A manual of psychological medicine and allied nervous diseases ... with especial reference to the clinical features of mental diseases, and the allied neuroses, and its medico-legal aspects, with a carefully prepared digest of the lunacy laws in the various states ... designed for the general practitioner of medicine

Front matter

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Preface

I have endeavored to present to the profession the subject of insanity, and allied nervous diseases, in a scientific, clinical, and forensic light, and in so concise a form as to be available for the student and general practitioner. The many kind words of encouragement which have attended my professional labors, researches and monographs, proceeding as they have from friends occupying high positions in the profession, notably the generous interest and recognition from Prof. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Dr. Pliny Earle, and others in this country, also from Dr. L. S. Forbes Winslow, London, England, encourage me to believe that this book on insanity and allied' nervous diseases, the outcome of practical experience in the field of psychiatry and neurology, will be welcomed by general practitioners and students of medicine, and, I trust, may not be entirely devoid of interest to those in the same specialty as myself — neurology.

Psychological medicine occupies a position of authoritative science, to the elaboration of which has been directed, and is still being directed, the great ability of many of the most distinguished men in the ranks of medicine. Psychological research commands the respect of the enlightened world, because, industriously pursued from small beginnings and unsettled propositions, it has grown to the proportions of a well-defined and harmonious system of science. It has become the adjunct of jurisprudence in settling a class of difficult and otherwise inexplicable questions which arise in the administration of justice. The importance of psychology is evinced by the significant fact that the necessities of medical education demand that it shall be taught in the schools. Journals are especially devoted to its investigation, and, aided by hospitals and enlightened treatment, it has declared to the world that a large percentage of persons recently insane have been restored to their friends and society who, without such timely assistance, would have passed into the advanced sta°"e of mental unsoundness. A very important point relating to

IV PREFACE.

the prevention of mental disorders and the modern nervous diseases is, that the growth of mental function is as gradual as that of bodily power, and that brain-tissue degenerations and mental diseases maybe separated by long intervals of time from the too premature and intense stimulation of the brain in school children which causes these nervous diseases. We meet with the preponderance of nervous diseases in the refined and cultivated classes, where, by premature and stimulating processes of education, there has been forced an elaboration of brain-structure, hastening the functional activity of the brain, with no due regard to the law of evolutional precedence. Normal growth and development will give us healthy mind, while a structurally degraded centric nervous system, or an altered quality of blood, and secondary disturbance of nerve-function, will antagonize healthy mental manifestation. If we have want of sleep, a defective generation of nerve-force, an unstable condition of the nerve-centres, an incomplete development of any part concerned in mental action, all of which Dr. Blandford, of England, has ably shown to be causes of mental disease, we cannot expect healthy mental function. Alcohol and opium are to-day responsible for much deterioration of brain. Dipsomania and the opium habit being on the increase among Americans, there is a greatly increased nervousness and an increasing inherited disposition to the different neuroses ; and the condition known as cerebral hyperemia, an increase in the quantity of the blood within the capillaries of the brain, or rather one form of it, of vaso-motor origin, resulting from overwork and mental strain, is greatly on the increase.

In diseases of the brain both the regional diagnosis and the pathological diagnosis are to-day attracting much attention, and the brilliant work of such writers as Drs. H. Charlton Bastian, L. S. Forbes Winslow, Bucknill and Tuke, Prof. Krafft-Ebbing, Drs. A. Voison, Foville and Luys, Clouston and Blandford, Loggia, Hitzig, Ferrier, Charcot and Lusanne, Brown-Sequard, and Hughlings Jackson, in England, Germany, France.and Italy, with the able work of our neurologists and asylum superintendents at home, makes the writer only too conscious of his own defects in this field of research.

Insanity is not only appearing at an earlier age than formerly, but there is also a decided increase of insanity disproportionate to the increase of population. Educational pressure on the youn°-, to the neglect of physical exercise, the increasing artificial and unnatural habits of living, the great excitement and competition in business, are

PREFACE. V

all tending to induce and multiply nervous diseases, many of which must terminate in mental diseases. As to men, I think, modern nervousness is largely due to mental anxiety respecting business, the abuse of alcohol and tobacco, and sexual excess. These three things, in combination, will break down and shatter the strongest constitution, and induce ataxy, paresis, and insanity in those who inherit weak nervous systems from their progenitors. Regular hours, amusements to divert the mind from the cares of business, freedom from alcoholic stimulants, nourishing food at regular hours and properly digested, abstinence from tobacco during the years previous to puberty and until twenty years, and daily attention to the bowels, with free bathing, will keep most men in robust physical and mental health. Herbert Spencer, in his " Social Statics,'' page 413, speaks thus respecting the wise severity of nature's discipline :

" Partly by weeding out those of lowest development, and partly by subjecting those who remain to the never-ceasing discipline of experience, nature secures the growth of a race who shall both understand the conditions of existence, and be able to act up to them.

And by multiplication of such warnings (the warnings of

ignorance, and its consequence, sickness and pain) there cannot fail to be generated in all men a caution corresponding to the danger to be shunned. Are there any who desire to facilitate the process? Let them dispel error ; and, provided they do this in a legitimate way, the faster they do it the better." Any work that we as physicians do towards influencing the public to study the laws of health, to reform their habits of living, to promote the use of baths, to encourage temperance, ventilation, and due exercise, and to further a knowledge of the human organism and the laws which regulate it, and in diffusing a knowledge of all the -means necessary for the preservation of good health, will produce its exact equivalent of results in the prevention of insanity. We shall thus develop in the masses an intelligent, self-helping character, tending to robustness of body and robustness of mind. Nature has attached to ignorance of her laws or their non-observance certain penalties, and she always punishes every breach of these laws. All measures which we take to replace ignorance by wisdom will inevitably check the growth of insanity.

From our long experience and repository of facts, it is inexcusable if we cannot obtain some information, or if knowledge cannot be in some way secured, to check the increase of insanity. We, as physicians, must make it our concern, charge ourselves with this specific

VI PREFACE.

duty, and continue it from year to year, and, although each individual's work may be small, the aggregate result will be immense for our fellow-men.

While I have freely expressed my own ideas on those diseases with which I am most conversant, and recommended the treatment which in my hands has proved the most successful, I would earnestly advise young practitioners to be guided in their treatment of both mental and nervous diseases by the symptoms and individual characteristics of each case, and not to adopt any routine treatment, if they would make successful practitioners.

I have to express ray warmest thanks to friends for aid rendered me in various ways, but more especially to Dr. Robt. J. Hess of Philadelphia, and to William J. Mann, Esq., of the New York Bar. The former has kindly made a most careful study and critical analysis of the book, and has favored me with valuable suggestions respecting the arrangement of my work of which I have taken advantage, and by correcting the sheets during their progress through the press has laid me under many obligations. The latter gentleman, my brother, kindly consented to prepare the entire abstract of the laws relating to the care and protection of the insane in every State of the Union, greatly increasing the value of the book, especially to the legal profession, giving it a medico-legal importance which otherwise it could not have had.

28 West Thirtieth Street, New York, Oct. 1st, 1883.

Chapter I. Pace

ON INSANITY IN GENERAL, ITS HISTORY AND CLASSIFICATION, . . 37

Chapter II

THE ETIOLOGY OF INSANITY, AND THE IMPORTANCE OF ITS EARLY RECOG- NITION AND REPRESSION IN THE INCIPIENT STAGES.

Insanity caused by defect of nerve-force and an unstable condition of the cerebral centres — By incomplete development — By ill health — Intemperance — Grief — Loss of friends — Mental anxiety and sleeplessness — Blows on the head, etc. — Causes, predisposing and exciting, ......... 52

Chapter X. The Pathology And Morbid Histology Of Acute And Chronic

INSANITY.

The membranes — Epithelium — Nerve-cells— Nerve-fibres— Special morbid conditions of gray matter— The neuroglia — Sclerosis— Bloodvessels and sympathetic nerve-cells — Examination of blood and urine from the insane, . . • 139

Chapter XII. Treatment Of Insanity

General observations — The brain to be looked at as a whole, and medicines must be calculated to act upon it through the general system — Insanity a curable disease if promptly treated at the outset of the disease — If neglected, soon tends to induce organic degeneration, which renders it incurable — Moral treatment — Choice of asylum — Proper attendants — Food — Work — Amusements — Medicinal treatment — Question of non-restraint — Home treatment of the quiet insane as private patients in private dwellings — Dr. Maudsley's opinion — Lunacy Commission — Opium — Hydrate of chloral — Hyoscyamia — Digitalis — Ergot — Bromide of sodium — Bromide of lithium — Bromide of zinc — Phosphorus — Strychnia — Iron — Calomel — Tincture cannabis indica and sodium bromide — Prolonged warm baths .with cold to the head — The galvanic current of electricity in congestive states and as a tonic to the central nervous system — Opium effectually antagonizes suicidal melancholia when used in connection wtth prolonged warm baths— Tincture black hellebore and apiol as emmenagogues — Combinations of sedatives in insanity generally the best practice — Monobromide of camphor — Fothergill's solution of hydrobromic acid — Chloro-phosphide of arsenic (Routh's formula) — Conium — Cases illustrating the treatment of insanity— Views of Dr. Pliny Earle, Dr. John P. Gray, Dr. Thomas S. Kirkbride, Dr. Henry P. Stearns, Dr. Nichols, and others, . . . 157

Chapter XIII. Insanity In The Middle States

Insanity increasing disproportionately to the increase of population —New York : Utica Asylum — Hudson River State Hospital at Poughkeepsie — The State Homreopathic Asylum for Insane at Middletown — Buffalo State Asylum for Insane — New York State asylums for the chronic insane: The Willard Asylum at Ovid and the Binghaniton State Asylum for the Chronic Insane — Kings

CONTENTS. ix

County Lunatic Asylum at Flatbush — New York County asylums on Ward's and Blackwell's Islands — The New Jersey State Lunatic Asylum at Trenton, N. J. — The new asylum at Morristown, N. J. — The four Pennsylvania State hospitals — Insane in Delaware, in almshouses, etc., 266

Chapter XIV. Provision For The Chronic Insane

Large, expensive institutions a mistake, 271

Chapter XV. Lunacy In England And Scotland

The views of the late Dr. Forbes Winslow on the treatment of insanity, . . 275

Chapter XVI

THE NECESSITY FOR A NEW METHOD OF INTRODUCING EXPERT TFSTIMONY IN CRIMINAL TRIALS WHERE INSANITY IS ALLEGED AS A DEFENCE.

States should be districted and a physician in lunacy appointed for each district by the Governor — This board of psychological experts should constitute a State lunacy commission and examine all cases before trial — Dr. D. Hack Tuke's opinion — Laws of Austria — Laws of France — Law of insanity should be more conformable than it is with medical science — The immense medico-legal importance of the recognition of the mental condition that is the precursor of decided insanity: Depression, unwonted excitability, disregard of the minor proprieties of life, change, of affections, sleeplessness, change of character, loss of self-control, and, finally, the downfall of the integrity of the intellect, . 296

Chapter XVII. Codification Of The Common Law As To Insanity

Lord Justice BramweH's opinion — Lord Justice Blackburn's opinion — Opinion of the Lord Chief Justice of England and of Lord Moncrief, the Lord Justice Clerk of Scotland — Of the late Dr. Ray — Sir Fitzjames Stephen's attempt to codify the common law of England on insanity — The physician studies the whole history of his patient and his ancestry and searches for the causes of any bodily and mental changes that he finds, and thus arrives at the true pathology of the disease; while the lawyer and jurist are mainly interested in the existence of mental disease, its degree, and its influence on conduct — Why the apparent unwillingness to recognize disease in the homicidal act when the physician and jurist alike are willing to recognize disease in the suicidal act? — We must look at these questions by the aid of the light of modern pathology, as the Lord Chief Justice of England has done already — People born with a predisposition to insanity manifest slight symptoms for years, but not sufficient to induce their friends to treat them as insane — When an overt act is committed, who can question the value of a careful examination of the past life and acts of the accused ? — His life has exhibited the natural history of insanity

X CONTENTS.

— The psychological expert can point out clearly to the jurist the unmistakable evidences of mental disease, which the latter, necessarily, alone and unaided, could not discover— There should be no rule of law that conflicts with the elementary truths of insanity, on which only such rules should be founded, . 302

Part II. Introductory Chapter On Modern Nervous Diseases

Neurotic affections increasing and multiplying— We have, as Americans, a morbid nervousness which is a new state of the system— Our increased nervousness evinced by the connection with, and influence of the nervous system on other diseases not properly nervous— Increased consumption of neurotic remedies in this country — The neurotic circle in society constantly increasing, out of proportion to the increase of population, equally with the distinctly insane circle of society, causes increased complexity of the central nervous system and of life — Probable elaboration in structure of the brain due to the demands of a modern civilization upon it — Modern system of education influential in the production of nervous and mental disorders of a grave type — Brain exhaustion and organic disease thus induced — The exhaustive effects of excessive and ill-directed brain work in our modern schools — The whole future complexion of mental life in great part determined by the impressions made on the sensory centres of the brain when they are undergoing development — The difficulty of making even cultured people understand that brain-tissue degenerations and mental diseases may be separated by long intervals of time from the too premature and intense stimulation of the brain which causes these nerve and brain diseases — Brain disease much increased in our period of civilization as compared with a former and more primitive period — By cautious stimulation of the brain we bring it to its highest development; by undue haste we ruin its functional activity forever — Wakefulness and restlessness to be met by promptly leaving one's business and taking complete physical and mental rest — Mental anxiety, by producing sleeplessness and unrefreshing sleep, quickly disturbs the normal balance of the nervous system and deranges its functions — ■ Syphilitic nervous disease and its diagnosis, . . . . . . , 311

Chapter XVIII

GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM BY EVOLUTION, AND THE CONDITION OF THE BRAIN IN HEALTH AND DISEASE, AND GENERAL REMARKS ON THE REGIONAL DIAGNOSIS OF DISEASES OF THE SPINAL CORD AND BRAIN.

The simplest nervous apparatus, one ganglion situated in the neighborhood of the mouth, in the mantle, and giving off cords which proceed to the sense and digestive organs of the ascidian mollusc — The echinoidea, the annulosa, having a chain of ganglia running the whole length of the body, united by nervous cords — The insecta) having two cords passing backwards from the cephalic

CONTENTS. XI above the ventral ganglia, and giving off branches to them and to the body walls — This the most rudimentary form of the cerebro-spinal system— The ■vertebrata — The lancelet, the vertebrate with the simplest nervous system^— The renal axis of this animal, a delicate tract of nucleated cells, surrounded by a covering of pia mater, and fifty or sixty pairs of nerves given off laterally — Lampreys possess a higher organization, as they have a cartilaginous cranium, with a spinal cord extending anteriorly — The cod and shark higher yet; the posterior fissure widens, and the halves of the cord expand — Two lateral columns project into the ventricle from the conjoined restiform and posterior pyramidal tracts — Cerebellum and crura cerebelli added next in process of evolution, etc. — Crocodile — Bird — Dog— The cerebra develop pari passu with the animal's degree of intelligence — Multiplication of ganglia always accompanied by a corresponding differentiation of ganglionic functions, some being devoted to sight, others to controlling muscular tissue, etc. — The nervous system always adapted to the general structure of the animal — The pre-cesophageal ganglion of the annulosa the direct homologue of the vertebrate brain — In the highest vertebrates reflex movements take place through the brain, spinal cord, and sympathetic system — These govern the visceral functions, and are connected with the voluntary actions of life — In the evolution of the nervous system the brain or cephalic ganglion is gradually increased in motor and sensory power, and the non-cephalic ganglion relatively lessened, the nervous apparatus gradually gaining in complexity, until man is reached, where we find the nervous system comprising the cerebrum and cerebellum, with the various ganglia and commissures which belong to these bodies, the medulla oblongata, the spinal cord, the sympathetic ganglia, and the nerves which, springing from these several sources, are distributed throughout the organism, etc. — General considerations on the diagnosis, pathology, and treatment of nervous diseases — Generally, a perfect accord between the cortical lesion in the brain and the peripheral and functional lesion, and we find the same parallelism between the intensity of the lesion of movements and the gravity of the lesion in the cortical motor zone — From the region of the body where the convulsive movements commence in nervous disease, we may, with certainty, diagnosticate the cortical brain centre primitively and principally affected, which will be that corresponding to the group of muscles earliest brought into action — Rules for localizing chronic lesions of the nervous centres — The appearance of synchronous and symmetrical paraplegia — Paraplegia of the legs — Cerebral paraplegia — Tabetic symptoms — Progressive muscular atrophy — Hemiplegia with opposite hemianesthesia — Bilateral tabetic neuralgia of the legs and arms in central neuroses — Progressive paralysis of cerebral

nerves — Paraplegia of the tongue (alalia) — Hemiplegia, with opposite facial or oculo-motorius paralysis — Hemiplegia, with hemianesthesia of the same side — Hemiplegia, with incomplete facial paralysis (the upper branch remaining free) — Hemiplegia, with convulsions— Diseases of the meninges — Static vertigo — Contractions of central origin — Tremors — Influence of sensorial irritation upon phenomena due to motor irritation — Phenomena of motor irritation from centric causes — The diagnosis of diseases of and injuries to the spinal cord — Paralysis of voluntary movements, of the muscular sense, of the vaso-motor nerves, hyperesthesia, ocular and facial symptoms on both sides of the body, anesthesia in one lateral half of the body — We can make an exact diagnosis as to the seat of the lesion :

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Lesion in the pons varolii, lesions in the cms cerebri, lesions in the optic thalamus, lesion in corpus striatum, lateral ventricles, lesions in the anterior, middle, and posterior parts of the cerebral hemispheres — Symptoms of critical affections of the brain — Lesions of the cerebellum — Pathological diagnosis — Sudden hemorrhages — Prognosis in cerebral hemorrhages — To avert threatened cerebral hemorrhages, . . . . . • • • 3'9

Chapter XIX. Dipsomania

Dipsomania, a true periodical insanity, a form of physical disease — Differs from the physiological state in which the individual merely chooses to indulge in liquor to excess — The great diagnostic point of the disease, the irresistible impulse, by which the patient is impelled to gratify his morbid propensity, being, during the paroxysm, blind to all the higher emotions, and pursuing a course against which reason and conscience alike rebel — These paroxysms preceded by considerable disturbance of the nervous system, etc. — Treatment, judicious restraint— A permanent recovery depends on allowing sufficient time for restoration of the nerve-power, mental tone, and physical vigor, and for complete recuperation of the will-power, etc. — Nervous exhaustion and premature mental decay from dipsomania, and its treatment, etc., .... 354

Chapter XX. Hysteria

Causes, symptoms, pathology, diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment — Principal characteristics of hysteria consist in an exaggeration of involuntary motility, and a diminution of the power of the will — Voluntary movements not properly executed, while the reflex sensational and emotional movements are abnormally active — The will determined by the ideas, feelings, and fancies — The patient cares nothing for her duties, and takes pleasure in exaggerating all her slight discomforts and annoyances, and by her suspicious, exacting, and unreasonable behavior makes life generally uncomfortable to her friends — Hysterical patients must be unconsciously guided away from self, and into new grooves of thought, feeling, and action — Electricity, exercise, tonics, etc. and removal from home — The psychical treatment, away from home, of primary importance, . . 376

Chapter XXI. Epilepsy

Definition — Causes — Symptoms — Pathology — Diagnosis — Prognosis — Treatment, . 417

Chapter XXII. Hystero- Epilepsy

Symptoms — Pathology — Diagnosis — Prognosis — Treatment — History of a very unusual case of hystero-epilepsy, with removal of both ovaries, .... 442

CONTENTS. XI II

Chapter XXIII. Chorea

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Symptoms — Causes — Pathology — Diagnosis — Prognosis and Treatment — Chorea occurs at a time when the nutrition of the brain is passing through a state of transition, from that of infancy or early childhood to that of the adult period — The lesion one of mal- nutrition and irritation — Treatment must be tonic and bracing to the nervous system, cold sponge baths, chalybeates, quinine, and other metallic tonics — A tendency in the worst cases to run into one or other of the inflammatory diseases of the brain and spinal cord — General unilateral tendency of chorea — Symptoms connected with a morbid irritability of the cerebral convolution, ganglion at the base of the brain, the pons, the medulla and the spinal cord — The disease depends upon hyperemia and mo-bid irritability of the nervous centres — Hereditary chorea 449

Chapter XXIV. Vertigo

Definition — Causes — Varieties — Prognosis — Treatment, ..... 462

Chapter XXV. States Of Unconsciousness

Somnambulism— Catalepsy — Trance and Trance Coma, .... 466

Chapter XXVI. Cerebral And Spinal Anaemia

Frequence among American women — A disease of capillary contraction and bloodlessness — Symptoms of cerebral irritation present — May be great disturbances of sensibility — If not checked, lapses into melancholia and dementia, ending in psychical torpidity and intellectual decay — The state of anaemia, if carried beyond a certain point, will destroy functional activity and the activity of the brain — Treatment — Psychical and medicinal — Electricity, etc., must improve quantity and quality of blood circulating in the brain and spinal cord, . . 490

Chapter XXVII. Inflammatory Diseases Of The Brain And Its Membranes

Periphery of brain very sensitive, and injuries of this poition attended with very serious results — Inflammation of membranes followed by formation of pus or effusion of serum or of lymph — Idiopathic encephalitis very rare — All external injuries to head of great importance owing to anatomical relationship between the pericranium and the dura mater — Stage of invasion and stage of effusion in meningitis — Rigors, pain in head, intolerance of light and noise, and irritability of temper — Symptoms — Differential diagnosis at onset of typhoid fever and delirium tremens, ... ...... 496

XIV CONTENTS.

Chapter XXVIII. Neuralgia

PAGB

General considerations, varieties and treatment — Pathology of neuralgia consists in the functional impairment of the sensory nerve-cells of the central sensory tract of the nervous system which is the seat of nervous sensibility — In neuralgia of extremities we should search for trouble or injury to the trunk of the nerve whose sentient extremities are affected— Exit of the cranial nerves, neuritis and neuralgia — Visceral neuralgias— Hypodermics of atropia— Neuralgia sometimes dependent upon peripheral vaso-motor disturbance, but the nerve-centres generally the seat of the disease — Neurasthenia or nervous exhaustion the most important predisposing cause — Tendency of neurasthenia toward incipient insanity — Motor phenomena, loss of muscular power and endurance — The secreto-motor part of the nervous apparatus disturbed — Hemorrhoids, impacted feces, and affections of the urinary organs causes of visceral neuralgias— Diseased ovaries — Exostoses in frontal sinuses or in the ethmoidal or sphenoidal bones, or on the roots of the teeth — Treatment — Professor Erb, of Heidelberg, on electricity as a therapeutic agent in neuralgia — Static electricity and continuous galvanic current, ......... 501

Chapter XXIX

LOCOMOTOR ATAXIA (POSTERIOR SPINAL SCLEROSIS) CEREBRAL HYPEREMIA, CEREBRAL SOFTENING, AND CEREBRAL SCLEROSIS.

Description — Symptoms — Clinical history and treatment — Premonitory symptoms of posterior spinal sclerosis — Paroxysms of pain of a neuralgic character, wandering and of a stabbing, boring nature, generally in the feet and legs — Diminution of the patellar tendon, vesical, rectal, and pupillary reflexes, and plantar ancesthesia — Crises gaslriqites of Charcot — Osteo-arthritic changes — Treatment, . . . . . . . . . . . . .518

Chapter XXX. Electricity In Diseases Of The Nervous System

The Faradic current — The constant or galvanic current and static electricity — When indicated and how to be used — Dr. J. Russell Reynolds, Dr. A. D. Rockwell, Dr. Wilks, Dr. Poore, Dr. Buzzard, and Dr. Althaus, on clinical uses of electricity, ...... .... 546

Chapter XXXI. Spinal Concussion

Viewed in a scientific, clinical, and forensic light — Effects as a rule remote rather than immediate — The mind affected quite as seriously as the body — Medico-legal relation and significance — The spinal cord maybe functionally disturbed and even organically diseased from any and all such spinal shocks and injuries— Local and constitutional immediate and remote effects from these inju-

CONTENTS.

ries— Primary effects due to molecular changes — Secondary effects of an inflammatory nature — The length of time that may elapse between the injury and the development of symptoms — Meningitis — Myelitis and meningo-myelitis — Necessarily fatal injuries to the spine from indirect violence — Variation in paralysis— Slowly developed spinal meningitis from spinal injury in railway collisions terminating in death eventually — Paraplegia and slow recovery — Injuries to the back without apparent mechanical lesion — Slight injuries followed by fatal results — Sensory disturbances — Nervous shock, no immediate effects and chronic meningitis with imperfect recovery— General shocks the result of railway collision, etc. — Treatment 608

Chapter XXXII. The Psychology Of Crime

The degree of responsibility which attaches to the class who are periodically or constantly impelled to commit crime — A pathological state of the brain connected with a peculiar skull development (shortening of the occiput, anterior vertex steepness, " scheitelsteilheit" asymmetry, and flattening of occiput) — Professor Moriz. Benedikt's researches — The varieties of skull development which play a part in the natural history of crime — An anthropological change lies at the foundation of criminal propensities — A deficient organization lies at the base of criminal natures and is the cause of the abnormal moral constitution — Examination of four criminal brains by Professor Benedikt — Want of prominence of the external occipital protuberance and flatness of occiput — Vertex steepness (rising up from before backwards), present in 55 per cent, of habitual thieves' skulls — (The highest point of the crown generally stands a little higher, one and a half centimetre, than the boundary line between the part of the forehead covered with hair and that which is uncovered — The proportion is altered in habitual thieves, and there are differences amounting to seven centimetres — The frontal diameter at the top of the crown is broad, and broader than that of the forehead ; and, lastly, the highest protuberance of the two parietal bones lies commonly in such an oblique horizontal line that one end of it lies before and the other behind the ear) — Murder often the result of ethical weakness or imbecility because the materials for the formation of the higher feelings are absent — Construction of the skull proportionate to the whole anthropological organization in animals and man — The ethic constitution or development is wanting which is necessary to the foundation of the feeling of what is right — There is a predisposition to crime as to insanity — The brain comes into the world with the same imperfections and deficiencies, the same irresistible tendencies to disease or perversity of action, which have long been observed with regard to other organs — Imperfection, deficiency or obliquity are the result of organic influences, and abnormal mental and moral phenomena rj^ult — The necessity for moral pathology to be raised to a science — An irresistible impulse to do or say a thing abhorrent to one's own idea of fitness or morals, significant of the inheritance of a tendency to mental disease — The mental responsibility of those with the peculiar cerebral condition which is produced by tendencies to disease or ancestral vices — The laws of hereditary transmission imperfectly understood — The conditions of mind implying abnormal imperfection of