The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1884-06-05
MEN WHO WANT TO KILL.
Homicidal and Suicidal Impulses
That are Likely to Spring Up.

anu SulCludi
That are Likely to Spring Up.
considering the number of cases OF
homicidal and suicidal impulse that
come under the notice of experts in
nervous diseases" a distinguished
specialist remarked, sit is wonder to
me that so few tragedies from that
source really happen. Last week
| business man in this city, who owns a
handsome country residence on the
Hudson, and would be regarded by his
acquaintance as the last person in the
world to be possessed by such Q whim,
came to me in great worry of mind
and told me he had something to COM
municate that must be held strictly in
violate. The story was typical. have
heard it with trihing variations thou
sand times in five years. He had not
been feeling very well-rather nervous
and i'll at ease-for some days. That
morning, as he left the house to take
the train for New York, he happened
to pass his gardener who was at work
on the grounds, and stopped to talk to
him minute. The man was STOPPING
over clump, of ornamental shrubbe-
ries, thinning out the dead stalks with
pruning knife. A spade was leaning
against the trunk of tree just at his
hand. Il had never had any quarrel or
misunderstanding with the man, said
this patient, telling his story. But the
impulse was upon me in an instant to
seize that spade and brain the poor fell
low on the spot. | trembled all over
like leaf, with kind of nervous terror
that l can hardly describe to you,
Doctor. Finally, not daring to trust
myself longer, | turned and walked
| away as fast as my legs could conven-
iently carry me. l believe, sir, that l
should have killed the man if | had
fingered five minutes longer. Now,
what is to be done?i
The doctor advised his patient to
avoid temptation for few days, turn
his mind resolutely to something else,
and gave him sedatiye prescription
| bromides, of course-with instructions
to call again in a day or two. The
man was sensible enough to act on the
advice, and on the fourth day he
dropped in and told the doctor that the
trouble had passed off. and he felt like
himself once more And so a tragedy
was averted probably.
The physician went on to say that he
| had no less than nine cases of homi-
cidal or suicidal impulse then under
treatment. OF these seven were sui
cidal, and the other two homicidal.
One of the latter had been on his
hands for three weeks. The patient, q
man of some note in literature, had
been sleepless for several weeks before
the impulse manifested itself. He was
q married man, and loved his wife de-
votedly. One night, after doing few
minutes with terrible dreams, he awoke
with a strange presentment of imend-
ing disaster. His wife was sleeping
quietly. The moonlight, struggling
through the window pane, fell upon her
face and white, shapely throat. As
sudden as the leap of a tiger, the i'm
pulse seized him to cut the woman's
throat, and he was actually out of bed
and hunting for his razor in the bureau
drawer, before any realizing sense of
the enormity of the deed that he was
about to perpetrate interposed to
prevent the tragedy. He returned to
bed, and lay in a tremble till daylight.
His wife never knew how near she had
been to death. He had had no wish to
kill anybody else as yet
Zone of my suicidal patients" con-
tinued the doctor, was first seized
with the impulse on a Brooklyn ferry
boat. He had been across the river on
| business, and was on his way back.
He went on board one of the boats at
the Fulton Ferry, and stood gazing
listlessly at the rampant of business
houses extending far to the right on
Furman street. The boat started sud-
denly as he stood eliminating. He in
sists that the impulse had its origin in
irritation of the retina caused by the
movement of the sunshine flooded sur
faces of brick across the optic field, and
very likely he was right. For an in
slant, he says, i was wild; and when
| came to myself my hand was on the
railing, and couple of stalwart pas
sengers had collared me. | had never
thought of such a thing as committing
suicide except as a towards resource
| Now" added the doctor, ''this man
was no more mad than | am; it was
typical case of suicidal impulse, caused,
| perhaps. by long nervous tension"
In point of fact, Doth suicidal and
homlcldal impulses appear to be far
less frequent with women than men.
In all his experience, the doctor has
treated only five cases of the impulse in
women, while of the sterner sex his
| patients have been numbered by scores.
He iIclines to the belief that the habit
contracted by men of business of al
ways being in hurry, engaged, occu-
pied, is one of the principal instrument
talities, next to malarial poisoning, in
producing this type of nervous disturb
ance. And Imagine, he concluded,
''that our former Commissioner of
/ Lunacy, DR.. Ordronnaux, was not far
out of the way'when he declared that
one man in every hundred who walks
the streets is potentially murderer or
suicide; a startling declaration, but
one that my own practice during the
last ten years has abundantly verified"
Sometimes the impulse is accompan-
led by voices IN the ears, urging the
patient TO kill; sometimes red light
-lurid, dismal, weird-suffuses the
eyes and with one of the doctors pa
tients the attack is announced invari-
ably by premonitory SILVER or shud-
der of momentary duration only, which
precedes it by a second or two. 1t is
curious fact. also, that serious organic
troubles with the brain and spinal
tract seldom gives rise to these strange