A. M. a woman, aged twenty-seven, was admitted into the hospital, August
15, 1795; she had then been eleven weeks disordered. Religious enthusiasm,
and a too frequent attendance on conventicles, were stated to have
occasioned her complaint. She was in a very miserable and unhappy
condition, and terrified by the most alarming apprehensions for the
salvation of her soul. Towards the latter end of September, she appeared
in a convalescent state, and continued tolerably well until the middle of
November, when she began to relapse.
The return of her disorder commenced with loss of sleep. She alternately
sang, and cried the greatest part of the night. She conceived her inside
full of the most loathsome vermin, and often felt the sensation as if they
were crawling into her throat. She was suddenly seized with a strong and
unconquerable determination to destroy herself; became very sensible of
her malady, and said, that God had inflicted this punishment on her, from
having (at some former part of her life) said the Lord's Prayer backwards.
She continued some time in a restless and forlorn state; at one moment
expecting the devil to seize upon her and tear her to pieces; in the next,
wondering that she was not instigated to commit violence on the persons
about her. On January 12, 1796, she died suddenly. She was opened twelve
hours after death. The thoracic and abdominal viscera were perfectly
healthy.
Upon examining the contents of the cranium, the pia mater was considerably
inflamed, and an extravasated blotch, about the size of a shilling, was
seen upon that membrane, near the middle of the right lobe of the
cerebrum. There was no water between the membranes, nor in the ventricles,
but a general determination of blood to the contents of the cranium. The
medullary substance, when cut into, was full of bloody points. The
consistence of the brain was natural.