Hallucinations.

  • Alexandre Jacques François Brière de Boismont
Date:
1853
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Hallucinations. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

    513/566 page 505
    In each of the cases just cited, the cause of suicide was evident. But it is not always thus; if the clerk had cut the throat of his wife and had then drowned himself, it i3 probable this bloody tragedy would have been attributed to any but the real motives. Again, suicide may be occasioned by a voice apparently from the street, calling to the hallucinated ; he, hastening to obey the call, will be precipitated from the window, under the idea that he is walking out of his room. A madman imagines that he sees a bright chariot waiting to transport him to heaven ; he opens his window, walks quietly out to mount the chariot, and falls on the pavement. Suicide often occurs in maniacal delirium and acute delirium, which accompany febrile affections. When it has been possible to discover the origin of these catastrophes, it has constantly been found that they were the result of hallucinations and illu- sions, which engendered panic terrors; and that there are, as regards motives, fewer suicides than attempts, induced by a sentiment of self-preservation, to escape from chimerical dangers. I remember, says Marc, a patient attacked with typhus, when that disease raged in the city, who would have thrown himself from the window had he not been prevented. When this deli- rium was reduced, he recollected perfectly that he thought him- self pursued by a horrible phantom, from which he was endeav- oring to escape.* If hallucinations be a cause of suicide, they no less fre- quently occasion attempts against the lives of others. Sad and melancholy ideas, and fear, concur singularly in producing these acts. The fear of the police and of the pursuit of enemies, has in a great measure taken the place of the dread of the devil and of spirits; although, for several years past, demonomania has again dawned on the horizon. Nothing is more common than to be consulted on the cases of madmen who think themselves a mark for persecution, and whose death is being sought for by poisoning or assassination. I was called to attend a lady, who appeared in full possession of her reason. She said to me, with the greatest coolness: Sir, eight days since, in going to mass, I perceived that I was followed by ill-looking men. On leaving * Mare, de la Folic considcW-e dans pes rapports avec lcs questions medico-jadiciaires, 2 vol. 8vo. Paris, 1840, t. ii. p. 150.
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