_THE INSANE CRIMINAL_
GENERAL FORMS OF CRIMINAL LUNACY
Epileptic born criminals and the morally insane may be classed as
lunatics under certain aspects, but only by the scientific observer and
professional psychologist. Outside these two forms, there is an
important series of offenders, who are not criminals from birth, but
become such at a given moment of their lives, in consequence of an
alteration of the brain, which completely upsets their moral nature and
makes them unable to discriminate between right and wrong. They are
really insane; that is, entirely without responsibility for their
actions.
Nearly every class of mental derangement contributes a special form of
crime.
_The Idiot_ is prompted by paroxysms of rage to commit murderous attacks
on his fellow-creatures. His exaggerated sexual propensities incite him
to rape, and his childish delight at the sight of flames, to arson.
_The Imbecile_, or weak-minded individual, yields to his first impulse,
or, dominated by the influence of others, becomes an accomplice in the
hope of some trivial reward.
The victims of _Melancholia_ are driven to suicide by suppressed grief,
precordial agitation, or hallucinations. Sometimes the suicidal attempt
is indirect and takes the form of the murder of some important personage
or their own kin, in the hope that their own condemnation may follow, or
it is to save those dear to them from the miseries of life.
Persons afflicted with _General Paralysis_ frequently steal, in the
belief that everything they see belongs to them, or because they are
incapable of understanding the meaning of property. If accused of theft,
they deny their guilt or assert that the stolen articles have been
hidden on their persons by others. They are inclined to forgery and
fraudulent bankruptcy, and when their misdeeds are brought home to them
they show no shame. Unnatural sexual offences and crimes against the
authorities are also common. While they are seldom guilty of murder,
they frequently commit arson, through carelessness, or with the idea of
destroying their homes because they think them too small, or wish to
get rid of the vermin in them, such as rats.
The sufferer from _Dementia_ forgets his promises, however serious they
may be. Cerebral irritability often leads him to commit violent acts,
homicide, etc.
In some cases, mental alienation is manifested in a mania for
litigation, which urges the sufferer to offend statesmen, state lawyers,
and judges.
A common symptom of _Pellagra_ is the tendency to unpremeditated murder
or suicide, without the slightest cause. The sight of water suggests
drowning, in the form of murder or suicide.
Young persons at the approach of puberty and women subject to amenorrhea
often exhibit a tendency to arson and crimes of an erotic nature.
Similar tendencies are sometimes displayed during pregnancy, and an
inclination to theft is not uncommon.
Maniacs are prone to satyriasis and bacchanalian excesses. They commit
rape and indecent acts in public and often appropriate strange objects,
hair or wearing apparel, with the idea of obtaining means to satisfy
their vices, either because they are unconscious of doing wrong or
because, like true megalomaniacs, they believe the stolen goods to be
their own property. Sometimes a feverish activity prompts them to
steal; "I felt a kind of uneasiness, a demon in my fingers," said one,
"which forced me to move them and carry off something."
Monomaniacs, especially if subject to hallucinations, frequently
manifest a tendency to homicide, either to escape imaginary persecutions
or in obedience to equally imaginary injunctions. The same motives prompt
them to commit special kinds of theft and arson. Na... (see Fig. 16)
murdered his friend without any reason, after suffering from
delusions for one year.
The characteristics of insane criminals are so marked that it is not
difficult to distinguish them from habitual delinquents. They seldom
show any fear of the penalty incurred nor do they try to escape. They
take little trouble to hide their misdeeds, or to get rid of any clue.
If poisoners, they leave poison about in their victim's room; if
forgers, they take no trouble to make their signatures appear genuine;
if thieves, they exhibit stolen goods in public, or appropriate them in
the presence of witnesses. They frequently manifest unbounded rage and
assault those present, entirely forgetting the stolen objects. Once
their crime is accomplished, not only do they give themselves no trouble
to hide it, but are prone to confess it immediately, and are eager to
talk about it, saying with satisfaction that they feel relieved at what
they have done, that they have obeyed the order of superior beings and
consider their actions praiseworthy. They deny that they are insane, or
if they admit it in some cases, it is only because they are persuaded to
do so by their lawyers or fellow-prisoners. And even then, they are
ready at the first opportunity to contradict the idea, eulogising and
exaggerating their criminal acts.
A full confession in court is not uncommon, and in the case of impulsive
monomaniacs, epileptics, and insane inebriates, the descriptions are
full of characteristic expressions, showing what was the offender's
state of mind when dominated by criminal frenzy.
Rom..., an impulsive monomaniac, who stabbed an acquaintance, felt "the
blood rushing to his head, which seemed to be in flames."
Tixier narrates that, on seeing the old man he afterward murdered pass
him on a country road, "something went to his head." Frequently such
criminals are quick to give themselves up to justice.
_Antecedents._ Unlike the ordinary offender, insane criminals are often
perfectly law-abiding up to the moment of the crime.
_Motive._ Perhaps the greatest difference between born criminals and
insane criminals lies in the motive for the act, which in the case of
the latter is not only entirely disproportionate to it, but nearly
always absurd and depends far less on personal susceptibility.
Here are a few typical cases: A father fancies he hears a voice bidding
him kill his favourite child. He goes home, has the little victim
dressed in its best clothes and cuts off its head with perfect calmness.
A lady, ignorant of horticulture, plants some flowers on her husband's
grave. A day or two later, noticing that they are drooping, she imagines
that the gardener has watered them with boiling water, and after
reproaching him bitterly, wounds him with a pair of scissors.
These unfortunate beings frequently show perfect mental clearness before
the crime and even in the act of striking the fatal blow; yet their
action is purely instinctive and not prompted by passion or any other
cause. Although such individuals appear to reason, can it be said that
they are in full possession of their mental faculties? If they are, how
shall we explain the wholesale destruction of those they hold most dear?
A husband kills the wife to whom he is sincerely attached; a father, the
son he loves most; or a mother, the infant at her breast.
Such an extraordinary phenomenon can only be explained by a sudden
suspension of the intellectual and moral faculties and of the powers of
the will.
SPECIAL FORMS OF CRIMINAL INSANITY
ALCOHOLISM
In addition to these casual forms of lunacy, in which the individual is
led to commit crime by a momentary alteration of his moral nature, we
find other forms which might be called specific, because the criminal
act forms the culminating point of the malady. The sufferers from these
forms are less easily distinguished from ordinary criminals and normal
persons than are the lunatics of whom we have just spoken. These mental
diseases, which should be studied separately, are alcoholism, hysteria,
and epilepsy.
It is well known that temporary drunkenness may transform an honest,
peacable individual into a rowdy, a murderer, or a thief.
Gall narrates the case of a certain Petri, who manifested homicidal
tendencies when excited by alcohol. Locatelli mentions a workman of
thirty, who, when under the influence of drink, would smash everything
around him and stab the companions who sought to restrain his drunken
fury. Ladelci and Carmignani cite the case of a miner, who was
repeatedly arrested for drunken brawls, and when reproved replied: "I
cannot help it. As soon as I drink, I must start fighting."
Very characteristic is the case of a certain Papor... who was imprisoned
for some time at Turin. His father was a drunkard and ill treated his
wife. The son became a soldier, then an excise officer, fireman, and
finally nurse in an infirmary, and was known as a respectable, temperate
man. In 1876, he was transferred to the Island of Lipari, where
malvoisie only costs 25 centimes a litre, and there he acquired a taste
for wine, without, however, drinking to excess. But a year later, a
change in the hospital regulations gave him longer hours of leisure, and
he began to drink deeply. In 1881, while intoxicated, he accosted a
sportsman and pretending to be a police officer, ordered him to give up
his gun. At that moment he was arrested by a genuine constable and taken
to the barracks, where he was sentenced, without any one's observing his
drunken condition. After his release, he committed other offences of the
same type, which were followed by confession and repentance.
_Chronic Alcoholism._ The phenomena developed by chronic inebriety are,
however, still more important from the point of view of the
criminologist than the immediate effects of alcohol on certain
constitutions.
_Physical and Functional Characteristics of Chronic Inebriety._ The
habitual drunkard rarely exhibits traces of congenital degeneracy, but
frequently that of an acquired character, especially paresis, facial
hemiparesis, slight exophthalmia (see Fig. 6), inequality of the pupils,
insensibility to touch and pain, which is often unilateral, especially
in the tongue, thermoanalgesia, hyperaesthesia, experienced at various
points not corresponding to the nervous territories and modified
spontaneously or by esthesiogenic agents (Grasset), alphalgesia
(sensation of pain at contact with painless bodies), a deficiency of
urea in the urine, out of proportion to the general state of
nourishment, and a proneness of the symptoms to return after trauma,
poisoning, agitation, or serious illness.
The gravest phenomena, however, are atrophy or degeneration in the
liver, heart, stomach, seminal canaliculi, and central nervous system,
which give rise to serious functional disturbances; most of all, in the
digestion--as manifested by the characteristic gastric catarrh,
matutinal vomit and cramp--and in the reproductive system, with
resulting impotence.
_Psychic Disturbances--Hallucinations._ The most frequent and precocious
symptoms are delusions and hallucinations, generally of a gloomy or even
of a terrible nature, and extremely varied and fleeting, which, like
dreams, in nearly every instance arise from recent and strong
impressions. The most characteristic hallucinations are those which
persuade the patient that he experiences the contact of disgusting
vermin, corpses, or other horrible objects. He is gnawed by imaginary
worms, burnt by matches, or persecuted by spies and the police.
=FIG. 16
ITALIAN CRIMINAL
A Case of Alcoholism
(see page 82)=
The strange pathological conditions resulting from chronic alcoholism
give rise to other fearful hallucinations. Cutaneous anaesthesia and
alcoholic anaphrodisia make the sufferers fancy they have lost the
generative organs, nose, legs, etc.; dyspepsia, exhaustion, and paresis,
that they have been poisoned or are being persecuted. The reaction
following excessively prolonged stimuli causes furious lypemania and
gloomy fancies. Sometimes chronic inebriates believe that they are
accused of imaginary crimes and loaded with chains amid heaps of
corpses. They implore mercy and try to kill themselves in order to
escape from their shame; or they remain motionless, bewildered, and
terrified. Not infrequently, because of the profound faith, which,
unlike many other lunatics, they have in their hallucinations, they pass
from melancholy broodings to a fit of mad energy, often of a homicidal
or suicidal nature. They imagine they are struggling with thieves or
wild beasts and hurl themselves from the window or rush naked through
the streets, killing the first person that crosses their path. In some,
this delirium of energy breaks out suddenly like an epileptic attack,
which it resembles in its brevity and intensity. With hair standing on
end, they rush about like savage beasts, grinding their teeth, biting,
rending their clothes, or tearing up the sod, or hurling themselves from
some height. These symptoms are preceded by vertigo, periodical
cephalalgia, and flushing of the face, and are manifested more
frequently by those who are already predisposed through trauma to the
head, or through typhus or heredity, or after great agitation and
prolonged fasting, and often bear no relation to the quantity of alcohol
imbibed, which may be small, or to the general physical state; but
depend on cerebral irritation caused by chronic alcoholism. The attacks
may disappear in a few hours without leaving the slightest recollection
in the mind of the patient (Krafft-Ebing, p. 182). They are, in short, a
species of disguised epilepsy, and thus they may well be styled, since
true alcoholic epilepsy is noted in many inebriates, specially in
absinthe-drinkers.
_Apathy._ Another characteristic almost invariably found in inebriates
who have committed a crime, is a strange apathy and indifference, a
total lack of concern regarding their state--a trait common also to
ordinary criminals, but in a less marked degree. They make themselves at
home in prison without showing the faintest interest in their trial or
in the offence which has caused their arrest, and only when brought
before the judge do they rouse themselves for a moment from their
lethargy.
A well-educated man, after a varied career as doctor, chemist, and
clerk, during which time he had been constantly dismissed from his posts
for drunkenness, met a policeman in the street and killed him, in the
belief that the officer wanted to arrest him. When taken to prison, the
first thing he did was to write to his mother begging her to send him
some pomade. When interrogated, he informed the examining magistrate
that the interrogatory was useless, since he had already chosen a fresh
trade, that of photographer. It was only after several months of total
abstinence in prison, that he began to come to his senses and to realise
the gravity of his situation. (Tardieu, _De la Folie_, 1870.)
_Contrast between Apathy and Impulsiveness._ This apathy alternates with
strange impulses, which, although strongly at variance with the
patient's former habits, he is unable to control, even when he is aware
that they are criminal.
_Crimes peculiar to Inebriates._ Since modification of the reproductive
organs is a common cause of hallucinations, inebriate criminals
frequently suffer from a species of erotic delirium, during which they
murder those whom they believe guilty of offences against
themselves--generally their wives or mistresses. This is partly owing to
the sexual nature of their hallucinations and partly to the wretchedness
of their homes, which are in such striking contrast to the rosy dreams
inspired by alcohol and which tend to increase the melancholy natural to
drunkards. They imagine they are being deceived and their impotence
derided, the most innocent gestures being interpreted as deadly insults.
In the prison at Turin, my father had under observation two of these
unfortunate beings, one a man of sixty and the other quite young. Both
had murdered their wives with the most revolting cruelty, because they
believed them to be unfaithful, although in reality both the women led
blameless lives.
_Course of the Disease._ The continued abuse of alcohol ends at last in
complete dementia or general pseudo-paralysis. The body is at first
obese, but rapidly loses flesh, the skin becomes greasy and damp, owing
to hypersecretion of the sebaceous and sudoriparous glands, and soils
the garments. Memory becomes enfeebled, speech uncertain and defective
(dysarthria), the association of ideas sluggish, sensibility blunted,
perception confused, judgment erroneous, and every species of regular
and continued application impossible. The earlier hallucinations
reappear, but in a less vivid form and only at long intervals; then
paralysis more or less rapidly becomes general and ends in death.
EPILEPSY
We have spoken of this disease in another chapter and have shown that
the born criminal is in reality an epileptic, in whom the malady,
instead of manifesting itself suddenly in strange muscular contortions
or terrible spasms, develops slowly in continual brain irritation, which
causes the individual thus affected to reproduce the ferocious egotism
natural to primitive savages, irresistibly bent on harming others.
But besides these epileptics, who are morally insane from their birth
and pass their lives in prisons and lunatic asylums, without any one
being able to mark the exact boundary between their perversity and their
irresponsibility; besides these individuals, whom society has a right,
nay a moral obligation, to remove from its midst because they are ever a
source of danger there are those who are afflicted with other forms of
epilepsy;--forms in which irritation is manifested in seizures exactly
similar to the typical convulsive fit, which they resemble also with
regard to variation in intensity and duration. Generally speaking, they
are likewise accompanied by complete loss of memory and consciousness,
but in some cases there may be partial or complete consciousness, and
yet the sufferer is not responsible for his actions. This variety of
epilepsy, termed by Samt psychic epilepsy (epilepsy with psychic
seizures), manifests itself at long intervals, sometimes only once, but
more frequently twice or thrice in the course of a lifetime, and during
the attack the personality of the individual undergoes a complete
change.
The attack is described by Samt as follows: During the seizure, the
individual behaves like a somnambulist. Sometimes he is dazed, mute, and
immovable; at others, he talks incessantly; at still others, he goes on
with his ordinary occupations, travelling, reading, and writing: but in
every case his personality suffers a complete metamorphosis, his habits,
actions, and even handwriting assume a different character. Sometimes he
is seized by a mania for walking and tramps for miles; at others, he
undertakes interminable railway journeys. Tissie (_Les alienes
voyageurs_, 1887) cites cases of epileptics who travelled from Paris to
Bombay, who covered 71 kilometres on foot, and who wandered unconscious
for 31 months.
Sometimes epilepsy is manifested only by the tendency to undertake
purposeless journeys, as in the case of Ferretti and a certain M... who
visited the Mahdi in Africa and from thence travelled aimlessly to
Australia.
This ambulatory form of epilepsy is very common amongst lads of fourteen
or fifteen. Scarcely a week passes without the police receiving
information from parents that their son has disappeared from home with
only a few pence in his pocket. The wanderer is discovered later,
frequently in some small provincial town, which he has reached after
tramping aimlessly for days, sleeping in barns, and living on charity.
When questioned, the boy usually displays total ignorance regarding all
that has happened to him during the interval.
Dr. Maccabruni in his _Notes on Hidden Forms of Epilepsy_, 1886,
narrates the case of an epileptic, who during childhood received an
injury to his skull. Later, he started out on a series of wanderings to
Venice, Padua, Rome, Milan, Monaco, and Mentone. His journeys,
especially those to distant parts, were undertaken in a state of
unconsciousness and generally a short time before the commencement of a
fit.
These attacks may last any length of time, from a few minutes to several
months. In one of the cases observed by my father, the attack lasted a
fortnight. The patient, a young officer with whom we were personally
acquainted, was one of the quietest persons possible, but suddenly he
was seized with a mania for writing innumerable letters, especially on
stamped paper, in exaggeratedly large writing very different from his
usual style. These letters, which were full of absurdities, were posted
by the writer from the different towns he passed through on his aimless
journeyings, which lasted a whole fortnight. During one of these
seizures, he was arrested as a deserter and was unable to give any
explanation of his conduct.
In this particular patient, the disease assumed the mild form of absurd
letters and still more absurd journeys, but other individuals in the
same state may commit criminal acts like homicide, equally without
reason or gain to themselves. Once the fit is passed, these unfortunate
individuals have generally no recollection of their past actions, and
since in their normal state they are quiet, law-abiding persons, it is
extremely difficult to trace back the deed to the right source, or to
discover the disease, because they show no other symptoms of epilepsy,
apart from the particular criminal act.
Samt describes a still more complicated form of this psychic seizure, in
which the personality is altered without there being any loss of
consciousness. In a case of this kind, a servant, after forty years of
faithful service, murdered his old mistress during the night, having
previously cut all the bell-wires to prevent communication with the
other servants. He escaped with some valuables, but returned in a few
days and gave himself up to the police, to whom he gave a detailed
account of his crime without showing either horror or remorse. He was
tried and condemned, and a few months later was again seized with
epileptic fits during one of which he died. Samt, who saw him in this
state, came to the conclusion that the murder had been committed during
a similar seizure and he was able to prove that attacks of this kind are
not necessarily accompanied by loss of consciousness.
As in the above case, these psychic attacks are sometimes accompanied by
an insatiable thirst for blood, destruction and violence of all kinds,
as well as by an extraordinary development of muscular strength with
apparent lucidity of mind. They may last from a few minutes to half an
hour, after which the patient falls into a sound sleep and forgets
everything that has happened, or else retains only a vague recollection.
Such was the case of the epileptic Misdea, which first suggested to my
father the idea of a link between crime and epilepsy. As this case has
become famous in the annals of crime in Italy, it will perhaps be of
interest to the reader. Misdea, the son of degenerate parents,
manifested a series of typical epileptic anomalies--asymmetry,
vaso-motor disturbances, impulsiveness, ferocity, etc. At the age of
twenty, while serving in the army, for some trivial motive he suddenly
attacked and killed his superior officer and eight or ten soldiers who
tried to overpower him. Finally he was bound and placed in a cell, where
he fell into a sound slumber and on awaking had entirely forgotten what
he had done. He was condemned to death, but my father, who examined him
medically, was able to prove conclusively that the crime had been
committed during an attack of epilepsy.
The physical and psychic characters of this class of epileptic are those
common to all non-criminal epileptics, and indeed we are justified in
considering them insane rather than criminal, because, with the
exception of the attack, which assumes this terrible form, they do not
manifest criminal tendencies.
HYSTERIA
Hysteria is a disease allied to epilepsy, of which it appears to be a
milder form, and is much more common among women than men in the ratio
of twenty to one. The disease may frequently be traced to hereditary
influences, similar to those found in epilepsy, transmitted by
epileptic, neurotic, or inebriate parents, frequently also, to some
traumatic or toxic influence, such as typhus, meningitis, a blow, a
fall, or fright.
_Physical Characteristics._ These are fewer than in epileptics. The most
common peculiarities are small, obliquely-placed eyes of timid glance,
pale, elongated face, crowded or loosened teeth, nervous movements of
the face and hands, facial asymmetry, and black hair.
_Functional Characteristics._ These are of great importance. Hysterical
subjects manifest special sensibility to the contact of certain metals
such as magnetised iron, copper, and gold. Characteristic symptoms are
the insensibility of the larynx or the sensation of a foreign body in it
(_globus hystericus_), neuralgic pains, which disappear with extreme
suddenness, reappearing often on the side opposite that where they were
first felt, the prevalence of sensory and motor anomalies on one side
(hemianaesthesia), the confusion of different colours (dyschromatopsia);
greater sensibility in certain parts of the body, such as the ovary and
the breasts, which when subjected to pressure give rise to neuropathic
phenomena (hysterogenous points); a sense of pleasure in the presence
of pain, the abolition of pharyngeal reflex action, the absence of the
sensation of warmth in certain parts of the body and a tendency to the
so-called attacks of "hysterics." These characteristics, which are
closely allied, if not precisely similar to those of epilepsy, are
preceded by a number of premonitory symptoms--hallucinations, sudden
change of character, contractions, laryngeal spasms, strabismus,
frequent spitting, inordinate laughter or yawning, cardiac palpitations,
loss of strength, trembling, anaesthesia and (just before the attack,)
pains in some fixed spot, generally in the head, ovary, or nape of the
neck.
_Psychology._ The psychological manifestations of hysterical subjects
are of still greater interest and importance.
They show, on the whole, a fair amount of intelligence, although little
power of concentration. In disposition they are profoundly egotistical
and so preoccupied with their own persons that they will do anything to
arouse attention and obtain notoriety. They are exceedingly
impressionable, therefore easily roused to anger and cruelty, and are
prone to take sudden and unreasonable likes and dislikes. They are
fickle and easily swayed. They take special delight in slandering
others, and when unable to excite public notice by unfounded
accusations, to which they resort as a means of revenge, they embitter
the lives of those around them by continual quarrels and dissensions.
_Susceptibility to Suggestion._ Of still greater importance for the
criminologist is the facility with which hysterical women are dominated
by hypnotic suggestion. Their wills become entirely subordinated to that
of the hypnotiser, by whose influence they can be induced to believe
that they have changed their sex so that they forthwith adopt habits of
the opposite sex, or to entertain _idees fixes_--strange, impulsive, or
even criminal ideas. They are, in fact, obedient automatons when under
hypnotic influence, but they cannot be prevailed upon to perform acts
contrary to their nature, to commit crimes or reveal secrets entrusted
to them, if they are naturally upright.
_Variability._ Mobility of mood is a still more salient characteristic
of hysteria. The subject passes with extraordinary rapidity from
laughter to tears "like children," says Richet, "who laugh immoderately
before their tears are dry."
"For one hour," says Sydenham, "they will be irascible and discontented;
the next, they are cheerful and follow their friends about with all the
signs of the old attachment."
Their sensibility is affected by the most trifling causes. A word will
grieve them like some real misfortune. Their impulses are not lacking in
intellectual control, but are followed by action with excessive
rapidity. Although of such changeable disposition, they are subject to
fixed ideas, to which they cling with a kind of cataleptic intensity. A
woman will be dumb or motionless for months, on the pretext that speech
or motion would injure her. But this is the only form of constancy they
exhibit, otherwise they are indolent by nature. Sometimes they will show
activity for a few days only to relapse again into idleness.
_Erotomania._ This is almost a pathognomonical symptom and is shown in
hallucinations and nightmares of an erotic character, preceded by
epigastric aura. This erotomania is so impulsive that hysterical women
frequently engage in a _liaison_, from a desire of adventure or of
experiencing sudden emotions. The criminality of the hysterical is
always connected with the sexual functions.
Of twenty-one women found guilty of slander, nine made false accusations
of rape, four accused their husbands of sexual violence, and one of
sodomy. Such accusations, when made by minors, are generally full of
disgusting details, which would be repugnant to any adult.
_Mendacity._ Another peculiarity of hysterical women is the
irresistible tendency to lie, which leads them to utter senseless
falsehoods just for the pleasure of deceiving and making believe. They
sham suicide and sickness or write anonymous letters full of inventions.
Many, from motives of spite or vanity, accuse servants of dishonesty, in
order to revel in their disgrace and imprisonment. The favourite
calumny, however, is always an accusation of indecent behaviour,
sometimes made against their fathers and brothers, but generally against
a priest or medical man. The accusations, in most cases, are so strange
and fantastic as to be quite unworthy of belief, but sometimes,
unfortunately, they obtain credence. The commonest method adopted for
spreading these calumnies is by means of anonymous letters. In one case,
a young girl of twenty-five belonging to a distinguished family,
pestered a respectable priest with love-letters and shortly afterwards
accused him of seduction. Another girl of eighteen informed the Attorney
for the State that she had frequently been the victim of immoral priests
and accused one of her female cousins of complicity. According to her
story, while praying at church, a certain Abbot R... took her into the
sacristy and entreated her to elope with him to Spain. She refused
indignantly, and hoping to soften her, he twice stabbed himself in her
presence, whereat she fainted, and on recovering consciousness, found
the priest at her feet, begging forgiveness. She further accused the
same cousin of having taken her to a convent, where she was seduced by a
priest, the nuns acting as accomplices. A subsequent medical examination
proved that no seduction had taken place and that she was suffering from
hysteria.
In another case, a girl of sixteen, the daughter of an Italian general,
complained to her father that a certain lieutenant, her neighbour at
table, had used indecent language to her. Shortly afterwards, a shower
of anonymous letters troubled the peace of the household--declarations
of love addressed to the girl's mother and threats to the daughter. It
was discovered that the girl herself was the writer of all these
letters.
Anonymous letter-writing is so common among hysterical persons, that it
may be considered a pathognomonical characteristic. The handwriting is
of a peculiar character, or rather it shows a peculiar tendency to vary
from excessive size to extreme smallness, a characteristic we have
noticed in epileptics.
_Delirium._ Hysterical, like epileptic, subjects often suffer from
melancholia or monomaniacal delirium. Indeed, according to Morel, this
symptom is more frequent when the other morbid phenomena are absent.
Psychic hysteria, like epilepsy, may exist unaccompanied by the
characteristic hysterical attack, and then, as is the case with
epilepsy, it is most dangerous to society.
In conclusion, although up to the present, medical men have been
disposed to consider hysteria as a disease distinct from epilepsy,
careful study of this malady inclined my father to class it as a
variation of epilepsy, prevalent among women, who in this disease, as in
many others, manifest an attenuated form.