fluences more powerfully affect such nervous disorders as hysteria; and it is to be argued that the same relation of causes to the persons influenced would produce effects corresponding to the symptoms of epidemics of insanity.

251. Epidemic Insanity.-Scarcely any subject in the whole scope of medico-psychological study is more interesting than that of epidemic delusions. History is full of the most curious instances of wide-spread morbid sympathy. In the thirteenth century, the mania of asceticism was in vogue, and people scourged themselves in good earnest, and suffered others to scourge and flog them, for their souls' welfare. The story of the Flagellants is well known, and the episode of those who came over to England in the reign of Edward III. (1350,) and who, with their banners, their music, their processions, but most of all by their shrill-voiced scourges, tried to make converts to this new evangel. Then came the "Dancing Mania," with St. Vitus for its patron saint, and the Convulsionnaires of St. Mêdard. All these manifestations were closely analogous to epidemics of hysteria, with which most of us are familiar. Hysteria is due to the free exercise of emotion in independence of volition. It is a regnancy of the feelings while the will is still alive: it is a governance of volition by emotion instead of by intellect. But every one knows that one case of hysteria makes many. When it occurs in a school or a convent in one case, the strength which the tendency to imitate has in a weak mind produces innumerable instances, and we have an epidemic of hysteria. "There was an instance," says Dr. Carpenter, "a good many years ago, in a factory in a country town in Lancashire, in which a young girl was attacked with a violent convulsive fit, brought on by alarm consequent upon one of her companions, a factory operative, putting a mouse down inside her dress. The girl had a particular antipathy to mice, and the sudden shock threw her into a violent fit. Some of the other girls who were near very soon passed off into a similar fit; and then there got to be a notion that these fits were produced by some emanations from a bale of cotton, and the consequence was that they spread till scores of the young women were attacked day after day with

these violent fits. The medical man who was called in saw at once what the state of things was. He assured them, in the first place, that this was all nonsense about the cotton; and he brought a remedy in the second place, which was very appropriate under the circumstances, namely, an electrical machine; and he gave them some good violent shocks, which would do them no harm, assuring them that it would cure them. And cure them it did."1

This instance gives a very good indication of the way in which this curious disease manifests itself through the channels of sympathy. Nothing is more curious than this contagion of spirits, and the propagation of this voluntary chorea from one person to another. The ordinary incidents

A Lecture on Epidemic Delusions, by Dr. Carpenter, F, R. S. Delivered in the Hulme Town Hall, Manchester, Dec. 8. 1871. Dr. Carpenter gives some other similar instances in the same lecture. "There are plenty of stories of this kind that I might relate to you. For instance, in nunneries, it is not at all uncommon, from the secluded life, and the attention being fixed upon one subject, one particular set of ideas and feelings-the want of healthy vent, so to speak, for the mental activity-that some particular odd propensity has developed itself. For instance, in one nunnery abroad, many years ago, one of the youngest nuns began to mew like a cat, and all the others after a time did the same. In another nunnery, one began to bite, and the others were all affected with the same propensity to bite. In one of these instances, the mania was spreading like wildfire through Germany, extending from one nunnery to another, and they were obliged to resort to some such severe measures as I have mentioned to drive it out. It was set down in some instances to demoniacal possession, but the Devil was very easily exorcised by some pretty strong threat on the part of the medical man. The celebrated physician Boerhaave was called in to a case of that kind in an orphan asylum in Holland, and I think his remedy was a red-hot iron. He heated the poker in the fire, and said that the next girl who fell into one of these fits should be burnt in the arm. This was quite sufficient to stop it. In Scotland, at one time, there was a great tendency to breaking out in fits of this kind in the churches. This was particularly the case in Shetland; and a very wise minister there told them that the thing should not be permitted, and that the next person who gave way in this manner as he was quite sure that they could control themselves if they pleased— should be taken out and ducked in a pond near. There was no necessity at all to put his threat into execution. *** I remember very well that when I was a student at Bristol, there was a ward in the hospital to which it was usual to send young servant girls; for it was thought undesirable that these girls should be placed in the ward with women of a much lower class of Irish women. These girls were mostly respectable, well-conducted girls, and it was thought better that they should be kept together. Now, the result of this was that if an hysteric fit took any one of them, the others would follow suit; and I remember perfectly well, when I happened to be a resident pupil, having to go and scold these girls well, threatening them with some very severe infliction. I forget what was threatened: perhaps it would be a shower-bath for any one who went off into one of these fits. Now, here the cure is effected by a stronger emotion, the emotion of dread of-we will not call it punishment, but of a curative measure, and this emotion overcame the tendency to what we commonly call imitation."

of a hysterical attack are very well understood, and come only too frequently under the observation even of nonmedical individuals. It may with truth be called a voluntary insanity. It is an attack which, as we have seen, can be put an end to by an exercise of the volition of the person affected; but it may, like other unhealthy indulgences, pass from a voluntary into an involuntary disease, and when that is the case, it is undoubtedly to be classed with mental disorders. One reason for dwelling at some length upon the subject in this place, is that there is a very close relation between this disease and the epidemic aberrations with which we have here to do. The dancing mania to which we have referred seems to have been an epidemic chorea accompanied by mental symptoms. But the convulsions of the body are not alone propagable in this way: the convulsions or explosions of mind have a singular and strong influence upon the mental life of others. One can see this if one studies the psychology of crowds: one can trace it in the periodical outbreaks of wild superstitions-such as the belief in witchcraft, or spiritualism, and it is even more haggardly visible in strange epidemics of suicide. It is useless to quote the threadbare story of the seven suicides at the Hôtel des Invalides; but what seems to have been a real epidemic occurred at Versailles in 1793. The population of Versailles was at that time 30,000, and in that one year no fewer than 1300 suicides occurred,' and this is not by any means the only case of this nature. It is true that the belief in witchcraft is not to be regarded as in itself an indication of insanity, but rather as a proof of ignorance. The ignorant are always the lazy, and they are much more willing to ascribe phenomena to occult causes than to take the trouble to ascertain their real connection with overt facts. A considerable number of the great men of the past have believed in witchcraft. Thus Dr. Johuson held that there was no proof that witches did not exist. John Wesley was a devout believer in witchcraft, and even went so far as to say that if witchcraft was not to be believed, we could not believe in the Bible; and further still, Lord Hale remarked: "That there are such

Art. "Suicide," Dict. Des Sciences Med. Burrow's Commentaries, p. 438.

creatures as witches, he made no doubt at all. For first the Scriptures had affirmed so much; secondly, the wisdom of all nations had provided laws against such persons, which is an argument of their confidence in such a crime." But these instances must be taken only to show that a great man, although he is undoubtedly beyond his age, is yet of it. Has not the tree which throws out its leafy branches far up into the heavens-has it not its roots still in the soil? When, however, these beliefs are epidemic, as they have often been, they are to be classed with other epidemic delusions, the psychology of which has been sufficiently explained.

252. As to the relation between Structure and Function.-A more minute analysis of the connection between antecedent facts and consequent mental symptoms, would be ill suited to the general plan of a work on the Medical Jurisprudence of Insanity. An assertion that the connection between organized matter and manifestations of mind is simply that of cause and effect, and is in no way different from the relation between any bodily organ and its function, would, in so far as we are concerned, not be a statement of our belief. Indeed, we would deny any such relation; and although we have no right to enter upon such a discussion in this place, it is our duty to warn the reader not to expect in all cases to be able to detect disorganization of brain, accompanied by symptoms of insanity, and to expect to meet with well-marked cases of insanity where no disorganization of structure is observable. Nor are we to expect to find that there is an invariable proportion between the capacity of the cranium and the amount of mental endowment. It is not so in the race, nor in the individual. This is proved by the researches of Virey, Parchappe, Desmoulins, and others. Nor, where it does ococcur, are we to look for a traceable proportion between the two classes of phenomena. Many die insane, the insanity simply having been functional derangement through the sympathy of living parts, and no trace of structural decay is observable as a post-mortem symptom.'

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See further, as to the cause of insanity, Dr. Ray's Essay in his Contributions tc Mental Pathology.

CHAPTER III.

MENTAL UNSOUNDNESS AND CLASSIFICATIONS OF INSANITY.

253. Definitions of Sanity and Insanity.[38] Before it is possible clearly to understand the meaning of the term unsoundness of mind it is, perhaps, necessary to understand what is meant by the term sanity. A deviation can only be appreciated when that from which it is a deviation is known. Now, we say that a person who conducts himself in every respect like his neighbors is sane. A man who is aware of his position, who is conscious of the significance of the objects which surround him, who has certain ends in view, and whose conduct is influenced by his desire to attain those ends a man who in all these things resembles the ordinary people of the class he lives amongst, may be regarded as sane. Any judgment upon a question of sanity or insanity must be made upon the ground of experience, and our experience of the ordinary conduct of the bulk of mankind must guide us in determining the questions which arise as to sanity or insanity of individuals. Thus, before the time of Galileo, had a man believed that the earth went round the sun, and had that belief been founded upon no evidence, but arisen as delusions generally do, the experience of the conduct of belief of the bulk of mankind would have led to the conclusion that this man was mad, and it would have been right. For it was not merely the ordinary belief of mankind that the sun went round the earth, which has since been found to be an error; but it was the belief of mankind that it is usual for ordinary men to be induced to change a belief from ene tenet to another, not arbitrarily, but upon some ground; and if no such reason as would influence the minds of ordinary men exists, then the test of our experience would lead us to determine that this man's conduct was not that of other men. As, therefore, we give the name of sane to the set of