Medico-legal reflections on the trial of Daniel M'Naughten, for the murder of Mr. Drummond : with remarks on the different forms of insanity, and the irresponsibility of the insane / by James George Davey ; with an appendix.

Date:
1843
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medico-legal reflections on the trial of Daniel M'Naughten, for the murder of Mr. Drummond : with remarks on the different forms of insanity, and the irresponsibility of the insane / by James George Davey ; with an appendix. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    “ organs” of the brain are equally disposed, and the brain wholly under the influence of diseased action, there will be no incoherence, and vice versa. Mania is not always associated with incoherence, as is too generally believed. It is a symptom of mental derange- ment, which when occurring in mania, so called, or violent mad- ness, must be regarded as the consequence of a too rapid succes- sion of the thoughts and feelings: and when associated with de- mentia, as it oftentimes is, as an indication of a want of power in the parts or organs of the brain originating such thoughts and feelings, respectively, to sustain more than a temporary effort; upon pre- cisely the same principle that an enfeebled muscle is but competent to a slight physical action. Many patients, when labouring under general mania, display yet a more excited state of one faculty or propensity than the remainder. One will steal, another will be very mirthful, another very destructive, another very proud, &c., &c. In these cases, the preponderating organs impart the peculiar character to the disease. Mania is not infrequently succeeded by a state of mind which characterizes Monomania: the disease then passes from an acute into a chronic form, and, as in health, the larger organs pre- serve the ascendancy. Monomania, or “partial insanity,” so called, is however more generally of another kind. It is regarded as a disease in which some particular illusion takes so fast a hold of the patient as to pervert his whole nature, and prostrate his every faculty, intellectual and moral, which may be in any way involved in this same illusion. Moral Insanity, of which what is called Melancholia, must be I think regarded as a variety, is a form of disease which comprises endless modifications, and which in eveiy instance depend on the number and extent of the moral organs of the brain, which may happen to be affected ; or what is the same thing, on the extent and degree of organic change of the membranes covering the superior surface of the brain, and in contact with them. In what is recognised as Moral Insanity, there is observed a derangement of the sen- timents and affections, and which may involve one only, or many of the moral relations of our nature. The long continuance of a disorder of the active feelings, wherein an entirely artificial and morbid relationship would seem to have sprung up between the external senses and surrounding objects, in spite of the integrity of the intellectual powers, will sometimes as it were unintentionally on the part of the patient, engender an unconquerable indulgence, in some imaginary cause of so much mental uneasiness—of which
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