The lunacy acts : containing all the statutes relating to private lunatics, pauper lunatics, criminal lunatics, commissions of lunacy, public and private asylums, and the commissioners in lunacy with an introductory commentary, notes to the statutes, including references to decided cases, and a copious index / by Danby P. Fry.

  • United Kingdom
Date:
1877
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The lunacy acts : containing all the statutes relating to private lunatics, pauper lunatics, criminal lunatics, commissions of lunacy, public and private asylums, and the commissioners in lunacy with an introductory commentary, notes to the statutes, including references to decided cases, and a copious index / by Danby P. Fry. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    19/790 (page 5)
    the change of the moon. So says Blackstone; though this last proposition forms no part of the legal defini- tion, but is merely a popular opinion, which explains the etymology of the word. But, he adds, |' under the general name of non compos mentis, which Sir Edward Coke (i Inst. 246) says is the most legal name, are comprised not only lunatics, but persons under frenzies, or who lose their intellects by disease; those that grow deaf, dumb, and blind, not being born so; or such, in short, as are judged by the Court of Chancery incapable of conducting their own affairs. Unthrifts, or Prodigals^—Y^2iNmg noted the legal distinction between idiots and lunatics, and the modes of procedure with regard to them, Blackstone adds:— In this care of idiots and lunatics the civil law agrees with ours, by assigning them tutors to protect their persons, and curators to manage their estates. But, in another instance, the Roman law goes much beyond the English. For if a man by notorious pro- digality was in danger of wasting his estate, he was looked upon as non covipos, and committed to the care of curators or tutors by the praetor, {c) And by the laws of Solon such prodigals were branded with perpetual infamy. But with us, when a man, on an inquest of idiocy, hath been returned an unthrift and not an idiot, no farther proceedings have been had [Bro. Abr. tit. Idiot. 4]. And the propriety of the practice itself seems to be very questionable. It was, doubtless, an excellent method of benefiting the individual, and of preserving estates in families; but it hardly seems calculated for the genius of a free nation who claim and exercise the liberty of using their own property (c) The following arc the provisions of the Roman law upon the subject, as stated in the Institutes of Justinian, lib. I, tit. 23:— 3. Furiosi quoque ct prodigi, licet majorcs viginti quinque annis sint, tamen in curatione sunt adgnatorum ex lege Duodecini-Tabulanim. •Sed solent KomEC prafectus urbi vel prjctor, et in provinciis pracsides, ex inquisitione eis curatores dare. 4. Sed et mente captis, et surdis et muti.s, et qui perpetuo morbo laborant, quia rebus suis superesse non possunt, curatores dandi sunt.