The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1884-05-02
Men Who Want to KIN Somebody.


Considering the number of diseases
of homicidal and suicidal impulse that
come under the notice of experts in
nervous Diseases. q distinguished
specialist remarked, lit is a wonder to
me that so few tragedies from that
source really happen. Last week a
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 whim,
came to me in great worry of mind and
told me he had something to communi-
cate that.must be held strictly inviolate.
The story was typical. have heard it
with trifing variations thousand times
in five years. He had not been feeling
very we'll rather nervous and i'll at
ease-for some days. That morning.
as he left the house to take the train Tor
New York, he happened to pass his gar
dener who was at work on the grounds,
and stopped to talk to him minute.
The man was STOPPING over clump of
ornamental Shrubbery, thinning out the
dead stalks with pruning knife A
spade was leaning against the trunk Of
a tree at his feet. L had never had any
quarrel or misunderstanding with the
man. said this patient. telling his story.
But the impulse was upon me in an in
stant to seize that spade and brain the
poor fellow on the spot. I trembled all
over like leaf, with kind of nervous
terror that can scarcely describe to
you, Doctor. Finally, not daring 10
trust myself longer, turned and walked
away as fast as my legs could conven-
iently carry me. / believe, sir, that
should have killed the man if had lin
gered five minutes longer. Now, what
is to be done?'s''
avoid temptation for a few days, turn
his mind resolutely to something else,
and gave him sedative prescriptions
bromides, of course-with instructions
to call again in 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 Ii ;e
himself once more. And so tragedy
w 19 etFOlbCNt1
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, man of
some note in literature, had been Sleep
less for several weeks before the i'm
pulse manifested itself. He was a
married man, and loved his wife de-
vote ly One night, after doing a
few minutes with terrible Dreams he
awoke with a strange presentiment of
sleeping quietly. The moonlight strug-
Cling through the window pane fell up
on her face and white, shapely throat.
AS sudden as the leap of tiger, the
impulse 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 pre-
vent the tragedy. He returned to bed
and lay in tremble till daylight. His
to death. He had no wish to kill
anybody else as yet.
Zone of my suicidal patients" con-
tinued the doctor, twas first seized with
the impulse on a Brooklyn ferry-boat.
He had been across the river on BUSH
mess, 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 ez-
tending far to the right on Furman
street. The boat started suddenly as
he stood Illuminating. He insists that
the impulse had its origin in irritation
of the retina caused by the movement
of the sunshine-fooded surfaces of
brick across the optic field, and very
likely he is right For an instant he
says, I was wild; and when / came to
myself my hand was on the railing and
a couple of stalwart passengers had coll
Jared me. | had never thought of such
a thing as committing suicide except as
a coward resource Now" added the
doctor, '.this man was no more mad
than / am; it was typical case of sui
cidal impulse, caused, perhaps, by long
nervous tension"
In point of fact, both suicidal and
homicidal 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 IN
clines to the belief that the habit con-
tracted by men of business of always
being in a hurry, engaged, occupied, is
one of the principal instrumentalities,
next to malaria poisoning, in producing
this type of nervous disturbance. g And
/ imagine" he concluded, "that our
former Commissioner of Lunacy, DIR.
Ordronnaux, was not far out of the way
when he declared that one man in every
hundred who walks the streets is poten-
TALLY murderer or a suicide; start
ling declaration, but one that my own
practice during the last ten years has
abundantly verified. =
Sometimes the impulse is accompanied
by voices in the ears, urging the patient
to kill; sometimes a red ight-lurid,
dismal, weird -suffuses the eyes, and
with one of the doctors patients the
attack IS announced invariably by
premonitory SILVER or shudder of mo-
mentary duration only, which precedes
it by second or two 1t is curious
fact, also, that serious organic trouble
with the brain and spinal tract seldom
gives rise to these strange paroxysms.-
AZ. Z. Sun.