Connecticut western news., 1882-11-08
THE MIND DISORDERED.
THE TERRIBLE TRAGEDY IN NEW
 YORK.
A Few of the Peculiarities of Those Who Suffer from DisoI dered Minds
 and Insanity.

The terrible tragedy enacted in New York City, in which mother killed her three children and then herself, harrow ing as its details are, must be regarded from present information as to the facts rather as an incident in the progress of slowly developing insanity or of nervous exhaustion than in any other light. At the same time, the case of Mrs. Seguin illustrates the care that should be taken in surveillance of the nervously diseased or prostrated after the first symptoms of despondency and settled depression have once set in, for, according to all medical experience, as surely as night follows day just as surely outbreaks of maniacal cast or of morbid impulse follow sooner or later in the wake of these prodomata. In reality, the matter for surprise is not that these tragedies occur, but that they occur so seldom.
 The confessions that are poured into the ears of the expert in nervous diseases by suffering patients abound in tales of suicidal and homicidal impulse long re- pressed. Dr. Beard stated recently that he had received as many as three such confessions in single week, and Prof. Hammond's record book abounds in cases of the same class. Sometimes it is a husband fondly devoted to beautiful wife, but haunted by an ever-present longing to kill her, that leaps into sudden activity whenever an opportunity is pre- sented. Sometimes it is father that loves, but is impelled to kill, his child sometimes mother; but, as matter of curious interest, the impulse is more fre- quent with men than with women and more persistent. Occasionally the i'm pulse is general in its aspects the pa tient is simply tempted to kill somebody, male or female, friend or enemy, as op, portunity may offer.
 A nervous patient lately confessed that he had come near killing his gardener that very morning. They had not ha6 any dispute. The man was at work 1T the yard when his master passed. A spade was lying conveniently at hand and he stopped to talk minute. Three times he picked up the implement witt the intention of braining his unsuspiciou' employee, and had the mans back beer turned to him even for an instant thu blow would undoubtedly have descended All these patients tell the same story They abhor the idea of murder the, dread the presentation of the opportunity but the impulse leaps upon them with
 lions leap, and they fear that it will on day take them by surprise. They kno, the crime-the wrong-the heinousnes of murder know it just as well when tn impulse is on them as in saner moments Il There is no mental alteration and n
 subversion of the judgment, in the prope
 sense of the phrase; nor is there an
 proper insanity, either settled or trans
 tory. The attack cannot be described 6
 in the nature of an outbreak of maniac,
 violence, although it properly replace
 such an outbreak in the history of tl case. There is, indeed, no such horrib fascination in the idea as Poe describe
 in his story of the nervous man who kille
 an old man because the old mans eJ
 troubled him. It is simply an impul that may at any moment prove resistles
 but is not accompanied by any intellectu
 bias or any physical phenomena an ir pulse that is purely nervous.
 The nature of the facts is now rapid
 becoming known to medical men, al , there is the broad fact that such cas
 cannot be described as transitory mani , or explained upon that basis. They
 volve no mania at all, no halucination
 no delusions, and their jurisprudence
 one of the most difficult problems tn 7 modern science has developed. Tn,
 are wholly diffeeent in origin and meth a from epileptic attacks, either of the co
 vulsive or of the masked order, and y ,' the confessions so often come from pe n sons of veracity, fine culture, and hi, o intellectual altitude that the genuinene
 of suicidal and homicidal impulse d e tinct from any form of insanity, a i. more frequently associated with spi1 o exhaustion than with brain disease-c f neither be doubted nor denied.