differentiated by various "species" according to the pathological conditions of the brain and nerves, the blood and nutrition. It is as follows:

Classes of Psychical Phenomena.

1. Melancholia.

2. Mania.

3. Dementia.

Sub-Classes of Psychical Combinations and Transmutations.

1. Melancholia, simple.

combined with excitement.

with stupor (dementia attonita.)

mania and dementia alternating (folie circulaire.)

5. Mania, simple.

6.

7.

8.

g.

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with depressing emotions.

intercurrent with melancholia.

intercurrent with dementia.

alternating with sanity (recurrent mania.)

10. Dementia, simple and primary.

12.

consecutive on mania or melancholia.

congenital (idiocy and imbecility.)

Orders of Pathogenetic Relations.

1. Simple insanity (ideo-encephalic.)

2. Allied Insanity.

3. Sequential Insanity.

4. Concurrent Insanity.

5. Egressing Insanity. 6. Metastatic Insanity.

7. Climacteric Insanity.

Genera of Pathogenetic Relations and Simple Insanity.

1. Insanity from hereditary predisposition.

5.

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of general paralysis (encephalo rachites.)

Allied Insanity, influenced by other diseases, but independent.

1. Insanity with cardiac disease.

માં જે નાં

3.

4.

Sequential Insanity, caused by other disease which has subsided. 1. Insanity following idiopathic and exanthematous fevers. following inflammations and pneumonia.

2.

3.

following injuries to the cerebro-spinal axis, apoplexies, etc.

Concurrent Insanity, caused by other diseases or diseased conditions which continue to exist.

1. Insanity from cachexias (syphilitic, clorotic, cretinic, etc.)

Egressing Insanity, growing out of the former disease, of which it is an exaggeration.

1. Insanity egressing from hysteria.

2. 3.

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egressing from ecstasy.

66

egressing from hypochondriasis.

Metastatic Insanity, from the shifting or ceasing of other disease or

suppression of discharges.

1. Insanity from rheumatism.

4.

from erysipelas and skin diseases.

from suppression of habitual discharges, hæmor

rhoids, or ulcers.

from suppression of the catamenia.

Climacteric Insanity, caused by natural conditions of development

Species of Pathological Conditions differentiating the genera by Pathological conditions of the brain and nerves, of the blood

63. Conclusion.-Upon the whole, consideration induces us to adopt the first of these classifications. It is certainly of the utmost importance that a classification should be adopted for the purposes of medical jurists which is easily understood, and the ground of which is to be found in easily observed symptoms. Only in this way will the great gulf which separates medical men and lawyers be bridged over. When, however, mental peculiarities, as inferred from conduct, are taken as the basis of the methodical arrangement of kinds of insanity, or of patients laboring under them, into certain groups, little difficulty is likely to arise; as to a lawyer, insanity is to be inferred from certain acts, not from the existence of a certain cause. It must be remembered that all classifications are defective, and can only be defended on the ground of convenience and expediency, not upon that of absolute correctness or truth. In many cases much difficulty will be found in assigning some mental disorder to any one of the classes above enumerated, and care must always be taken to appreciate the fact that these words are not absolute partitions between diseases. In many cases these peculiarities which have served as a distinguishing feature of one class are found mixed with, or modified by those which have served as the distinguishing features of another. A classification is like a walking-stick, a thing to be of assistance. Yet some children ride on a walking-stick and some men make a hobby of classification. It is mental weakness which is the cause in each case.

CHAPTER IV.

AMENTIA.

264. Kinds of Amentia.[48] Amentia has been divided into two distinct kinds: Idiocy and Imbecility. The distinction between these two is far from being accurate. In many cases, the utmost difficulty arises in determining the precise degree of mental defect which amounts to idiocy; as, indeed, there is often much difficulty in determining what amount of simple weakness of intellect amounts to imbecility. Just as health and disease pass, the one into the other, by imperceptible gradations; just as there are innumerable degrees of mental power, so there are infinite shades in the mental darkness which constitutes amentia. Scientifically, it would be wrong to distinguish the greater degree of mental weakness from the less by two different names, which are almost sure to lead to a belief in difference of kind, but practically it is of importance. It is, however, of the utmost importance that the student of mind should remember that these classifications are really made with a view to convenience in thought, and that they are not strictly accurate, looked at in the light of observation.

65. Idiocy.-Idiocy may be defined as a state in which, from defective structure of the brain, the individual has been utterly incapacitated from acquiring any such experience as would fit him in any way to fulfil the most trivial duties of his social position. And according to Bacon, "An idiot is a fool or a madman from his nativity, and one who never had any lucid intervals; and such an one is describled as a person that cannot number twenty, tell the days of the week, does not know his father or mother, &c. But these are mentioned as instances only; for idiot or not, being a question of fact, must

be tried by a jury on inspection." "Psychologically," says Dr. Bucknill," "an idiot is a human being who from defect or disease of the brain, at a period of life before the mind has become developed, has suffered an arrest of mental development to such an extent that he is incapable of the ordinary functions and duties of his social existence. The time of attack may be before or after birth, sometimes so late as four or five years after, and thus the legal definition that idiocy is 'from nativity' is not strictly correct." Thus we see that an idiot is a person so thoroughly without mind that all mental cultivation has been and is out of the question. It is as difficult to make money without some capital either in money or the power to labor, as to acquire knowledge without a brain. To distinguish idiocy clearly from dementia, with which it is sometimes confounded, it must be remembered that the former is a congenital absence, or at least serious defect, of all the faculties of mind, while [47] dementia may be regarded as the gradual obliteration of faculties which have been possesed.

866. Causes of Idiocy.-We have already spoken of the causes of mental disease and mental defect, and only a few words need be said here as to this important subject. In many cases, the parental excesses are the direct cause of the child's defect. Thus Dr. Howe observes: "By inspection of the tables, it will be seen that out of 359 idiots, the condition of whose progenitors was ascertained, 99 were the children of drunkards. But this does not tell the whole story by any means. By drunkard is meant a person who is a notorious and habitual sot. Many persons who are habitually intemperate do not get this name even now, much less would they have done so twenty-five or thirty years ago, and many of the parents of the persons named in the tables have been dead longer than that. A quarter of a century ago, a man might go to bed every night muddled and sleepy with the

See also Lord Hatherly in Harrod v. Harrod, 1 Kay & J. 4; Co. Litt. 274 a, Fitzroy N. B., 233 b, ed. 1794; 1 Hale, P. C. 29; Lord Tenterden, C. J., in Ball v. Mannin, 1 Dow & Cl., 393, S. C. 3, Bli., N. S. 1; 4 Rep., 124; Lord Hardwicke, C., in Lord Donegal's Case, 2 Ves., Sr., 408; 1 Bl. Com. 304.

* Address on Idiocy, Journal of Mental Science, July, 1873, p. 170.