the commissioners sent to examine him, by 
 Governor Hoffman, show extensive thought and a matured 
 mind. He spoke of his reading works on German metaphy- 
 sics, and his acceptance of the doctrines of Kant and Comte, 
 with the assurance of one who was conscious of his intellect- 
 ual strength ; and he avoided with skill the questions designed 
 to throw doubt upon the opinions he had embraced. 
 
 Euloffs emotional nature was not of the highest order. If 
 he had at any time entertained aspirations for fame and dis- 
 tinction, for an honorable and elevated position in life, he by 
 some passionate outbreak destroyed his opportunities, and 
 disappointed his desires. The circumstances, of which he 
 claimed to have been the victim all his life, are attributable to 
 this cause. He was subject to violent paroxysms of anger, 
 revenge, jealousy, and distrust, before which his judgment 
 and will were powerless. He worshipped no Supreme Being ; 
 venerated nothing, unless it may have been an old Greek 
 book, and acknowledged no accountability to a higher power. 
 He was apparently insensible to the consequences of his acts. 
 Never a word of regret or compunction of conscience, so far 
 as is known, escaped his lips. In this respect he verified the 
 observations of Dr. Despine, as quoted by Mr. Bruce Thom- 
 son : " In reading," remarks Dr. Despine, " without any pre- 
 conceived views, the reports of criminal trials, I was struck 
 with the constant recurrence, among those who had committed 
 crimes in cold blood, of a mental condition marked by the 
 absence of all moral remonstrance, before the act premedi- 
 tated, and the absence, not less complete, of all remorse after 
 
510 MEDICO-LEGAL NOTES ON THE 
 
 the accomplishment thereof." Mr. Thomson makes the fur- 
 ther remark as characteristic of criminals of Scotland : " Be- 
 sides the absence of moral sense, the want of manly courage, 
 and of confidence in each other, and a habit of universal lying, 
 may be mentioned as characteristic of this class ; and nothing 
 alfords stronger proof of their moral insensibility, than the 
 fact of their not being amenable to the teachings of chaplains 
 and other instructors." * 
 
 Buloff would have been a perfect specimen of this class in 
 the hands of Mr. Thomson. He distrusted everybody, and 
 was himself faithless toward all, unless Jarvis be an exception. 
 Under the most solemn circumstances, just before receiving 
 final sentence of death, he filed a lying paper with the court, 
 and, as for relenting, or sorrow, or desire for religious conso- 
 lation, he up to the moment of his death strenuously resisted 
 all approaches from the clergy, and would not consent that 
 even a single prayer should be made in his behalf. 
 
 His ordinary' conversation and mode of expressing himself 
 was of a low order — very profane, and in other respects not 
 choice — yet he could immediately assume the bearing and 
 manners of a cultivated gentleman, with language and expres- 
 sions of the most finished character. 
 
 His will was strong and determined. No better illustration 
 of this feature in his character can be given than his reply to 
 the following question addressed to him by the commissioners : 
 
 Question. " Would the fact of another existence, and that 
 existence one of rewards and punishments for your conduct 
 in this hfe, make any difference to you in regard to your 
 acts?" 
 
 Ansiver. " No ; I should do as I intended, without regard 
 to the existence of a God or a devil, a heaven or a hell ; I 
 have felt this pride during my whole life. I never wished to 
 get any thing out of anybody." 
 
 In his domestic habits Buloff was amiable, quiet, and retir- 
 ing, laboriously studious, and as Prof. Leurio, 170 Third 
 avenue, was the favorite of aU the children in the vicinity, for 
 
 * The Journal of Peycliological Medicine for January, 1871. 
 
CASE OF EDWAED H. EULOPF. 511 
 
 whom he always had a pleasant word, and ofttimes presents 
 of toys, ca-ndies, etc. 
 
 Was Rulqf of Sound Mind ? — Much discussion has been 
 excited upon the subject of Buloff 's sanity. So singular had 
 been his conduct, and so remarkable his bearing while under 
 sentence of death, that, in the judgment of many, he could only 
 be regarded as of unsound mind. He himself, however, stoutly 
 resisted every such imputation. When the commissioners 
 appointed by Governor Hoffman to visit him, and to report 
 upon his condition, announced to him the object of their visit, 
 he at once exclaimed : " Gentlemen, this is no work of mine. 
 I do not pretend to be either insane or an idiot. I am feeble 
 in body, as you may see, but this has not affected my mind. 
 The proposal of a commission is no move of mine." To a 
 friend who intimated to him that he thought that he (Ruloff) 
 might be a little cracked upon the subject of philology, he re- 
 plied : " Weh, I am not half as big a fool as you are for think- 
 ing so." 
 
 There was no plea of insanity interposed upon his trial ; 
 the defence resting upon the supposed inabiHty of the prose- 
 cution to connect Kuloff with the perpetrators of the murder. 
 In fact, the circumstances of his arrest, and his subsequent 
 demeanor, would have precluded all expectations of an ac- 
 quittal. He was arrested, it will be recollected, making his 
 way stealthily out of town in the middle of the night, eluding 
 the vigilance of officers. When questioned as to where he 
 was from, and where he was going, he stated that he had come 
 from Rochester, and had been put off the cars, for want of 
 money, at Union, nine miles west of Binghamton, and was walk- 
 ing to New York City ; and, when taken to view the bodies of 
 Jarvis and Dexter, he denied all acquaintance with or knowl- 
 edge of them. This course indicated a sense of guilt, a con- 
 scioiasness of crime, and a desire to avoid its consequences, 
 which ib entirely inconsistent with the irresponsibility of an 
 insa'ie person. 
 
 There are, however, many features in Euloff's case that go 
 to establish the conviction that his mind was not evenly bal- 
 anced, but that, in many of its operations, it had become dis- 
 
512 MEDICO-LEGAL NOTES ON THE 
 
 ordered and unsound. As the body, by confinement in a single 
 posture for a length of time, becomes distorted and contracted, 
 and loses the power of regaining its former symmetry ; so the 
 mind, when long directed to any one pursuit, and when held in 
 one channel of intense thought, loses its power of true percep- 
 tion; the reasoning powers become subordinate to the one 
 controlUng passion or thought, and mental irregularity and 
 unsoundness ensue. 
 
 Such, there is reason to believe, has been the condition of 
 Euloff's mind. In early life he contracted a fondness for the 
 study of ancient languages ; this fondness grew into a passion 
 with him, and he surrendered hiraself to it. Then came dis- 
 torted visions. In one of his replies to the commissioners, he 
 says : " For over thirty years I have been impressed with the 
 fact that there was something in language that I was to dis- 
 discover." As his mind became more and more intensified 
 upon the subject, the delusion came that he had made his great 
 discovery. That delusion continued. He told Prof. Mather 
 that he " felt convinced that his theory of language was a spe- 
 cial revelation to him." He could see nothing anywhere but 
 his favorite theme. " He maintained that all the fictions of 
 Greek and Roman mythology covered some great philological 
 truths." 
 
 That Euloff had the most extravagant expectations of the 
 value of his work, is illustrated by the fact that in 1868, as 
 Prof. Leurio, he attended a convention of philologists, at Pough- 
 keepsie, offered his book for the approval of the members, and 
 demanded five hundr.ed thousand dollars for his discovery and 
 copyright. Mr. E. Jakobs, of 170 Third avenue, informs me 
 that Euloff often at home expressed the most sanguine antici- 
 pation of the results of his labors, and the large expectations 
 he entertaiued of pecuniary returns when his work should be 
 completed, and often remarked that he should then be above 
 want. 
 
 While awaiting the day of his execution, Euloff expressed 
 no concern or anxiety as to his own fate ; it was the great loss 
 to the world which the failure of his discovery would cause. 
 In this he was earnest and siucere. In an appeal which he 
 
CASE OF EDWARD H. RULOFF. 513 
 
 made to the Governor but a few days before his execution, he 
 asked a respite, not for himself, but for his book ; when that 
 was completed, he expressed a willingness to suffer the penalty 
 of the law. Prof. Mather thus describes this feature in Euloff : 
 " His enthusiasm is most remarkable. He sat there in his 
 chains, just sentenced by the highest court to die upon the 
 gallows, and, without a word or apparently a thought about 
 his doom, he argued and pleaded for his favorite theory as 
 though he were wrestling for his life, and was determined to 
 win." 
 
 He was more or less incoherent on his favorite subject. In 
 a weekly paper, pubUshed in Binghamton, he occupied every 
 week at least two columns with the material of his work. In 
 that matter, as published, this incoherency is plainly to be 
 distinguished. 
 
 I think that these instances indicate in Euloff a distorted 
 imagination, false reasoning, and disordered judgment on the 
 subject of his favorite study. In this respect his mind corre- 
 sponded to that large class of men who run after one idea, and 
 who spend an entire lifetime in following some ignis fatuus. 
 Of this class are those who have filled the Patent-Office, at 
 Washington, with useless models ; who prospect for mines in 
 the most improbable regions ; who embark in enterprises 
 which every one but themselves can see to be fooKsh ; and 
 who, from the continued and increasing disorder of the men- 
 tal machinery, at length become fit subjects for a lunatic asy- 
 lum. 
 
 The inA'estigation of the commissioners appointed by Gov- 
 ernor Hoffman, as appears by their report, was defective in 
 this, that it did not bring out distinctly this peculiar defect 
 of Kuloff's mind. While the examination made apparent his 
 intellectual capacity, exhibited his powers of reasoning and his 
 adroitness in the discussion of metaphysics, it only alluded to 
 the history of his philological studies, without drawing out in 
 detail his peculiar ideas, or awakening his enthusiasm upon 
 the subject. The examination does not appear to have been 
 intended to discover any latent or concealed mental disorder. 
 
 The circumstances under which the commissioners visited 
 
514 MEDICO-LEGAL NOTES ON THE 
 
 Ruloff would be very likely to defeat any such purpose, as lie 
 would at once be placed upon his guard. The object of the 
 examination was announced to him. He did not wish to be 
 looked upon as insane. He had rather die the death of a felon, 
 than to have the great discovery of his life^the work that 
 had engrossed his attention for years — ^regarded only as the 
 production of a disordered mind. The appointment of a com- 
 mission " was no move of his." He, consequently, would be 
 as reticent as possible, and his delusions could only be made 
 to appear by skillful questioning, after his confidence had been 
 secured. To Prof. Mather he expressed the belief that his 
 discovery was a special revelation ; to the commissioners, he 
 only said that he had been impressed with the idea that there 
 was something in language which he was to discover. The re- 
 port does not establish the fact that Euloff was " entirely 
 sane ;" on the contrary, it does reveal indications of mental 
 delusion, quite characteristic of partial insanity. 
 
 Euloff entertained the idea that he was an injured man ; 
 that the public had conspired against him ; and that he was a 
 victim of public injustice and prejudice. In return, he cor- 
 dially hated everybody, and was ready to make reprisals on 
 every occasion. He believed it no crime to appropriate other 
 people's property for the furtherance of his great work. To 
 arrest him, even in the act of burglary, was to him an unjusti- 
 fiable infringement of his personal liberty. I think he fully 
 believed in the position taken on his trial, that the killing of 
 Mirrick was done in self-defence ; that Mirrick and Burrows, 
 having first commenced the af&ay, were aggressors, and, con- 
 sequently, were not under the full protection of the law. 
 
 This distortion of his mind prevented Ruloff from culti- 
 vating the higher moral sentiments, or developing his finer 
 emotional nature. Impelled by violent explosions of passion, 
 he was capable of doing any criminal act. Burglary, arson, 
 and murder, would all be resorted to, to carry on his opera- 
 tions, and to remove all obstacles to his success. This state 
 of mind and feelings would very naturally determine to that 
 moral insensibility (which has already been noted), that reck- 
 lessness of consequences, and that utter abandon of all that is 
 
CASE OF EDWARD H. EULOFF. 515 
 
 good, which seem to have been characteristic of Eiiloff. How 
 much the pecuharitj of his organization had to do with the 
 mental phenomena he exhibited, or how far it ought to be 
 considered in mitigation of his guilt, it is not yet time to dis- 
 cuss or determine. The tribunal within whose jurisdiction he 
 now is win duly consider, and mete out equal and exact justice 
 to him, for " shall not the Judge of aU the earth do right ? " 
 The interests of society undoubtedly demanded that his depre- 
 dations should. cease, and, in the judgment of the law, his life 
 was forfeited and taken. 
 
 The case of Kuloff wiU rank with the most celebrated crimi- 
 nal trials of our country, for the peculiar circumstances at- 
 tending the case, and the great interest it has excited. The 
 trial of Ephraim K. Avery, of Fall Eiver ; of Eichard P. Eob- 
 inson, of New York ; of John W. Webster, of Boston ; and 
 Mrs. Cunningham, of New York ; each, in its turn, attracted 
 a large share of pubhc attention and interest, but none more 
 so than did the trial of Edward H. Euloff. 
 
 In presenting the case before this Society, I only desire to 
 place on record the anatomical and other pecuharities of the 
 extraordinary man whose case we have been considering, as a 
 contribution to the general fund of scientific knowledge. 
 
ISAAC LEWIS PEET, LL.D. 
 
 Isaac Lewis Peet was born in Hartford, Conn., December 4, 
 1824. He was the son of Dr. llarvey Priudle Peet, who de- 
 voted his life to the eduqation of the deaf and dumb, wlien, 
 after graduating at Yale in 1822, he became a professor in the 
 Institution for the Deaf and Dumb at Hai'tford, Conn., and 
 was soon after called upon to add to his duties those involved 
 in tlie charge of the domestic management of the establish- 
 ment. 
 
 Here he remained till February 1, 1831, when lie was ap- 
 pointed Principal of the New York Institution for the Deaf 
 and Dumb, and held that position till 1867, after which he held 
 the position of Principal emeritus till his death, January 1, 
 1S73. 
 
 Kesiding with his father. Dr. Isaac Lewis Peet was brought 
 up in the atmosphere of work for the education, culture, and 
 improvement of deaf-mutes, and hence it may be said that 
 his whole life has been devoted to that beneficent work. En- 
 tering Yale College, after thorough preparation, he graduated 
 in the Class of 1845, and immediately accepted the ciiair of 
 professor in the New York Institution for the Deaf and Dumb, 
 under his father, and, at the same time, commenced his studies 
 in the Union Theological Seminary of New York, from which 
 he graduated in 1849. 
 
 He accompanied his father to Europe in 1851, and assisted 
 him in the examination of the schools for the deaf and dumb 
 in Great Britain, Ireland, France, Italy, Switzerland, Belgium, 
 Holland, and along the Rhine ; was elected Vice-Principal of 
 the New York Institution in 1852, and on the retirement of his 
 
ISAAC LEWIS PEET, LL.D. 
 
 father, in 1867, succeeded to tlie position of Principal, wliicli he 
 still holds. 
 
 The degree of LL.D. was conferred npon him by Columbia 
 College in 1872. 
 
 Dr. Peet has taken a deep interest in that branch of forensic 
 medicine relating to the responsibility of deaf-mutes. He is 
 a prolific writer on all subjects connected with them, and in 
 1880 attended the International ,Congress at Milan, Italy, "for 
 the amelioration of the condition of the deaf and dumb," and was 
 named a vice-president of that body. lie was also a member 
 and Vice-President of the International Congress held at Brus- 
 sels, Belgium, in 1883. 
 
 One of his most important works was the paper on " The 
 Psychical Status and Criminal Eesponsibility of the Totally 
 Uneducated Deaf and Dumb," which appears in this M-ork, and 
 which has long been regarded as standard authority by the pro- 
 fessions. 
 
 Entering the Medico-Legal Society some years after its for- 
 mation, he was chosen vice president, and, subsequently elected 
 president in 1885 ; he served for the year 1886, and was dis- 
 tinguished for the zeal with which he threw himself into the 
 work of the body. 
 
 Dr. Peet is a ready and forcible speaker, a thorough scholar 
 and Cliristian gentleman, and one of those membei's of the 
 body who are devoted to the advancement of the science of 
 medical jurisprudence, and the prosperity and advancement of 
 the Medico-Legal Society of Kew York. C. B. 
 
THE 
 
 PSYCHICAL STATUS AND CRIMINAL RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 TOTALLY UNEDUCATED DEAF Al^D DUMB. 
 
 By ISAAC LEWIS PEET, A. M * 
 
 Nee ratione docere ulla suadereque surdis 
 
 Quid sit opus facto, facile est ; neque enim paterentur 
 
 Nee ratione ulla sibi ferrent amplius auris 
 
 Vocis inauditos sonitus obtundere frustra. 
 
 Lticretius, De Serum Natura, Book V., 1052-3. 
 
 Thk deaf-mute, as distinguished from one who is simply 
 mute, is a person who, from the mere fact of want of hear- 
 ing, does not possess the ability to express thought in articu- 
 late speech. Dwelling in a world of silence, sound awakens 
 no responsive echo in his soul. Words which, thrilling nerves 
 that excite the brain to action, call for an effort at least of 
 imitation on the part of the child endowed with hearing, 
 affect in him no sense that may be said to produce their 
 counterpart. As the eye is wanting to the denizens of those 
 subterranean localities into which light does not penetrate ; 
 as limbs are not furnished to beings whose locomotion is con- 
 fined to a liquid habitat ; and as the hand is denied to those 
 orders of the animal creation to whose functions that mar- 
 velous instrument is not indispensable, so, where there has 
 
 * Bead before the Society, November 9, 1871. 
 
EESPONSIBILITY OF UNEDUCATED DEAF AND DUMB. 517 
 
 been no hearing, there is no natural voluntary exercise of the 
 corresponding faculty of speech. This does not imply, what 
 is indeed in most cases contrary to the fact, that the physical 
 organs of speech are defective, for, if the deaf-mute could be 
 invested with hearing, speech would soon follow, and many 
 that have never heard, have been so educated in the use of 
 the&e organs as to be able to pronounce syllables and words 
 in a manner recognizable by the ear. The mute "who is not 
 deaf, however, owes his infirmity to one of two causes ; 
 either there is malformation or weakness in some one of the 
 parts on which vocal utterance depends, or there exists a 
 want of vigor in one or more of the intellectual powers, even 
 supposing such powers not to 'be entirely wanting. Of those 
 mutes from the first-mentioned cause, tivo have been brought 
 directly under my own personal observation and instruction. 
 One was a boy twelve years of age, who had been accustomed 
 to hear, and hear perfectly, the conversation of those around 
 him, and who could answer a great variety of questions which 
 could be satisfied by an affirmative or negative movement of 
 the head, and could obey directions given to him -with the 
 voice, but had never himself uttered a word. The malfor- 
 mation of his organs of speech was patent to the slightest 
 inspection. He could not, when he entered the institution, 
 read or write, but, after several years of patient instruction, 
 was brought to a point where he could derive information 
 from books, and express his thoughts and feelings with the 
 pen. Without a natural defect of verbal memory, it was yet 
 evident that this faculty had been greatly impaired by want 
 of the ability "to give expression to the words he knew ; for it 
 was a long time after he had learned^ to write single words 
 from vocal dictation before he could retain a sentence of even 
 moderate length so as to reproduce it. His other faculties 
 were very much quickened by the use, on his own pait, of 
 signs, which he readily learned. Of course it was necessary 
 to explain to him every form of expression he had not heard 
 before. This was done partly by means of spoken words and 
 partly by gestures, which he seemed to comprehend the more 
 readily from the fact that, in the society of deaf-mutes in 
 
518 CRIMINAL RESPONSIBILITY OP THE 
 
 "whicli he was necessarily placed, he acquired a great facility 
 in expressing himself in that way. In his case, the power 
 seemed to be developed of comprehending more perfectly 
 what was communicated by the method to which he himself 
 naturally had recourse when communicating his ideas to 
 others. 
 
 The other case was that of a young man eighteen years of 
 age, also mute from birth. He entered the institution en- 
 tirely illiterate, never having learned the alphabet in either 
 its printed or written form. He had great self-respect, always 
 attired himself neatly, and appeared to advantage in the silent 
 intercourse he had with others. He had for some years 
 worked in a woolen factory, and was able to support himself 
 without assistance from his friends. In the single year he 
 was under instruction, he acquired an ability to read under- 
 standingly, as well as to give correctly in writing the incidents 
 of every-day life, so that on returning to his manual labors he 
 was in possession of a very satisfactory means of communi- 
 cation with others. Unlike the lad first mentioned, he must 
 all the while have had a mental speech fully up to the neces- 
 sities of the society in which he was accustomed to move. 
 The language of signs was not. used in his instruction, and he 
 seemed to feel no inclination to avail himself of it. No im- 
 pediment of speech was apparent to the eye — his inability 
 being probably the result of some imperfection in the larynx. 
 
 The writer's own experience of nearly thirty years, how- 
 ever, enables him to add his testimony to that of other in- 
 structors of the deaf and dumb, to the effect that cases of 
 hearing-mutes, with good intellectual capacities like those just 
 mentioned, are so rare as to make the possession of hearing 
 in connection with want of speech prima-facie evidence of 
 mental imbecility. Instances of this last kind are unfortu- 
 nately very numerous. Hardly a year passes that several 
 such mutes are not presented for admission into institutions 
 for the deaf and dumb by parents, whom hope had directed 
 thither, to find that the calamity which had befallen their 
 children was one far more deplorable than that of mere ina- 
 bility to enunciate words, as it also is of mere inability to 
 
UNEDUCATED DEAF AND DUMB. 519 
 
 hear them, notwithstandiDg all that this last-named condition 
 involves. The active part which those connected with insti- 
 tutions for the deaf and dumb have taken in the initiation of 
 idiot asylums, and the frequent occasion they have for corre- 
 spondence with their managers, is thus accounted for. With 
 beings sucli as these, patient effort to call into exercise a dor- 
 mant will, and gradually to develop enfeebled faculties, has 
 met with some degree of success, and, if I am correctly in- 
 formed, some have been enabled to attain intelligent vocal 
 utterance. But the greater proportion are incapable of ap- 
 preciable benefit, so that our idiot asylums, so far as they 
 prove themselves schools, must be regarded in the light of 
 institutions wherein only those children can be benefited who 
 are not so far demented as to be incapable of speech. 
 
 No such proposition can be entertained with regard to the 
 deaf-mute. His defects are not primary, as appertaining to 
 the mind ; but secondary, as the resultants of the deprivation 
 of one of the senses. The only class of ideas to the percep- 
 tion of which he may not arrive are those which are depend- 
 ent in ■ themselves considered upon the sense of hearing, 
 though the vibrations which affect other nerves than the audi- 
 tory may produce sensations so analogous that he may be 
 considered, so to speak, as under the influence of the penum- 
 bra rather than that of the total eclipse, or perhaps more ap- 
 propriately under the faint refraction called twilight instead 
 of the full light of day. For instance, the drum will at once 
 attract the attention of any deaf-mute, however profound his 
 deafness, and the idea of musical time is appreciable by the 
 majority of this class. Experiment has shown that the tele- 
 graph alphabet of Morse, beaten on the drum, on the princi- 
 ple of a single strong beat for the short dash, and a quick 
 double beat for the long one, gives rise to vibrations affecting 
 the deaf so distinctly, that a class of such persons, with their 
 faces so turned that they could not catch sight of the instru- 
 ment, have recognized words spelled by this means, and writ- 
 ten them promptly and accurately upon the black-board ; 
 and, in at least two instances, deaf-mute young ladies, with- 
 out a particle of hearing, have been taught to render correct- 
 
520 CRIMINAL EESPONSIBILITY OF THE 
 
 ly, on the piano, strains of music represented to the eye by 
 notes. 
 
 It will thus be seen that, like the Parian marble in which 
 the mind of a Praxiteles sees the perfect statue, and from 
 which, with cunning hand, he develops the realization of his 
 ideal, or the rude mass of iron in which the master-artisan 
 perceives, and from which he evokes the moving, almost 
 breathing machine, the uneducated deaf-mute is a being of 
 great possibilities, but still only possibilities. 
 
 His condition is a field on which Psychology gazes with 
 interest as intense as that with which Newton viewed the 
 starry firmament, and in which he seeks the solution of ques- 
 tions more difiScult than those which the geologist asks the 
 rocks. 
 
 Are there innate ideas ? Is thought possible without 
 words ? Is the idea of God inseparable from the human 
 mind? Is conscience an innate or an acquired faculty? Is 
 moral responsibility a principle applicable to those who, pos- 
 sessing mental and moral powers, are yet so restrained in 
 their exercise that they are but very imperfectly developed? 
 Such are a few of the inquiries which spontaneously suggest 
 themselves in connection with this subject, and which will 
 necessarily be touched upon, if not fully discussed, as we 
 attempt its development. 
 
 The term uneducated, as applied to a deaf-mute, is not to be 
 understood as implying merely the absence of training in 
 verbal language, but of all successful attempts on the part of 
 those around him to make available to him the observation 
 and experience of others, and to fix in his mind general prin- 
 ciplesof thought and action. 
 
 Considered in this light, what is he ? Is he an intellectual 
 being, and, if so, in what sense? Though the current thought 
 of the community in which he dweUs finds no access to his 
 mind, though the language which conveys to the hearing 
 child of three or four years of age the germs of all subsequent 
 knowledge is unheard and unheeded, he possesses a certain 
 degree of mental power which is entirely independent, of such 
 conditions. 
 
' TJNEDUCATED DEAF AND DUMB. 521 
 
 This is not confined to that recognization of forms, and 
 that association of recognized objects with qualities, and of 
 actions with resulting sensations, in which many of the brute 
 creation show such a degree of intellectual power as to make 
 it difficult to fix the boundary between what we call instinct 
 and reason ; for, though many of the mental phenomena pre- 
 sented by deaf-mutes are merely a higher development of 
 what is usually regarded in the light of animal instinct, as ex- 
 emplified by the chicken that runs to covert when the wing 
 of the hawk sweeps the sky, by the bee that flies in the face 
 of the nearest stranger when the hive is disturbed, or by the 
 dog that runs in the direction indicated by the finger of his 
 master, still the higher possibilities of the heir of human rea- 
 son soon manifest themselves. 
 
 ■ Perhaps the first evident tokens of a reason higher than 
 that of the highest of the mere animal creation, is the ability 
 to designate specifically the object of desire, when that object 
 is not in sight, and to complain specifically of wrong done 
 when the author of that wrong is not present. Many of the 
 inferior animals can manifest their desire for some object 
 which they can designate when it is present, and some can 
 exhibit indignation against those who have wronged them- 
 selves or their masters when they see the wrong-doer before 
 them, but it is an exclusively human prerogative to be able 
 to designate the absent intelligibly to others, and a yet higher 
 prerogative to be able to designate the kind of wron'g or the 
 kind of benefit received at a time past. The dog who barks 
 furiously at the man who struck him yesterday was never 
 known to indicate purposely whether he was struck with a 
 stick or a stone, whether in the head or the foot. 
 
 We may assume, then, that the starting-point of human 
 intellect, as distinguished from animal instinct, is the use of 
 signs to designate absent persons, objects, places, qualities, 
 and actions. ¥or the child who hears, these signs are very 
 early supplied by the spoken words constantly ringing in his 
 ears. For the deaf-mute, they must be visible signs. 
 
 When, therefore, a deaf-mute child has become able to de- 
 signate whether he wants this thing or that, neither being in 
 
522 CRIMINAL RESPONSIBILITY OP THE 
 
 siglit, or to tell what was taken from him and who took it, he 
 has evidently ascended above the domain of mere animal in- 
 stinct. The, intelligent use of signs for ideas, furnished by 
 gestures and expression, is as much a test of the possession of 
 human reason as the intelligent use of the verbal signs which 
 we call speech. 
 
 ' There are deaf-mutes whose sign-dialect is very rude and 
 meagre, and there are deaf-mutes equally ignorant of verbal 
 language who yet possess quite an extensive and well-devel- 
 oped system of signs. The difference is only in degree. 
 
 As, in the scanty dialect of a tribe of savages, we recognize 
 the human power of speech, so in a very moderate ability to 
 use signs on recalling the absent and the past, we recognize 
 those germs of human intellect, which may develop into the 
 multiform bloom of a cultivated language of gesture and ex- 
 pression. 
 
 That man is proved to be man only by the possession of a 
 language, is a received axiom. That this language or means 
 of communication may be addressed to other senses than the 
 ear, all intelligent men will admit. But the corollary that this 
 language, the possession of which stamps its possessor as a 
 rational being, may be simply a langua,ge of gesture, move- 
 ment, and expression, without any hint of words spoken or 
 written, is apprehended with difficulty by many men even of 
 high intellectual cultivation. And yet this is equally demon- 
 strable by facts and analogies. 
 
 It is very true that the processes of mental development 
 by speech and by a language of gestures, are not parallel — 
 cannot, in fact, be made to run parallel. The great preroga- 
 tive of the one is its power of generalizing and concentrating, 
 thought. The otJier owes to the pantomime which forms its 
 basis, supplies its elements, and gives it much of its self-inter- 
 preting power, a certain pictorial character. Hence it is more 
 graphic, and, for the class of material ideas, more precise. 
 But, naturally dealing with the concrete and the actual, it 
 grasps generalizations, abstractions, hypotheses, and personi-, 
 fieations with difficulty, and attains to their full expression 
 only after long and diligent cultivation, under the auspices of. 
 
UNEDUCATED DEAF AND DUMB. 5-2& 
 
 minds trained by the aid of verbal language. The great dif- 
 ference apparent in the mental and moral condition of uneduca- 
 ted deaf-mutes, who were probably originally of equal mental 
 capacity, is due to the fact that the ignorance, stiffness, and 
 prejudices, of many of the connections and natural guardians 
 of deaf-mute children have operated to induce them to repel, 
 rather than encourage and aid, the instinctive efforts of the 
 deaf-mute to make his wants and wishes known by signs. 
 Hence it is that a deaf-mute child placed in such discourag- 
 ing circumstances begins to talk by signs much later, and de- 
 velops much less ability to communicate in that way than 
 another deaf-mute child who is surrounded by intelligent and 
 sympathizing friends, especially where there is already, in the 
 family, some knowledge of the mode of communicating with 
 the deaf by gestures and pantomime. Thus it is that, where 
 there are two or more deaf-mutes in the same family or neigh- 
 borhood, they usually possess a much more expanded dialect 
 of signs than that which a solitary mute may be able to de- 
 vise, and, as will be easily inferred, their social enjoyments 
 are much greater, and their intelligence, being so much ear- 
 lier and more constantly called into play, is much more fully, 
 developed. 
 
 In cases of extreme neglect, the deaf-mute may seem hardly 
 superior to an idiot. But the capacity for development still 
 remains, often to a somewhat late period of life, though, of 
 course, faculties left so long in^ total inaction become more 
 and more torpid with advancing years. 
 
 Cases of such extreme neglect are not now very common. 
 The magnetic sympathy of mind with kindred mind pene- 
 trates the barriers interposed by closing the usual channels 
 of sense, and it is seldom, indeed, that the deaf-mute is not 
 blessed with at least one or two companions who, finding the 
 ear-gate closed, will aid him to make more straight and easy 
 the path to communion of souls through one or more unac- 
 customed portals. 
 
 A few years since, there died in Scotland a very old man 
 bearing the name of James Mitchell, a name he himself had 
 never learned to utter, or write, or spell. He had never heard 
 
524 CRIMINAL RESPONSIBILITY OF THE 
 
 the voice — never looked on the face of a man or woman. Yet, 
 though deaf and bHnd from birth, he gave evident proofs of 
 the possession of human faculties, and by means of signs 
 could make his wants known with considerable particularity 
 to the one or two accustomed to communicate with him, and 
 could receive and follow out directions addressed to the sense 
 of tou«h to an extent which may seem incredible to those who 
 have not investigated the ability of the human soul to supply 
 senses that are wanting by the cultivation of those that re- 
 main. Had he been so fortunate as to meet a Howe or Hir- 
 zel in his plastic youth, he might have attained to a mental 
 and moral cultivation , perhaps not inferior to those which 
 have rendered Laura Bridgman and James Edward Meystic 
 the marvels of the world. 
 
 Ton will probably recollect that Blackstone, that oracle of 
 the English common law, while admitting that ordinary deaf- 
 mutes may manifest their wishes by signs, holds that one deaf, 
 dumb, and blind from birth, must necessarily be in a condi- 
 tion of an idiot. But those who have investigated such cases 
 as that of James Mitchell are aware that the germs of a sign- 
 language possessed by him are capable of being developed, as 
 was done in the case of Julia Brace at Hartford, so as to fur- 
 nish a medium for all necessary communications. Even with 
 the deaf, dumb, and blind, where there are human faculties, 
 the difficulties that prevent their development and cultivation 
 may leave the individual low down in the scale of intelli- 
 gence, but still far above the idiot or the mere animal. 
 
 It is painful to recall the judgments that in former times 
 have been passed oq the uneducated deaf-mute. There are 
 few but have heard of that man of saintly and self-sacrificing 
 benevolence, the Abb6 de I'Epee, who devoted his life and 
 his fortune to the melioration of the lot of the deaf and dumb, 
 and to whose zeal and labors it is in a large measure due that 
 education became possible to more than a favored few of that 
 afflicted class. This good man was accustomed to speak of 
 the uneducated deaf and dumb as being on a level with the 
 beasts that perish. His world-renowned disciple and succes- 
 sor. Abbe Sicard, declares that " a deaf person is a perfect 
 
UNEDUCATED DEAP AND DUMB. 525 
 
 cipher, a living automaton. He possesses not even that sure 
 instinct by which tbe animal creation is guided. He is 
 alone in Nature, with no possible exercise of his intellectual 
 faculties, which remain without action. As to morals, he 
 does not even suspect their existence. The moral world has 
 no being for him, and virtues and vices are without reality." 
 
 Other eminent teachers have put forth opinions equally 
 derogatory. M. Guyot, of Groningen, one of the names that 
 shine the brightest among the early benefactors of the deaf 
 and dumb, assures us that "this unfortunate class are by 
 Nature cut off from the exercise of reason ; they are, in every 
 respect, like infants, and, if left to themselves, will be so al- 
 ways, only that they possess greater strength, and Iheir pas- . 
 sions, unrestrained by rule or law, are more violent, assimila- 
 ting them rather to beasts than men." 
 
 An eminent German teacher, Herr Eschke, of Berlin, says : 
 " The deaf and dumb live only for themselves. They ac- 
 knowledge no social bond ; they have no notion of virtue. 
 Whatever they may do, we can impute their conduct to them, 
 neither for good nor for evil." 
 
 Another German teacher, Herr Caesar, of the school at 
 Leipsic, founded by the celebrated Heinicke, the father of the 
 German method of instruction, remarks that " the deaf and 
 dumb, indeed, possess the human form, but this is almost all 
 which they have in common with other men. The perpetual 
 sport of impressions made upon them by external things, and 
 of the passions which spring up in their own souls, they com- 
 prehend neither law nor duty, neither justice nor injustict?, 
 neither good nor evil ; virtue and vice are to them as if they 
 were not." 
 
 Dr. Barnard, to whom I am indebted for these citations, 
 very justly and pertinently remarks that many of these in- 
 structors brought to their task the prejudices once universal, 
 apd not yet extinct, which classed deaf-mutes among idiots. 
 They seem, moreover, to have been unconsciously influenced 
 by a desire to exaggerate the sad condition of the uneducated 
 mute, so as to make a stronger appeal to public sympathy, 
 a^id to set in a brighter light the success of their own labors 
 
526 CRIMINAL EESPONSIBILITY OF THE 
 
 by contrast with the dark condition of the being whose edu- 
 cation they had undertaken. 
 
 There are not wanting testimonies on the other side of the 
 question. I will here only cite that of M. Bebian, a younger 
 associate of Sicard, in the institution at Paris, and the most 
 able and accomplished teacher of deaf-mutes in his time. 
 His opinion is thus expressed: "Deaf and dumb persons 
 only differ from other men by the privation of a single sense. 
 They judge, they reason, they reflect. And, if education ex- 
 hibits them to us in the full exercise of intelligence, it is be- 
 cause the instructor has received them at the hand of Nature, 
 endowed with all the intellectual faculties." 
 
 To reconcile these conflicting opinions of eminent authori- 
 ties, we must recall the fact already stated, that there is . an 
 immense difference, both mental and moral, between a deaf- 
 mute who has been neglected, and possibly hidden away from 
 society as a family disgrace (a treatment not unusual in the 
 times before the zeal and success of De I'Epee made deaf- 
 mutes objects of curiosity, attention, and wonder), and a deaf- 
 mute who has been blessed with kind companions and has 
 been encouraged and aided to enlarge and improve his pan- 
 tomimic dialect. In a deaf-mute in the former condition, 
 even the germs of the rational and moral faculties are scarcely 
 manifested. In the latter, they have acquired a very con- 
 siderable but somewhat peculiar development. 
 
 In treating of the psychological condition of the unedu- 
 cated deaf-mute, we will take one of the average condition 
 of the class — neither a victim of total neglect in childhood, 
 nor the favored recipient of unusually kind, constant, and in- 
 telhgent care. And here we must distinguish between what 
 he is intellectually and what he is morally. By the effort to 
 communicate his most obvious wants, and to bring himself 
 into association with others, and by the reciprocal effect of 
 attention to these wants, and of response to his overtures, his 
 mind is quickened into activity. The signs that spring up in 
 his intercourse with his family may refer to all the more ob- 
 vious interests of their mutual every-day life. He may be 
 told to bring water from the spring, to call his father or 
 
DNEDUCATED DEAF AND DUMB. 527 
 
 brother, even to go to the store for certain articles. He may 
 be told that the family will go to church after sleeping once, 
 and that he will accompany them, or that he may ride to a 
 neighbor's, or that a friend is coming to see him, and he will 
 understand it all ; but the moment that there is an attempt 
 to communicate anything that has not been shown him, or 
 that, he has not seen, the effort fails. He obtains, if not a 
 confused, at least a very erroneous idea. He is, therefore, 
 left very much to his own conceptions. Tliat he has an idea 
 of cause and efifect, there is no doubt, from the recorded recol- 
 lections of deaf-mutes concerning their days of ignorance. 
 This idea is concrete in the sense that he seldom arrives at 
 general conclusions, his judgment being exercised on particu- 
 lar cases that have fallen under his observation, and which 
 he recognizes when they occur again. He knows that when 
 it is cold he can obtain warmth by putting wood in the stove 
 and lighting it ; that if he leaves a pitcher of water out-of- 
 doors on a cold night, it will freeze, and the pitcher will 
 break ; that if he goes out in the rain he will be wet ; that 
 if he falls he will be hurt. By observing an effect familiar 
 to him, he also knows what has produced it. He recalls past 
 scenes which have been a part of his experience, and he anti- 
 cipates what will happen on the morrow when a particular 
 pleasure is promised him. He has, therefore, the power of 
 memory, of analogy, and of imagination. He has, moreover, 
 the association of ideas ; for, in his efforts to communicate, 
 it is observed that one thing will suggest another, and, in his 
 silent communings with himself, he will have a succession of 
 thoughts, one arising from another. In all this exercise of 
 mind, except when he is actually conversing with others, he 
 does not employ any vehicle of thought, not even signs. 
 This is the invariable testimony of all deaf-mutes whom 
 I have questioned on this subject. Tliey think in images, 
 and .the signs they make grow out of and represent these 
 images. 
 
 Nor is this method of thought peculiar to deaf-mutes. 
 The dreams which visit us in the hours of sleep are nothing 
 more. The visions of inspired seers required careful subse- 
 
528 CRIMINAL RESPONSIBILITY OP THE 
 
 quent effort to portray them in words. The poet reproduces, 
 in the music of rhythm, the same ideal scenes that the painter 
 presents to us on the canvas, and the converse is true that 
 the painter is often the poet's best interpreter. It is thoughts 
 without words that have immortaHzed Handel and Mozart 
 and Beethoven, and given to their stirring symphonies a 
 power that eloquence often strives for in vain. The blast 
 of the bugle is a more inspiriting call than the captain's 
 " Forward ! " and the light streaming on the banner a more 
 cheering encouragement than any shouted words of hope. 
 The journalist gives us descriptions of scenes and incidents 
 whicli he lias viewed, and succeeds in conveying to us correct 
 conceptions, only by attaining that precision in the use of 
 Words which will enable the reader to form a distinct picture 
 in his mind. The historian must carry his imagination back 
 to the past, and, so to speak, lose himself in it, to convey to 
 our minds any just conception of what ivus. It is this prin- 
 ciple which gives such popularity to illustrated periodicals, 
 and which makes the actor an educator to a certain class of 
 minds. The etymological signification of the* word idea — 
 what is beheld — is of itself an indication that at least 
 a large class of our thoughts are but pictures in the 
 mind. 
 
 The expression, then, that we think in words, means nothing 
 more than that long practice has enabled us to associate 
 some form of words directly with our thoughts ; for the 
 thought is always antecedent to the expression. 
 
 In generalization, it is true, words greatly assist in keeping 
 before us a certain pivotal idea, but even this idea is but 
 a synthesis of many concretes instantaneously made in the 
 subtle alchemy of the mind. No triae thinker gives words 
 the prominence in his mental laboratory, both as writer and 
 student. He painfully endeavors to represent, by approxi- 
 mating symbols, thoughts to which he feels he can never give 
 the exa<5t expression, and he carefully analyzes, with patient 
 toil, the words which others have presented as their embodi- 
 ment of truth. ' 
 
 Educated deaf-mutes have furnished to us, by their recol- 
 
UNEDUCATED DEAF AND DUMB. 52f 
 
 lections of the past, much that throws light upon the amount 
 of knowledge they had acquired previous to the time when 
 they were brought under systematic instruction. 
 
 The details and results of a searching inquiry into this 
 subject are given in a paper on the " Notions of the Deaf and 
 Dumb, especially on Eeligious Subjects," contributed by my 
 venerable father, Dr. H. P. Peet, to the Bihliotheca Sacra of 
 July, 1855. To renew the investigation, for the sake of origi- 
 nality, even if I might hope to bring it to as complete and 
 satisfactory an issue, would be a work of supererogation. I, 
 therefore, avail myself of Dr. Peet's labors, so far as they 
 illustrate my present theme. 
 
 " Few, if any, of these unfortunate children," says Dr. 
 Peet, " seem ever to have reflected on the origin of the uni- 
 verse or the necessity of a first cause for the phenomena of 
 Nature. As one of them expresses it, they ' thought it was 
 natural ' that the world should be as it is. Some even 
 fancied that those whom they saw to be old had ever been so, 
 and that they themselves would ever remain children " (or at 
 least had not learned to anticipate a time of old age for them- 
 selves). " Those who had learned, by observation and testi- 
 mony, the general law of progress from infancy to old age, 
 supposed, if they attempted to think on the subject at all, 
 that there had been an endless series of generations. But 
 probably there are very few uninstructed d'eaf-mute children 
 of ten or twelve who have reached such a point of intellectual 
 development as even this idea implies. It is much easier to 
 give to a deaf-mute, by means of rude and imperfect signs, 
 the idea that there is some powerful being in the sky, than 
 to explain or even hint that this beirig made the world. 
 Hence it is that very few deaf-mutes have ever acquired, 
 either from their own reflections or from the imperfect signs 
 of their friends, any idea of the creation of the world, or even 
 of the plants and animals on its surface. Nor need this 
 surprise us, when we reflect that the most enlightened 
 nations of antiquity had not mastered this great idea. Ovid, 
 writing in the learned and polished era of Augustus, 
 expressed the popular belief of his time in the theory that 
 
 34 
 
530 CRIMINAL EESPONSIBILITY OF THE 
 
 all things were produced by the due union of heat and mois- 
 ture.* 
 
 " Many deaf-mutes, however, whether from their own medi- 
 tations, or from misunderstanding the signs of their friends, 
 have acquired childlike ideas respecting the causes of certain 
 natural phenomena ; such as rain, thunder, and the motions 
 of the heavenly bodies. Quite a number supposed that there 
 were men in the sky who, at certain times, made themselves 
 busy in pouring down water and firing guns. The notions of 
 deaf-mutes on such matters are often amusing enough ; but, 
 when not derived from a misconception of the signs of their 
 friends, are evidently formed in a spirit of analogy. . . An 
 English deaf-mute boy, observing that he could raise quite a 
 strong wind with his mother's bellows, naturally concluded 
 that the wind that sometimes blew off his cap in the street 
 came from the mouth of a gigantic bellows. Neither does it 
 seem that this belief was troubled by his. inability to find the 
 operator or the location of this bellows, for, to one whose 
 sphere of observation was so limited, and who could learn so 
 little of the world beyond it from the testimony of others, 
 the region beyond the circle of a few miles was as wholly 
 unknown, and as open to the occupation of imaginary giants 
 and engines and other figments of the imagination, as was 
 ever the land of the Cimmerians to the Greeks, or the Fairy 
 Land to the popular belief of the middle ages. Similar to 
 this was the notion of a girl, who seems to have imagined 
 that the plants which spring up annually in the fields and 
 woods were, like those in her mother's garden, planted and 
 watered by ' some women ' ; an infantile conception, in which, 
 however, may be traced the first germ of the old Greek 
 r.otions respecting nymphs and dryads. . . . 
 
 "One lad, gtruck by the similarity between flour falling 
 in a mill and snow falling from the clouds, concluded, that 
 snow was ground out of a mill in the sky. Others supposed 
 
 * ' Quippe ubi temperiem sumsere humorqnc calorque 
 Concipiunt ; et ab his orientur cuncta,duobus.' 
 
 Metamorphoses, I. 8. 
 
UNEDUCATED DEAF AND DUMB. 531 
 
 tbat the men with whom their imaginations, or the miscon- 
 ceptions of tlie signs of their friends, had peopled the sky, 
 brought up water from the rivers or ponds, and dashed it 
 about through holes in the heavenly vault. The more gen- 
 eral belief seems, however, to have been that there was a 
 great store of rain and snow in the sky. a matter no more to 
 be wondered at than the abundance of earth and water 
 below. Some suppose thunder and lightning to be the dis- 
 charge of gun's or cannon in the sky ; a notion the converse 
 of that well-known one of the savages, who, when they first 
 met in battle a European armed with a musket, believed they 
 had encountered a god armed with thunder and hghtning. 
 Others suy they believed lightning to be struck from the sky 
 by iron bars. They had doubtless observed the sparks struck 
 by iron from stone." 
 
 Thus it is that human nature repeats its phenomena, and 
 that deaf-mute children, left, by their inability to profit by 
 the ex-perience of their elders, in a prolonged infancy, exem- 
 plify, in their efforts to account for the phenomena of Nature, 
 many of the fancies that prevailed in the infancy of society. 
 The last idea cited bears a curious resemblance to the 
 Homeric conception of Jupiter hurling the thunder-bolts 
 forged by Vulcan. 
 
 In answer to the question whether they had any idea how 
 the sun, moon, and stars were upheld in the sky, the uniform 
 reply was that they had never thought about it. " It seems 
 as natural to children that those bodies should keep their 
 places above us as that the clouds or the sky itself should. 
 . . . The stars, in the view of many, were candles or 
 lamps lighted every evening for their own convenience by 
 the inhabitants of the sky, a notion very natural to those 
 who had had opportunities of watching the regular lighting 
 at night of the street lamps of a city. The moon was, to 
 most of those whose answers are before us, an object of 
 greater interest than any of the other heavenly bodies. One 
 imaginative girl fancied that she recognized in the moon the 
 pale but kind face of a deceased friend ; others thought that 
 she continually followed them and watched their actions." 
 
532 CRIMINAL EESPONSIBILITY OP THE 
 
 A few regarded the moon with fear, while others thought she 
 loved them. 
 
 Tiie answers to the question, " Had you any idea of ihe 
 existence of the aoul as something distinct from the body, 
 and which might be separated from it ? " were uniformly in 
 the negative. 
 
 " It is remarkable," says Dr. Peet, " that only one, out of 
 more than forty whose statements are before us, seems to 
 have imbibed any of the popular superstitions respecting 
 ghosts. If the misfortune of the deaf and dumb prevents 
 them from learning much truth, it often protects them in 
 most cases from receiving those early impressions of super- 
 stitious terror and folly which it is often so difficult to get 
 rid of in later life." 
 
 To the question, " What were your thoughts and feelings 
 on the subject of death ? Did you know that you must your- 
 selves die ? " Dr. Peets cites many interesting answers, which 
 my limits compel me to omit. Their uniform tenor was to 
 show that to the uneducated deaf-mute death is truly the 
 king of terrors. Those who had not been taught the con- 
 trary by the signs of their friends, cherished the belief that 
 they could evade its power and live on forever. " We have 
 heard of a lad," he says, " who, having observed that people 
 who died had taken medicine, resolved to abstain from medi- 
 cine as well as other hurtful- things, an example of prudence 
 worthy of general imitation." Another had entertained the 
 horrible suspicion that the doctor's business was to poison off 
 the sick ; reminding us that tribes of savages have sometimes 
 risen in fury and murdered missionaries, because the sick to 
 whom they had given medicine had died. 
 
 " So far as we can learn from their statements," says Dr. 
 Peet, " none of the deaf and dumb have originated the idea 
 of the existence of the soul after death, in a state separate 
 from the body, and the attempts (unskillfully) made for this 
 end, by many anxious parents, have at most given the child- 
 like idea that the dead are taken bodilj- from their graves, 
 or thrown bodily into a fire. The early impressions of cer- 
 tain German deaf-mutes, recorded by one of their number 
 
UNEDUCATED DEAF AND DUMB. 533 
 
 (O. F. Kruse, of Schleswig), were, that the bodies of the good 
 remain uncorrupted in the grave, where they only slumber to 
 be hereafter awakened, while those of the wicked rot and 
 become the prey of worms. It is easy to understand that 
 children who have never seen a corpse, except in the brief 
 interval between death and burial, may suppose that the dead 
 only sleep in the grave. One of the pupils in the New York 
 institution had been haunted by the terrible idea that, should 
 she die and be buried, she might awake in the grave, and 
 would be unable to call for help." 
 
 The general testimony of the deaf and dumb is, that before 
 instruction they never had any idea whatever of the object 
 of public or private worship, some probably taking the weekly 
 assemblage at church as being as much a matter of course as 
 any other periodical event ; while others, if they tried to 
 think about it, only added it to the long list of human actions 
 which, in their darkened state, were incomprehensible to 
 them. One or two seem to have made a shrewd guess at the 
 secret motives of some outward professors, when they con- 
 sidered public worship as a recreation, and family prayer as 
 a play ; and the idea of another, that people met to do honor 
 to the clergyman, might in some cases be pretty near the 
 fact. 
 
 "To the same purport," says Dr. Peet, in summing up, "on 
 all the points we have considered, is the testimony of many 
 other deaf-mutes both in Europe and America. Nor have 
 we ever learned of any well-authenticated case of a deaf-mute 
 who gained any correct ideas on religious subjects, by his own 
 unaided powers of observation and reflection. "We feel au- 
 thorized, by the evidence before us, to deny that any deaf- 
 mute has given evidence of having any innate or self-originat- 
 ing ideas of a supreme being, to whom love and obedience are 
 due, of a Creator, or of a Superintending Providence, of 
 spiritual existence, or of a future state of rewards and pun- 
 ishments." And this is the testimony of all who know the 
 deaf and dumo thoroughly. 
 
 Yet the readiness with which deaf-mutes, at an early stage 
 of their instruction, apprehend these great truths, the unques- 
 
534 CRIMINAL KESPONSIBILITY OF THE 
 
 tioning faith, with which they receive them, and the eagerness 
 with which they cling to the hope of immortality, and espe- 
 cially to the promise that in heaven the deaf shall hear and 
 the dumb join in the everlasting song of praise, conclusively 
 show that the Creator has implanted in these children of si- 
 lence a capacity for religious sentiment as fully as in their 
 brothers and sisters who hear. And though St. Paul says, 
 " Faith comes by hearing," he only meant to those who can 
 hear. Had he ever known an educated deaf-mute, a spectacle 
 which the world never saw till centuries after the great apostle 
 had finished his course, he would have admitted that faith 
 might come in the fullest measure through signs alone. 
 
 In a moral point of view the uneducated deaf-mute pre- 
 sents features of a still more interesting characte:^. The idea 
 of consequences he certainly imbibes whenever the govern- 
 ment exercised over him is unvarying whether for' good or for 
 evil. From certain acts he is deterred by his relation to cer- 
 tain persons, and to other acts he is in the sam^ way stimu- 
 lated. Under judicious control he comes to associate in his 
 mind a line of conduct with what produces pain, and another 
 line of conduct with what produces pleasure. Out of this 
 grows a sort of conscience which leads him to be sorrowful 
 when he does certain things, and to be glad when he does 
 the contrary. This conscience is entirely dependent upon the 
 parent or other person to whom he is subjected. Given a 
 good master, and he will be very, likely to have a kind of moral 
 sense that will be a safe guide in the life he leads, and will 
 bring about habits which will be useful to him hereafter. 
 Given a corrupt master, and the principle that in the former 
 case would have resulted in leading him to be good will as 
 certainly have the effect of making him bad. If the authority 
 exercised be tyrannical, certain natures will rebel, and the 
 most evil results will follow. If it be capricious, this moral 
 sense will never exist. If no authority whatever be exercised 
 at home, and he is left to his own devices, he will have as 
 many consciences as there are persons he fears or desires to 
 please. I have in my mind a boy now in the institution, 
 whose moral education has been a work of peculiar difficulty 
 
UNEDUCATED DEAF- AND DUMB. 535 
 
 Though not deficient in intellect, easily pleased, and easily 
 chagrined, no appeals to any of the higher motives seem to 
 have the least effect upon him, not even an appeal to the 
 affection borne him by a fond mother — alas ! too fond. So 
 far as emotion is concerned, he is not unlike Undine before 
 she was endowed with a human soul. 
 
 From this it may be inferred that, by his own unaided un- 
 informed intellect, and uninstructed nature, the uneducated 
 deaf-mute does not arrive at the idea of what is really right 
 or wrong, and is ignorant of general law, either human or 
 divine. He may be obedient, diligent, affectionate, habitu- 
 ally honest, but it will be owing to the influence of kind and 
 firm control and good example, not to the higher moral and 
 religious motives that are addressed to children who hear. 
 He is too often self-willed, passionate, prone to secret vices ; 
 but this unfavorable phase of character is generally charge- 
 able to early injudicious indulgence, the example of evil com- 
 panions, and the lack of those higher motives that are sup- 
 plied by religious education. He is suspiciovs, because he 
 has been the butt of thoughtless companions. He lacks self- 
 control, because he cannot, as well as others, appreciate the 
 consequences of his actions. He wishes, as well as those who 
 hear, to be loved and respected, and, like them, conceals his 
 evil practices from those who he knows would disapprove of 
 them. But he cannot distinguish between the approbation of 
 the good, and the mere complaisance of the unthinking; is 
 apt to mistake the laughter of the latter for applause ; and, 
 when he is thwarted in desires, the folly and criminality of 
 which he cannot appreciate, he is apt to think himself the 
 victim of an unjust discrimination and oppression. 
 
 The view that has been taken of the intellectual and moral 
 condition of the uneducated deaf-mute seems to settle the 
 question of his criminal responsibility. One who knows, and 
 can know no more of law than what he can infer from the 
 consequences which he has noticed are likely to follow from 
 specific acts, who often mistakes his impulses for principles, 
 and whose character is settled for him either by natural en- 
 dowment or by the peculiar circumstances in which he may 
 
536 \ CRIMINAL RESPONSIBILITY OF THE 
 
 be placed, can hardly be considered as accountable in any 
 ordinary sense of the term. Still, when he commits crime he 
 imperils the safety of the community, and violates the sanctity 
 of the law, whose interference must in some way be invoked. 
 
 The two great classes of crime, viz., crimes against prop- 
 erty and crimes against person, have given rise to proceed- 
 ings of a very curious and interesting character when the 
 criminal arraigned has been an uneducated deaf-mute. 
 
 Under the first head, the crime with him usually takes the 
 form of theft, never of fraud; though someiimes it occurs that 
 in the indulgence of anger or revenge he will injure property to 
 an extent that, if the offense were committed by a hearing per- 
 son, would subject him to the pains and penalties of the law. 
 
 In some cases occurring in France, the plea was success- 
 fully advanced that a deaf-mute was not morally or legally 
 responsible, and the criminals were dismissed, suffering only 
 the detention before trial, which they probably regarded as 
 the full punishment of their offense. They were perfectly 
 aware that they did wrong, for they hid themselves to steal, 
 and hid what they had stolen. This, in itself, it may be said, 
 hardly exhibits more proof of intellect than is displayed every 
 day by the sheep-stealing cur ; but the deaf-mute, however 
 uneducated, always display's a keen appreciation of the rights 
 of property — knows pretty clearly what belongs to himself, 
 and what belongs to others ; and, like children in general, is 
 easily moved to bursts of passion by any interference with 
 what he considers as belonging to himself. And that he 
 steals with contrivance and in secret is a proof that he is 
 aware that he will be punished if detected. Tor this class 
 of offenses, therefore, it would seem as though moral, if not 
 legal, responsibility could be attributed to him, though his 
 unfortunate condition should certainly move his judges to 
 leniency in pronouncing sentence upon him. And this is 
 the view that has prevailed in more recent cases. 
 
 There is, however, a different class of cases in which the 
 law comes into collision with the private rights of property. 
 For instance, in a recorded case, near Rodez, in France, offi- 
 cers were sent to a farm to seize property for debt. In so 
 
L'XEDUCATEI) DEAF AND DUMB. , 537 
 
 doing, they treated with roughness the peasant whom they 
 caught in the attempt to drive off his cow. The deaf-mute 
 son of the hitter, a vigorous youth of twenty, seeing, as he 
 thought, the rights of property violated, fell upon the aggress- 
 ors and soon put all three to flight. Summoned with his 
 father before the tribunals for this grave offense against the 
 law, he recognized in court his late antagonists, pointed them 
 out as robbers, and was witli difficulty restrained fEom renew- 
 ing the chastisement he had inflicted on them. He carried 
 with him tlie full sympathy of the public and of the jury, 
 and was acquitted on tlie ground that, being entirely ignorant 
 of the legal rights in the case, he had only obeyed one of the 
 flrst laws of Nature in defending his father and his property. 
 
 The class of crimes against the person presents greater 
 difficulty, mainly from the extreme punishment which the law 
 inflicts upon the highest of these crimes. If human law had 
 never assumed the high and solemn prerogative of taking 
 human life, the question of moral responsibility would not 
 have been invested with such interest and importance in a 
 legal point of view. A punishment that is irreparable, and, 
 if erroneous, is in itself a great and irreparable wrong, star- 
 tles the conscience, and leads it to demand indubitable au- 
 thority for a punishment that is in no wise reformatory, and 
 to welcome exceptions to the rule of life for life. This au- 
 thority, and this rule of exceptions, are supposed to be found 
 in the doctrine of moral responsibility and irresponsibility. 
 It is assumed that the man who takes human life with pre- 
 meditation, thereby forfeits his own, and knows beforehand 
 that he does so, whereas he who strikes a blow in the sudden 
 heat of passion, not intending to take life, is not responsible 
 to the full extent of life for life if the blow proves fatal. 
 
 Another class of exceptions is that of idiots and maniacs, 
 to whom guiding reason being denied by the act of God, they 
 are held not to be responsible for their criminal acts, though 
 the safety of society may demand that they be held in duress. 
 The same principle has iDeen naturally applied to the deaf aud 
 dumb ; who, by the Eoman code, being classed with idiots 
 and the demented, in all the points of civil disability, denied 
 
538 CEIMINAL RESPONSIBILITY OF THE 
 
 the control of their own property in life, and precluded from 
 altering its descent by will, were, by necessary consequence, 
 classed with them also in the matter of criminal responsibility 
 for criminal acts ; being also, like them, subject to legal re- 
 straint when dangerous. 
 
 The cases in which uneducated deaf-mutes have been ar- 
 raigned for murder are painfully numerous, considered in 
 proportion to the number of this class of persons. The able , 
 and exhaustive treatise of Dr. H. P. Peet, on " The Legal 
 Eights and Responsibilities of the Deaf and Dumb," gives 
 the particulars of nearly a dozen such cases taken from Euro- 
 pean reports and journals, to which have since been added 
 some in this country.* 
 
 The cases of Jane Campbell in Scotland, and of Esther 
 Dyson in England, uneducated deaf-mute women, each of 
 whom was charged with the murder of her illegitimate child, 
 can be found in " Beck's Medical Jurisprudence." In the 
 former case, after much argument and many doubts, the ma- 
 jority of the court decided that the prisoner was capable of 
 being put upon trial ; but her counsel interposed the objec- 
 tion that she could not be tried till it was explained to her 
 that she was at liberty to plead gailty or not ; and, as no 
 means could be found of explaining this to her, on this mere 
 point of technicality, the trial was stayed. In the latter case, 
 the prisoner was judged incapable of being tried and con- 
 ducting her defense, and was remanded to close custody, as 
 in the case of a lunatic, till the king's pleasure should be 
 known. 
 
 In neither of these cases was the decision based upon the 
 ground of want of moral responsibility, the difficulty lying in' 
 
 * This valuable monogram was printed in the proceedings of the Fourth 
 Convention of Instructors of the Deaf and Dumb, which is now very scarce. 
 A reprint for private circulation is also quite exhausted. An imperfect copy 
 appeared in one of the numbers of the American Journal of Insanity for the 
 year 1856. It is especially valuable to the legal profession, for the full de- 
 tails it gives of the conflicting opinions of many lawyers and judges both in 
 Europe and America ; among other points, on the ability of an uneducated 
 deaf-mute to make a contract or to give evidence in a court of justice, and 
 on the mode of ascertaining his wishes and taking his testimony. 
 
DNEDUCATED DEAF AND DUMB. 539 
 
 the inability of the prisoner to comply with the established 
 forms of legal proceedings ; but we have an interesting report 
 of a German case reproduced in the American Annals of the 
 Beaf and Dumb for January, 1871, in which the accused, 
 Johann Schmidt, an uneducated deaf and dumb shoemaker, 
 was held morally and legally unaccountable for having killed 
 his employer with a shoemaker's knife. It was shown that 
 the master was a man of violent and brutal character, and 
 that the deaf-mute felt, or professed to feel, in fear for his 
 own life. But his defense turned mainly on the question of 
 responsibility. His counsel urged that, "in the case of a 
 person fifteen years of age,* who is endowed with all his 
 faculties, the law doubts whether he is accountable ; but the 
 accused, in respect to intellectual development and to re- 
 sponsibility, is not to be compared with a hearing person fif- 
 teen years of age. The laws are not known to the accused, 
 and no one can be tried by laws which he does not know." 
 This reasoning had the efi'ect to secure the full acquittal of 
 the prisoner, who, however, seems to have been quite intelli- 
 gent for one of his class, and was even able to allege distinctly, 
 by signs, in his own defense, that, alarmed by the threaten- 
 ing gestures of his master, " dark night came upon his 
 mind." 
 
 Other cases have been recorded in wliich deaf-mutes have, 
 sometimes openly, sometimes lying in wait, murdered those 
 who have offended them. Their advocates generally put in 
 the plea of absence of responsibihty ; but in most cases, at 
 least those under French law, the plea has been overruled, 
 and the prisoner put upon his trial. His misfortune, however, 
 almost invariably moves the jury and the court, if he is found 
 guilty, to a recommendation of mercy. In France, where a 
 verdict of " guilty, with extenuating circumstances," has the 
 effect to save the life of the criminal, this verdict was ren- 
 dered in all the cases of deaf-mute murderers which we have 
 seen, though one or two were marked with circumstances of 
 unusual atrocity. The fearful ignorance and neglected state 
 
 *So in Germany. Under English common law, we think, fourteen. 
 
540 CRIMINAL EESPONSIBILITY OF THE 
 
 of some uneducated deaf-mutes are justly considered extenu- 
 ating circumstances when there are no others. 
 
 I will close this branch of the subject by a sketch of a re- 
 cent case which has especially attracted my attention, from 
 the fact that I was summoned to appear in it as an expert : 
 
 In Ulster County, in this State, a deaf-mute boy of mixed 
 parentage, African on his mother's side only, born in a poor- 
 house, instead of being sent, as he might have been, to an 
 institution where public provision had been made for the 
 education of himself as well as all his fellows in misfortune, 
 was bound, during his minority, to a wealthy farmer. Cer- 
 tainly a great wrong was inflicted on Levi Bodine (the name 
 given the boy by his mother, a name he himself never heard 
 or knew), in depriving him of the means of education. 
 And great wrong, sooner or later, generally entails severe 
 retribution. 
 
 The boy's employer was a respectable and intelligent man, 
 but did he ever seriously reflect that he had assumed a very 
 high and solemn i-esponsibility in taking charge of an immor- 
 tal soul — giving color and shape by his management, or want 
 of management, to the whole future of a lad whose strong 
 and passionate nature might, under skillful and judicious care, 
 have been trained to form an affectionate friend, a worthy 
 and useful citizen, and a sincere worshiper of the Most 
 High ? Unable to reason with his deaf-mute apprentice, or 
 appeal to his better feelings, his employer seems to have con- 
 tented himself with constant appeals to personal authority. 
 
 One day Mr. Hasbrouck insisted on making the deaf-mute 
 do some work which he did not wish to do. According to 
 the statement of the latter, made in signs to the writer and 
 one of his colleagues who accompanied him, the master used 
 violence to that end, and the mute, like a half-tamed lion, 
 roused to sudden fury, slew his supposed oppressor with an 
 axe, which he was using at the time. 
 
 We are told that great indignation was aroused in the 
 neighborhood by this murder of a respected citizen, on what 
 seemed slight provocation. The deaf-mute could not tell hia 
 side of the story, and there was no one to tell it for him. 
 
UNEDUCATED DEAF AND DUMB. 5il 
 
 When the deaf-mute homicide was arraigned before a jury 
 empaneled to test the condition of his mind, his counsel 
 presented the pleas of want of capacity to be tried, which 
 they found in their books had been presented in similar cases 
 in England. 
 
 At the opening of the trial, the prisoner's counsel claimed 
 that he was unable to communicate with his client in any 
 way ; that it was impossible to convey to his mind the differ- 
 ent degrees of homicide ; that there was no way to inform 
 him of his right to challenge jurors ; that he could not be 
 sworn in his own behalf, and that the law provided that no 
 man should be tried who was not, at the time of the trial, 
 able to understand the details of the case and prepare a suit- 
 able defense. 
 
 The district attorney, on the other hand, said that the 
 prisoner's sanity was undisputed ; there was no malformation 
 of the brain ; the neighbors and acquaintances of the accused 
 were able to communicate with him by signs and make them- 
 selves understood. After hearing the arguments and the 
 testimony of neighbors and the experts. Judge Hogeboom 
 stopped the proceedings, expressing the opinion that it was 
 of no use to send the case to a jury, and that, before the pris- 
 oner could be tried, he should be instructed. The prisoner 
 was remanded to the jail, but the sheriff took no pains to 
 carry out the recommendation of the judge, perhaps from 
 the conviction that no teacher could be found to instruct the 
 poor deaf-mute, merely to prepare him for the gallows. 
 
 At a subsequent term of the court, the case was again 
 brought up for trial, this time before Judge Boardman. The 
 jury disagreed, and Bodine was left in jail. But, being quite 
 docile and harmless when kindly treated, and showing no 
 disposition to escape, as he had no home to go to, he was 
 soon allowed liberty to go out by day, returning to his prison 
 quarters at night. 
 
 There is not the least probability that he will again be 
 brought up for trial. Meantime, he is left wholly without 
 instruction, even the simplest religious instruction, for the 
 rules of the institution very properly preclude any one from 
 
Oi2 CRIMINAL EESPONSIBILITY OF THE 
 
 being an inmate who has been guilty of serious crime against 
 the person, and there is no one in the neighborhood of 
 the jail qualified to undertake the instruction of a deaf- 
 mute. 
 
 This recent case in our own vicinity, added to many more 
 remote in time and place, points to conclusions which cannot 
 be evaded. One is the duty which society owes to itself, not 
 only of providing for the education of all deaf-mutes, but of 
 making it imperative upon the parent or guardian, in each 
 case, to secure to the child laboring under this misfortune the 
 benefits within his reach. To him it implies vastly more than 
 the same term used iu connection with the hearing child, for 
 the latter can never be said to be uneducated in the sense 
 in which the deaf-mute is uneducated. To the hearing child 
 every word spoken in his presence is a means of intellectual 
 development. Every person, literate or illitei-ate, with whom 
 he comes in contact, is for the time his conscious or uncon- 
 scious teacher. In fact, school gives him so small a portion of 
 the knowledge he possesses that it may be considered rather 
 the regulator than the source of his attainments. In learning 
 to read and write he simply acquires the ability to recognize 
 and express, in alphabetical forms, a language he already 
 knows ; and in studying the other ordinary branches, if edu- 
 cated, he but learns a few principles which account for facts 
 of which he is often already cognisant. And, if he never went 
 to school, he would, under the influences prevailing in a good 
 home or a virtuous and intelligent community, learn all that 
 was necessary to enable liim to lead a life of rectitude here, 
 and secure the hope of salvation hereafter. To the deaf-mute, 
 however, education means everything ; it means home, and 
 hope, and happiness. It means self-control and virtue. It 
 means the full and free exercise of all the rights, immunities, 
 and privileges which belong to humanity. Understanding 
 and acknowledging his obligations to society and to God, he 
 becomes amenable to law ; and, if placed in circumstances in 
 which his character or his conduct comes under the review 
 of the ministers of justice, he is able, either by direct verbal 
 communication, or by signs in which he can giv« full expres- 
 
DNEDUGATED DEAF AND DUMB. 543 
 
 sion to his thouglit through a skillful interpreter, to conduct 
 his defense and obtain all the consideration that is his due. 
 
 The State of New York has made full provision for the in- 
 struction of all deaf-mutes within its limits between the ages 
 of six and twenty-five, and grants to those who commence at 
 the earlier age suflScient time to make attainments which, 
 when the intelligence of the individual is equal to it, fall little 
 if at all short of those made by students in our higher semi- 
 naries of learning. 
 
 "With a liberality, too, unequaled in this country, it has, in 
 making this provision, given a choice of methbd and even of 
 religion. 
 
 As the law now stands, all officers, charged with the care 
 of those who, on account of poverty, are supported at the 
 public expense, are obliged to place the deaf-mutes under 
 their care at some one of the institutions for this class which 
 the State has recognized. I would, however, that it should 
 go further, and make it the duty of certain designated public 
 officers to seek out all uneducated deaf-mutes and require 
 that they be educated. 
 
 Another of the conclusions to which we are led is, that the 
 treatment of criminal cases, in which a deaf-mute is defend- 
 ant, should be settled by statute. 
 
 In every case that now occurs, the prosecution argues, 
 from the intelligence the deaf-mute manifests in various ways, 
 stich as his ability to communicate by signs to a certain 
 extent, or to obey given directions, and also -from the indica- 
 tions he gives of consciousness of guilt, that he has moral and 
 legal responsibility, and therefore should be brought to trial 
 and punishment. The defense argues, on the contrary, that 
 his condition as an uneducated deaf-mute, if acknowledged, 
 being prima facie evidence of insanity within the meaning of 
 the law, he cannot be put upon trial even to ascertain his men- 
 tal condition. If the court fails to sustain the defense in its 
 assumption, there follows a long argument as to which side 
 must bear the burden of proof, in which so much doubt is 
 raised by conflicting opinions that, as occurred in the case of 
 Levi Bodine, in which two juries were empaneled under 
 
544 CRIMINAL RESPONSIBILITY OF THE 
 
 different judges, one judge decides that it rests with the 
 prosecution, and the other that it rests with the defense. 
 
 As it seems to me, botli the prosecution and the defense are 
 in error : tlie former, as to the fact that an uneducated deaf- 
 mute can be considered responsible in any such sense that 
 the law may visit his act with punitive treatment; the other, 
 that he is to be classed with either the idiot or insane. Men- 
 tally and morally he is much more in the condition of a child, 
 though his physical powers may be those of a man. And yet 
 it may be conceived that both sides can base, if not nound, at 
 least plausible arguments on the law as it stands. Whether 
 this be so or not, the judge finds it difficult to expound the 
 law in such a manner as to make it clear to the jury ; and the 
 jury, deliberating on a case which is novel in their experience, 
 either yield to sympathies which are touched by the helpless 
 condition of the prisoner, or terminate the case by a disagree- 
 ment in their verdict. 
 
 Law is sustained by sanctions. But sanctions are worth- 
 less in the case of a human being who can never learn any- 
 thing concerning them. An uneducated deaf-mute might 
 come under the condemnation of the law and be punished, 
 and yet his case could have no effect upon any other unedu- 
 cated deaf-mute in deterring him from the commission of 
 crime. 
 
 It would be a very simple and easy rule of law that the 
 guilt or innocence of an uneducated deaf-mute should be es- 
 tablished so as to amoiant to a strong probability, by testi- 
 mony entirely independent of himself, and that, if he be guiltj', 
 he should be provided with a place of detention near some 
 institution for the deaf and dumb, and receive instruction 
 daily from such teachers as could be detailed therefrom ; that, 
 if innocent, he should be sent to the institution itself to par- 
 ticipate in its benefits ; and that, in either case, so soon as he 
 was fitted by education to take his part in the great drama of 
 life, he should be left free to do so, untrammeled by the fact 
 that, at a time when he had not reached a point where he 
 could be held morally and legally responsible, he had been 
 brought face to face with violated law. 
 
UNEDUCATED DEAF AND DUMB. 545 
 
 If this distinguished Society be induced, by the arguments 
 that have been presented this evening, to urge upon the Legis- 
 lature the enactment of such a statute, a practical result will 
 have been secured of more value than the interest which nec- 
 essarily attaches to the discussion of mental phenomena, 
 however striking or peculiar. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 CONSTITUTION AND BY-LAWS 
 
 OP THE 
 
 MEDICO-LEa^L SOCIETY. 
 
 OOIJTSTITXJIIO]^. 
 
 Article I. 
 
 This Association shall be known as the New York Medico- 
 Legal Society. 
 
 Article II. 
 
 Its object shall be the advancement of the science of Medi- 
 cal Jurisprudence. 
 
 Aeticle III. 
 
 There shall be three classes of members, viz., Resident, 
 Corresponding, and Honorary. Such persons only as are in 
 good standing in either the medical or legal profession shall 
 be eligible to membership. Physicians and Lawyers, who 
 have been resident members, but who have removed from the 
 city ; any person who shall, by medico-legal or medical or 
 legal contributions to the Society, or by a joint certificate 
 of three resident members, furnish evidence of eminence in 
 their professions, are ehgible to corresponding member- 
 ship. Physicians and lawyers of recognized eminence in 
 their respective professions, whether resident or non-resident, 
 are eligible to honorary membership. The number of honor- 
 ary members shall be limited to twenty, and be equally divided 
 between the two professions. 
 
APPENDIX. 547 
 
 Article IV. 
 
 Eesident members only shall be eligible to office and 
 entitled to vote ; all other rights and privileges shall be 
 equally enjoyed. 
 
 Article V. 
 
 The officers shall be a President, two Vice-Presidents, styled 
 First and Second ; Recording Secretary, Corresponding Secre- 
 tary, Treasurer, Librarian, Curator, and Pathologist and 
 Chemist. 
 
 Article VT. 
 
 The President, or, in his absence, the Vice-Presidents, in 
 their order, or, in their absence, a chairman pro tempore, shall 
 preside and perform such other acts as are customary for pre- 
 siding officers. The Eecording Secretary shall keep the 
 minutes of the proceedings of the meetings of the Society 
 and of the Executive Committee ; notify officers and mem- 
 bers of committees of their elections or appointments, and 
 members-elect of their election ; certify official acts ; and 
 procure and sign, with the President, certificates of member- 
 ship. The Assistant Recording Secretary shaU. keep a list of 
 the resident members, issue the notices of the meetings, and, 
 in the absence of the Secretary, perform his duties. The Cor- 
 responding Secretary shall conduct all the correspondence of 
 the Society, except that with resident members. The Treas- 
 urer shall have power to employ persons, at the expense of 
 the Society, to collect dues ; shall have charge of all the 
 money belonging to the Society, pay all its expenses by and 
 with consent and approval of the Executive Committee ; and 
 shall present an accoimt of the financial condition of the Soci- 
 ety at its anniversary meetings, together with such suggestions 
 for assessments and further expenditures as he may deem 
 proper. The Librarian shall preserve and hold accessible to 
 the members of the Society all its written or printed contribu- 
 tions. The Curator shall, when he may deem it necessary, 
 
548 APPENDIX. 
 
 preserve, at the expense of the Society, pathplogical specimens 
 offered to it, and prepare them for exhibition ; and he shall 
 subsequently take such measures as the Executive Committee 
 may approve to permanently preserve specimens possessing 
 medico-legal value. 
 
 Aeticle VII. 
 
 The officers of the Society shall constitute an Executive 
 Committee, to whom shall be referred all affairs of business 
 except those prescribed for the Trustees by the laws of the 
 State, 
 
 Aeticle VIIL 
 
 Proposed amendments to this Constitution shall be made 
 in writing at a stated meeting, and referred to the Execiitive 
 Committee, who shall report upon them within three months. 
 If approved by the committee, two-thirds of all the votes cast 
 at a stated meeting shall be sufficient for the adoption of the 
 amendments. 
 
 BY-LAWS. 
 
 Article I. 
 
 Section 1. The stated meetings of the Society shall be held 
 on the second Thursday of every month, unless otherwise 
 ordered by the Society, and special meetings at the time fixed 
 by vote of the Society. 
 
 Sec. 2. Stated meetings shall begin at 8 p. m., or as soon 
 thereafter as a quorum is assembled, and special meetings at 
 the hour designated in their order. 
 
 Sec. 3. Ten resident members shall constitute a quorum 
 for business. 
 
 Sec. 4. Five members of the Executive Committee shall 
 constitute a quorum. 
 
APPENDIX. 549 
 
 Article II. 
 
 ADMISSION OF MEMBEES. 
 
 Section 1. The names of candidates shall first be presented 
 to the Executive Committee. If reported upon faTorably by 
 said committee, they shall be balloted for at the time the 
 report is made, or at some subsequent meeting. Two- thirds 
 of the votes cast shall be necessary for an election. 
 
 Sec. 2. Every resident member-elect shall sign the Consti- 
 tution within three months after his election, and, in default 
 thereof, said election shall be deemed void, unless a satisfac- 
 tory excuse be given. 
 
 Article III. 
 
 Section 1. Each resident member shall pay an initiation 
 fee of five doUars, which, with signing the Constitution, shall 
 entitle him to a certificate of membership. 
 
 Sec. 2. There shall be an annual assessment of one doUar, 
 unless otherwise regulated by the Society. But any member 
 may commute such annual assessment by the payment of 
 twenty-five doUars at one time, which excuses him from annual 
 assessments for hfe, though he shall still be Uable for his quota 
 as a member for any extraordinary assessment the Society 
 may think proper to order. 
 
 Sec. 3. Any resident member who shall neglect to pay his 
 dues or assessments for six months shall be notified of the fact 
 by the Treasurer ; and should he for three months after such 
 notice neglect or refuse to pay, his name may be stricken from 
 the roll of members, at the discretion of the Finance Commit- 
 tee, which shall consist of the President, Eecording Secretary 
 and Treasurer, to whom all questions of indebtedness to the 
 Society shall be referred. 
 
 Sec. 4. The ethical rules of the Society shall be the same 
 as those governing the medical profession generally, and those 
 adopted by the Legal Society of New York. The charges 
 against members shall be made in writing to the Executive 
 Committee, who, after due examination into such charges, 
 may acquit, admonish, suspend, or expel the accused from the 
 Society, as they may think proper. 
 
550 appendix. 
 
 Article IV. 
 
 All papers read before the Society shall be referred to the 
 Publishing Committee, consisting of the President, Becording 
 Secretary and Librarian. 
 
 Article V. 
 
 The annual election of officers shall be held on the second 
 Thursday of October, the nominations having been made at 
 the preceding meeting, and announced in the notices for the 
 anniversary meeting. 
 
 Vacancies may be filled at any time by an especial election, 
 the nominations to fill them having been made and announced 
 in the same manner as required for the annual elections. 
 
 Article VI. 
 
 ORDER OF BUSINESS. 
 
 At the meetings the following shall be the order of busiaess : 
 
 1. Beading minutes of preceding meeting. 
 
 2. Beport of autopsies and exhibition of specimens. 
 
 3. Beport of Special Committees. 
 
 4. Beport of Executive Committee, and election of proposed 
 members. 
 
 5. Paper of the evening and discussion thereon ; but, at 
 the anniversary meeting, election of officers. 
 
 6. New or unfinished business. 
 
 Article VII. 
 
 The report of autopsies and presentation of specimens shall 
 be as brief as possible. The language of the reporter or 
 exhibitor shaU be free from technicalities, and made intelli- 
 gible for non-medical members. 
 
 Article VIII. 
 
 These By-laws may be suspended or amended. Two-thirds 
 of all the votes cast at a stated meeting shall be sufficient to sus- 
 pend them. For their amendment the same rule and same 
 vote shall be required as for amendments of the Constitution. 
 
INDEX, 
 
 PAGE 
 
 tklcoholiecQ, 
 
 Responsibility of Inebriates 374-402 
 
 (See Drunliards and Metbomania.) 
 Burr, George, Paper by : 
 Medico-Legal Notes on the Case 
 of Edward H. Euloff ; with Ob- 
 servations npon, and Measure- 
 ments of, bis Cranium, Brain, 
 
 etc.... ' 489-B15 
 
 By-Laws of N. T. Medico-Legal So- 
 ciety 548 
 
 Oampbell, Judge J. V., Paper by : 
 Does the Law deal unfairly with 
 
 Questions of Insanity 334-249 
 
 Chaveau, I. F. On the Stennecke- 
 
 Schceppe case 124-134 
 
 Chloroform to Facilitate Robbery 298-317 
 
 Committee, Report of, in Stennecke- 
 
 Schoeppe case 124-134 
 
 Confession as Evidence of Guilt 318-831 
 
 Constitution of N. Y. Medico-Legal 
 
 Society 546 
 
 Criminal Responsibility, Methoma- 
 
 nia.etc 38-60 
 
 ^Deaf and Dumb 516-545 
 
 Epilepsy 444-467 
 
 Clymer, Meredith, Paper by: 
 The Legitimate Influence of Epi 
 lepsy upon Criminal Responei- 
 
 bihty 444-467 
 
 Deaf and Dumb. Physical Status, 
 
 and Criminal Responsibility of 516-545 
 
 De Marmon, Palael, Paper by : 
 Medico-Legal Considerations upon 
 Alcoholism and the Moral and 
 Criminal Responsibility of Ine- 
 briates 374-402 
 
 Drunliards, Habitual, Laws Relating 
 
 to 93-113 
 
 (See Alcoholism, and Intemper- 
 ance.) 
 Epilepsy and Criminal Responsibil- 
 ity 444-467 
 
 Evidence in the Stennecke-Schceppe 
 
 case 121-134 
 
 Confession as 318-331 
 
 ^Expert 403^43 
 
 FASI 
 
 Experts. Medical Sphere, Rights and 
 Obligations of 40.3-443 
 
 Gates Will, Case of 204-233 
 
 Hammond, William A., Papers by : 
 A Medico-Legal Study of the Case 
 
 of Daniel McParland 177-203 
 
 The Medico-Legal Value of Con- 
 fession as an Evidence of Guilt.. 318-331 
 
 Hereditary Diseases unattended by 
 Mental Aberration 74-91 
 
 Hereditary Influence in Mental Dis- 
 eases 146-169 
 
 History of N. Y. Medico-Legal So- 
 ciety iii-xiii 
 
 Inebriate Asylums, Laws Relating 
 to 92-113 
 
 Insanity. 
 
 McParland case 177-203 
 
 Gates Will case 204-233 
 
 Law Relating to 234-240 
 
 Plea of 250-275 
 
 Suggestion on 467-488 
 
 (See Mental Aberration and Luna- 
 tics.) 
 
 Intemperance and Suicide 135-145 
 
 (See Alcoholism and Methomania.) 
 
 Lee, Charles A., Papers by : 
 A Medico-Legal Opinion relative 
 
 to the Sanity of Carlton Gates... 204-233 
 Medico -Legal Suggestions on In- 
 sanity 407-488 
 
 Life Insurance, Suicide and Intem- 
 perance, in 1-37 
 
 1.35-145 
 
 Lunatics, Sequestration of the Per- 
 sons of 332-373 
 
 Medico-Legal Society of N. Y. 
 
 By-Laws of 548 
 
 Constitution of 546 
 
 History of iii-xiil 
 
 Medicine, Sects in 2T6-297 
 
 Mental Aberration 74-91 
 
 Testamentary Capacity 114-123 
 
 (See Insanity and Lunatics.) 
 
 Mental Disease 74-91 
 
 114 1-23 
 
 146-1(19 
 
552 
 
 nsDl&. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Kental Unsoundness as Affecting 
 
 Testameutary Capacity 114-123 
 
 Uetbomania, Influence of, upon Busi- 
 ness and Criminal Responsibility. . 38-60 
 
 61-73 
 
 (See Alcoliolism.) 
 
 McFarland, Case of 177-203 
 
 Morton, J. C, On Stennecke-Schoeppe 
 
 case 124-134 
 
 Nervous System. Hereditary Die- 
 eases of, unattended by Mental 
 
 Aberration . , 74-91 
 
 D'Dea, James J., Papers by : 
 
 Metbomania 61-73 
 
 Hereditary Influence in Mental 
 
 Diseases 146-169 
 
 The Plea of Insanity in Criminal 
 
 Cases 250-275 
 
 The Spbere, Bigbts and Obliga- 
 tions of Medical Experts 403-443 
 
 ?arsons, E. L., Paper by: 
 Suggestions Relative to tbe Seques- 
 tration of the Person of Alleged 
 
 Lunatics 332-373 
 
 Peet, Isaac Lewis. Paper by : 
 The Physical Status and Criminal 
 Responsibility of the Totally CTn- 
 
 educatedDeaf and Dumb 516-545 
 
 Peters, J. 0. Paper by : 
 
 On Sects In Medicine 276-297 
 
 Poison. Analysis of the Evidence 
 
 in the Stennecke Case 124-134 
 
 Poisons, Law in Reference to the 
 
 sale of 170-176 
 
 Rogers, Stephen. Papers by : 
 The Influence of Metbomania upon 
 
 PASS 
 
 Business and Criminal Eeeponsi- 
 
 bility 38-60 
 
 Hereditary Diseases of the Ner 
 vous System unattended by Men- 
 tal Aberration 74-91 
 
 On Stennecke-Schoeppe Case 124-134 
 
 Can Chloroform be Used to Facili- 
 tate Robbery? 298-317 
 
 Robbery by Chloroform 298-317 
 
 Rnloff Case 489-615 
 
 Schoeppe-Stennecke, Case of 121-134 
 
 Sects in Medicine 276 297 
 
 Sell, E. H. M. 
 
 On Stennecke-Schoeppe Case 124-134 
 
 Shrady, Jacob. Papers by : 
 Mental Unsoundness, as Affecting 
 
 Testamentary Capacity 114-123 
 
 On Stennecke-Schoeppe Case 124-134 
 
 Shrady, William. Papers by: 
 The Law in Reference to Suicide 
 and Intemperance in Life Insur- 
 ance 1-87 
 
 Laws Relating to Inebriate Asy- 
 lums and Habitual Drunkards.. S2-11S 
 
 Stennecke-Schceppe, Case of 124-134 
 
 Suicide and Intemperance 1-37 
 
 135-145 
 
 Teller, S. Paper by : 
 Medical Points in regard to tbe Sui- 
 cide and Intemperance Provisos 
 
 of Life Insurance Policies 135-145 
 
 Testamentary Capacity 114-123 
 
 Gates Will Case 204-238 
 
 Tillou, Francis. Paper by ; 
 The Law in Reference to the Sale 
 of Poisons by Druggists 170-176