St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1884-03-31
hiking WILLS.

The story of Barnum recently making his
will with three physicians present to witness
it, and to swear that he was of sound and
disposing mind and memory, might from the
very eccentricity of the proceeding be argued
as an abnormal indication with which after
all the strictly medical question of health
or disease might not have so much weight
in the law as the question of mental incap-
acity.
Mental capacity, or what has been held to
be the requisite mental capacity in will max
ing, has for a couple of centuries been held
nearly to its first primitive definition and
recognition in the law, with not many con-
| cessions until the greater light upon physiol-
ogy and pathology in the present time has
won impregnable ground in cases familiar
to the reading world. Study, discovery,
perfect skill, and all the enlightened modern
methods of scientific inquiry have brought
the law and medical science more in accord
than of yore, when in litigation, each side
expected its views to be accepted in ultimate
decision.
While the law has admitted testamentary
capacity in the lucid intervals of insane per-
sons, and compelled those availing them
selves of the plea to prove as directly as pos
sible that at no interval did reason return, it
has nevertheless been slow in taking into
account the form of disease known as par
tial Insanity. Indeed, npto the present cen
fury there is no mention of partial insanity
in civil cases, andin criminal cases was con-
temptuously received if presented in defense.
1t was first recognized by Lord Hale, about
one hundred years ago, and another hundred
years brought it into activity as an element
of excuse for human delinquency, or as a
claim upon the protection of the law.
1t has had Indifferent luck as a plea and
many able minds have combated it-notably
Lord Brougham who resisted the idea of par
tial insanity, declaring that, however, lin
tied apparently, it was enough to vitiate all
the PERSONS civil acts-because regarding
the mind as an indivisible potency any i'm
pairment of it must be absolute, not partial
He did not believe in dividing or subdivid-
ing the mind-or that a portion could be-
come unsound and the rest remain sound.
Beside the array of mental disorders con-
sidered by the medical jurisprudence of our
time, the four descriptions of persons legally
incapable, as tabulated by Lord Coke, seem
simple enough, viz: Idiots, those who by
sickness, grief, or other accident have wholly
lost memory and understanding, those called
lunatics, who have sometimes their under
standing and sometimes not, ard those who,
by their own vicious act, have deprived them
selves for time of their memory and under
standing, such as drunkards.
This is about as primitive a schedule as
could well be made and yet, despite the
wonderful advancement of medical science
in the interval in which the circulation of the
blood and the functions of the nerves have
been discovered, the Communication and
rules of those early expounders still largely
govern the decisions of English and Ameri-
can courts.
Any absurd, irregular and impracticable
testamentary disposition of property gener-
ally furnishes goodly amount of litigation
The large fortune recently willed by Ellen
M. Clifford to secure refuge for dogs, to be
called the ''Sheltering Arms" is to the aver
age notion of mental capacity ysmptom of
impaired judgment, which is significant of
testamentaay incompetency. Formerly the last
will and testament were safe from almost
every tampering, and more particularly Sc
cure from that questioning the mental cap
acity of the testator. Now wills are more
honored in the breach than in the obsery-
ance, and it is not in the least unlikely that
Mr.. Barnum's will, for all his trio of medical
gentlemen as professional and legal witness
es of his sane and sound predisposing