Page:The last chapter in the life of Guiteau (IA 101648406.nlm.nih.gov).pdf/10

 was torn away, and was surprised at the ivory whiteness of the brain substance, and remarked of the gray matter how thin some portions were anteriorly, and recognized that familiar, milky opacity of the arachnoid, extending over all the sulci of the superior convexity of both hemispheres of the cerebrum and dipping down into the longitudinal fissure anteriorly, so startingly like what I had so often seen in the autopsies of chronic mania, I questioned if it would be sufficient explanation for us to make to the public that this appearance was common in drunkards, and had been found in low types of chronic disease other than of the brain, that, indeed, it was often the result of cerebral congestion, and was frequently met with in advanced life; and if none of those conditions seem to exactly apply to Guiteau, to say further that Delafield is not inclined to attach any importance to it, and omit what Foville and Greding and Griesinger, and in short, all writers on the pathology of insanity, have said of its frequency in the chronic forms of mental disease? And, since in the absence of observed lesions of the brain substance under the microscope, we certainly could not claim that mere opacity of the arachnoid proved the existence of insanity in any given case, would it do to boldly claim, in the case of Guiteau, that this thickened, diseased membrane should be accepted as conclusive proof that insanity did not exist, that by reason of its thickness it acted as a shield to his brain, even as his winter coat afforded a better protection than his summer duster?

These were puzzling questions then and there; and the more I pondered the evidences of that autopsy, in conjunction with the retrospect of the life thus abruptly closed, the more I felt that it was just possible that the impartial psychological inquirers of the future, studying this remarkable case, might not be so unanimous as we had been in pronouncing this a "happy ending."