Popular errors on the subject of insanity examined and exposed / by James F. Foulis.

  • James Foulis Duncan
Date:
1853
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Popular errors on the subject of insanity examined and exposed / by James F. Foulis. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    trary, the greater amount of such kind of information that can be laid before the jury the better ; but it is a totally different thing when they are summoned for the purpose of expressing an opinion upon his state. This is altogether beyond their province, and it is a duty which they are evidently not qualified to per- form. Commonly such persons are called to give ne- gative testimony that they never saw him do or say a foohsh thing, or one that could be considered as the act of an insane person, and from the absence of di- rect proof of this kind they infer that he must be in the full possession of his rational senses. When or- dinary observers are able to testify to particular acts having the character of insanity stamped upon them, they are seldom, if ever, asked to state the opinion they have formed as to the condition of the person's mind. But the case is different when they are called upon, from the absence of direct proof, to establish his sanity. Even admitting their fitness to express an opinion on such a subject, it is plain that a con- clusion of this nature could only be warranted on the hypothesis that the operations of the brain, when labouring under disease, necessarily betray themselves by plain and pialpable symptoms. Were this the case, everj- individual who should come in contact with an insane person could not fail to recognise his state, and trials to determine the fact would cease to be necessar)-. ]3ut it requires very little proof to show that the postulate in this hypothesis is entirely destitute of foundation. It is, indeed, true, tiiat in a large pro})ortion of cases the symptoms are suffi- ciently distinct to be universally recognised, but this E