News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1882-11-23
THE MIND DISORDERED,
THE TERRIBLE TRAGEDY IN NEW
YORK.
A Few of the Peculiarities of Those Who
suffer from Disordered Minds
and Iusanity

The terrible tragedy enacted in New
York City, in which mother killed he
three children and then herself. harrow
ing as It's details are, must be regarded
from present information as to the fact,
rather as an incident in the progress O
slowly developing insanity OF of nervou,
exhaustion than in any other light. A
the same time, the case of Mrs. Seouir
illustrates the care that should be take1
IN surveillance of the nervously diseased
or Frustrated after the first symptoms O.
dependency and settled depression have
once set IN, for, according to all medica.
experience, as surely as night follows day
Just as surely outbreaks of maniacal cast
OF OF morbid impulse follow sooner OF
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. DIR. Beard stated recently that
he had received as many as three such
confessions in a single week, and Prot.
Hammond's record book abounds in cases
OF the same class. Sometimes it is a
husband fondly devoted to a beautiful
wife, but haunted by an ever-pesent
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 a matter of
curious interest, the impulse is more fire.
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 OPP
portunity may offer.
A nervous patient lately confessed that
he had come near killing his gardener
that very morning They had not had
any dispute. The man was at work in
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 with
the intention of Draining his unsuspicious
employee, and had the mans back been
turned to him even for an instant the
blow would undoubtedly have descended
All these patients tell the same story.
They abhor the idea of murder they
dread the presentation of the opportunity,
but the impulse leaps upon them with a
lions leap, and they fear that it will one
day take them by surprise. They know
the crime-the wrong-the Nervousness
of murder ; know it just as well when the
Impulse is on them as in saner moments.
There is no mental alteration and no
subYersion of the judgment, in the proper
sense Of the phrase; nor is there any
proper insanity, either settled or transit
tory. The attack cannot be described as
in the nature of an outbreak of maniacal
although it properly replaces
such an outbreak in the history of the
case. There is, indeed, no such horrible
fascination in the idea as Poe describes
in his story of the nervous man who killed
an old man because the old mans eye
troubled him. 1t is simply an impulse
that may at any moment prove resistless,
but is not accompanied by any intellectual
bias or any physical phenomena-an i'm
pulse that is purely nervous.
The nature of the facts is now rapidly |
known to medical men, and
here is the broad fact that such cases
,annot be described as transitory mania,
IL explained upon that basis. They in
7olve no mania at all, no halucinations,
On delusions, and their Jurisprudence is
one of the most difficult problems that
modern science has developed. They
re wholly different in origin and method
rom epileptic attacks, either of the con-
7ulsive or of the masked order. and vet
he confessions SO often come from per
ons of yeracity, fine culture, and high
altitude that the genuineness
If suicidal and homicidal impulse dis
met from any form of insanity, and
more frequently associated with spinal
exhaustion than with brain disease-can
leither be doubted nor denied.