The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1880-05-08
F" Paralytic Insanity"

ARE the persons insane who, on the
descent of an elevator, regularly persist
in trying to get into it before those who
are already in it have got out? Are the
persons insane who, having fixed in
come, regularly persist, year after year,
in exceeding it, to their own misery and
that of every body connected with
them? Are the borrowers of books in
sane who, knowing they will never re-
turn them, carry off the volumes of
their friends with or without permissionP
Or the borrowers of any thing, in short,
In like circumstances, from bank notes
to shirt-collars?
We are moved to put these questions,
by way of illustration. through reading
report of DR.. Hammond's interesting
address, delivered last evening before
the Medico-Legal Society. That ad-
dress we call interesting; but in some
respects it is more than that; for if all
OF its statements and conclusions are
accepted it must likewise be called
alarming. Paralytic insanity, the theme
of I'r. Hammond's discourse, we I'M
derstand from it to be dangerously on
the increase. 1t is manifested first by
physical symptoms-an important point
to bear in mind-the mental symptoms
coming afterward. Usually there is a
treniulous movement of the upper lip,
as il the subject were about to into burst
tears. impeachment of speech follows
the trouble being more with the mechan-
ism of speech than with the idea of
speech. Then the mental symptoms
appear; and it is the description of
these that has suggested our predatory
inquiries.
Sometimes, we are told, the mania
takes the form of inordinate money
spending. One of DIR. Hammond's pa
tients went down town and bought sew
eral hundred shovels. Another bought
all the dogs he could find. Another I'M
dertook to buy nearly all the jewelry in
large shop; and, going home, COW
ed his wife from head to foot with gems
and obliged her to walk up and down
before him. The same patient proposed
to make voyage to Europe in the Great
Eastern, taking the Scotia as tender;
there was to be band of music on the
former ship and the musicians were to
be dressed in blue velvet with diamond
buttons; and DR.. Hammond was to ac-
company the expedition and to receive
salary of a million dollars month.
The lecturer described other forms of
delusion. One was that of man who
thought himself irresistibly captivating.
He was not happy until it was admitted
or supposed that every fresh woman
with whom he came in contact had
fallen victim to his charms. Another
thought himself so light as to be fit to
fly; his levity being imputed by him to
the circumstance that the interior of his
body was occupied by angels, so that,
if he chose, he could move about in
space with all the celebrity of Mr.. D. D.
Home or any other past master in the
art. Still another person used to knock
women down and take off their Slip
pers; his bureau drawers being found
at last to be filled with these curious
trophies. What is called kleptomania
is, indeed, one of the commonest forms
of paralytic insanity; and cases of this
sort are heard of every day.
Now, without going into further de-
tails, more than to observe in passing
that relative enlargement of one of the
pupils of the eye and shuf1ling of the
feet are named as among the most fire.
quent indications of this cerebral disor-
der, what is chiefly impressed upon the
mind by DR.. Hammond's lecture is the
extension that it denotes of the field of
insanity, with the host of dangers to
society and prosperity that this extern
sion implies. Ii the representations
now made are to be accepted without
qualification, it seems to follow that
many persons are punished as criminals
who ought to be shut up as lunatics.
Rufus Choate some years ago, in Bos-
ton, made an astonishingly able defense
of Albert j. Tirrell, charged with the
murder of Maria Bickford. The de-
tense was founded on the plea of SOM
nambulism. The advocate owned that
his client had killed the woman, but
claimed that he was walking in his sleep
when he did it. But, if what we under
stand to be DR.. Hammond's facts and
differences are to be received implicitly,
Mr.. Choate would in our day have
much easier time of it; since the tokens
of incipient alteration as just laid down
are so many and so various that it is
scarcely an exaggeration to say that for
any individual to be sane in a given
community may soon be set down as a
remarkable exception; and this refec-
ton makes the dangers we have limited
at sufficiently palpable.
If all persons who are habitually ex-
travagant, or Incorporate, or who 90
about buying useless things, like Mrs.
Toodles, or who, as members of fam
lily, are chronically willful, disobedient
and regardless of the rights of others, or
who take things, small or great, that do
not belong to them, or who, which is
the same thing, incur debt that they
can not pay, are to be adjudged out of
their minds, it is clear that lunatic asy-
huns will have to be greatly increased
in number, and that society must sub
init to serious depopulation. Yet, if
this is objected to as sweeping, who is
to indicate the boundaries of exception
or to declare the locality of the g thin
partitions" which those bounds divide?
We may perhaps be told--for the new
est revelations in cerebral science point
to such dictum-that perfect sanity in
human beings is as rare as perfect
physical health; and there is certainly
room, according to these lights, to APP
.Dx,oLo,.I Tho 6