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Slight remissions occurring in the comatose sleep, which is a symptom of some diseases, are not to be regarded as lucid intervals.1

2389. General Remarks. If these principles are had regard to in the determination of questions which may arise as to the validity of testaments and the legality of certain other acts, executed and performed during a lucid interval in an attack of maniacal delirium, or that return to mental clearness which occasionally precedes death in such cases, little difficulty will arise. There is no subject connected with the medical jurisprudence of insanity upon which the law can be said to be more definitely laid down. There are few subjects upon which medical men and lawyers differ less than that of the legal relations of those persons who labor under acute delirious mania.

Brydges v. King, 1 Hagg. 256.

2 See 1 Redfield on Wills, ch. iii., sec. x.,

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CHAPTER XX.

LUCID INTERVALS.

390. The Law of Periodicity.There is no law more marked, as we have already said, in relation to vital phenomena than that of periodicity. Everything in nature is periodic. The sun, which is, as it were, the bulb root of life, makes the seasons, makes night and day, makes noon and midnight, and so it is that the whole of the vital processes in man had to become periodic. Thus habit, which tends to constant reproduction of automatic acts, is influenced by this law and produces acts in relation to certain periods. Thus recreations become periodic; sleep becomes periodic; the appetites become periodic; and it would be anomalous if, when all the processes of health are modified by this principle, the morbid conditions of body should not also be under its control. Nervous force becomes exhausted, and a period of rest must follow a period of activity. Nervous force must be accumulated. Now habit, which is like the fiy-wheel of a steam engine, and governs and regulates the movements, makes this periodical necessity of rest a matter in relation to time rather than in relation to labor already done. In this way periodical accumulation of nervous force, periodical feelings of kindness become a part of man's constitution. So it is with diseases, especially, as could be argued from the above explanation, with nervous diseases. Thus it is we find neuralgia coming on at a certain hour, and from these facts it is not difficult to infer that most, if not all, diseases are periodic. Now, the question as to periodicity when it comes to be asked with regard to insanity must have the answer which has been indicated by the above deductions. The fact that the name by which it is still known,

lunacy, ascribed the origin of the disease to the influence of the moon, evidently points to remissions and exacerbations of the disease corresponding to the monthly changes. That this periodicity is not so marked now is true, but that it was observed in old times seems certain. That the tides [295] should be in the leading strings of lunar influences, that all the waters of the world should be moved by the gravitation of the moon, and that man should be unaffected by this influence, it is somewhat difficult to conceive. How far the menstrual discharge is governed by this law it is impossible to conjecture, and all our efforts to ascertain the exact effects of this cause fall very short of the mark.

391. Lucid Intervals.-The philosophy of medicine is not sufficient to dream of all things in heaven and earth. Now, that there are marked remissions in insanity is a wellknown fact. We know that at certain hours of the day the wards of an asylum are more noisy, just as at certain hours of a day the pulse is higher. But besides these simple remissions in the violence of the manifestations of disease, there are some remissions which have a striking resemblance to mental health, and these have been called lucid intervals. That there may be long periods of health between attacks of mania has scarcely been doubted, but many medical men have hesitated to believe that, in those remissions of a shorter duration which do take place in the course of this disease, there is any return to a normal mental condition. Thus, Dr. Combe observes: "However calm and rational the patient may appear to be during the lucid intervals, as they are called, and while enjoying the quietude of domestic society, or the limited range of a well-regulated asylum, it must never be supposed that he is in as perfect possession of his senses as if he had never been ill. In ordinary circumstances, and under ordinary excitement, his perceptions may be accurate, and his judgment perfectly sound, but a degree of irritability of brain remains behind, which renders him unable to withstand any unusual emotion, any sudden provocation, or any unexpected emergency. Were not this the case, it is manifest that he would not be more liable to a fresh paroxysm than if he had never been attacked. And the

opposite is notoriously the fact; for relapses are always to be dreaded, not only after a lucid interval, but even after perfect recovery; and it is but just, as well as proper, to keep this in mind, as it has too often happened that the lunatic has been visited with the heaviest responsibility for acts committed during such an interval, which previous to the first attack of the disease he would have shrunk from with horror." Considerable misunderstanding has existed upon this point up to the present time.

2392. Intermissions and Remissions.-200) With regard to lucid intervals, many persons have been of opinion that they were to be clearly distinguished from well-marked remissions of the disease, while others have held that they were only to be distinguished from intermissions by the length of their duration. Thus Taylor2 holds that there is a well-marked distinction capable of being observed and maintained between a remission of mania and a lucid interval, although in another place he says that nothing more is intended by a lucid interval than that the patient shall become entirely conscious of his acts and capacity. Perhaps the truth is that intermissions are not to be distinguished in any way from remissions; and that the distinction between functional or dynamic and organic disease, is more apparent than real. Those persons who have held that a lucid interval was ouly a remission of the violence of the symptoms of the disease are at variance with some of the best legal opinions upon this point. Dr. Haslam has been mentioned as one of those who hold the impossibility of lucid intervals, as it has been defined in the courts of law upon the authority of some of the ablest members of the medical profession, but we find him saying in one place: "I should define a lucid interval to be a complete recovery of the patient's intellects, ascertained by repeated examinations of his conversation, and by constant observation of his conduct for a time sufficient to enable the superintendent to form a correct judgment. Unthinking people are frequently led to conclude that if, during a short

Observations on Mental Derangement, p. 241. See also Etudes Physico-Soma_ tiques sur l'Alienation Mentale par S. E. F. Renaudin, chap. ix., p. 522, Paris, 1854. * Medical Jurisprudence, 651, ed. 1861.

conversation, a person under confinement shall betray nothing absurd or incorrect, he is well, and often remonstrate on the injustice of secluding him from the world. Insane people will often, for a short time, conduct themselves both in conversation and behavior with such propriety that they appear to have the just exercise and direction of their faculties; but let the examiner protract the discourse until the favorite subject shall have got afloat in the madman's brain, and he will be convinced of the hastiness of his decision." This is not quite consistent with what Dr. Haslam says in another work, where he remarks: "As a constant observer of this disease for more than twenty-five years, I cannot affirm that lunatics, with whom I have had daily intercourse, have manifested alternations of insanity and reason. They may at intervals become more tranquil, and less disposed to obtrude their distempered fancies into notice." In one of these extracts he seems to be of opinion that a lucid interval is an intermission of the disease, and in the other he identifies a lucid interval with a remission.

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2393. Legal Holdings with reference to Lucid Intervals. In this place, however, we have more to do with legal than with 297medical definitions. And there have been inconsistencies in the decisions upon this point. In the Attorney General v. Parnther, Lord Thurlow said: "By a perfect lucid interval I do not mean a cooler moment, an abatement of pain or violence, or of a higher state of torture—a mind relieved from excessive pressure, but an interval in which the mind having thrown off the disease, had recovered its general habit." And Sir William Wynne, in Cartwright v. Cartwright, said: "I think that the strongest and best proof that

On Madness, 46 and 47.

Medical Jurisprudence of Insanity, p. 224.

33 Bro. C. C. 441.

1 Phillim. 90. The Chancellor D'Aguessau, in his argument for the Abb d'Orleans, (see Evans Pothier on Obligations, App. 579,) says of a lucid interval: "It must not be a superficial tranquillity, a shadow of repose, but on the contrary, a profound tranquillity, a real repose: it must be not a mere ray of reason which only makes its absence more apparent when it is gone, not a flash of lightning which pierces through the darkness only to render it more gloomy and dismal, not a glimmering which joins the night to the day, but a perfect light, a lively and continued lustre, a full and entire day interposed between two separate nights of the fury which

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