Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 09.pdf/522

 Chapters in the English Law of Lunacy.

481

CHAPTERS IN THE ENGLISH LAW OF LUNACY. BY A. WOOD RENTON.

III. MORAL INSANITY. CLOSELY associated with the criminal responsibility of the insane, and yet suf ficiently distinct from the subject to deserve separate treatment, is the famous doctrine of " moral insanity." In the propagation of this doctrine nearly all the leading na tions of the world have borne a part. Long resisted by a section of the medical and the entire legal profession in England, it has eventually, although, as we shall see, in a modified form, been practically accepted by medical jurists as embodying a truth which administrators of the law cannot af ford to disregard. For our present purpose we may define " moral insanity " as a lesion of the moral or affective, without any appar ent disturbance of the intellectual, faculties of the mind. The existence of this disease was first affirmed by Philippe Pine!, to whose work for the insane we referred in the opening article in the present series. Pinel supported his theory by such cases as the following : "A. had an irresistible desire to seize an offensive weapon and to strike the first person that came in his way. A sort of conflict, he said, went on within him unceasingly between the savage impulse of his destructive instinct and the pro found horror with which the idea of crime inspired him. There was no sign of aberration in his memory, imagination or judgment. He confessed to me during his seclusion that his murderous impulse was absolutely forced and involuntary; that his wife, in spite of his affection for her, had all but been his victim, and that he had just had time to warn her to take refuge in flight." Or again: "B. was a mechanic con

j ¡



j

fined in the Bicôtre. The access of his dis ease was preceded by peculiar symptoms — a feeling of burning heat in the intestines, with intense thirst and marked constipation. This sensation of heat spread by degrees over the chest, the neck and the face, of which it raised the color. . . Finally the nervous excitement reached the brain and then the patient was overcome by an irresistible de sire for blood, and if he could get posses sion of a sharp instrument would attempt in a kind of fury to take the life of the first per son who came in sight." The last of Pinel's cases, which we shall give, is an instance of " abstract fury," famil iar to all readers of Dr. Ira Ray's " Medical Jurisprudence of Insanity " : " An only son, brought up under the eye of a foolish and indulgent mother, acquired the habit of yielding to every caprice and every impulse of a passionate and disordered temper. The impetuosity of his spirit increased and strengthened with his years. The money which was lavished upon him seemed to re move every obstacle to his imperious de sires. Opposition or restraint roused him to fury; he would attack his opponent and seek to overcome him by force. His whole life was spent in quarreling and strife. If any animal, a dog, a sheep or a horse, gave him any trouble he would kill it on the spot. If he were present at any assembly or fête, he lost control of himself, gave and received blows, and came away bleeding. He was quite reasonable when he was calm, was the owner of a fine éstate which he managed wisely, discharged the other duties of society, and made himself known by acts of kind ness towards the unfortunate. But a piece