The Wisconsin tobacco reporter. (Edgerton, Wis.) 1877-1950, 1902-02-21
DRIVEN TO MADNESS.
TIMES WHEN AN EXCESS OF JOY is
LINKED WITH INSANITY.

Some, of the Saddest Cases of Lunacy
Are Those Where the Mind Is I'm
able to stand the Shock of Sudden
Good Tidings.
It is no exaggeration to assert, said
an asylum doctor Of long and varied
experience, that there are scores of men
and women in our asylums who have
literally been sent there through excess
Of ioy Many of these cases which are,
in my opinion, the saddest of all have
come under my own observation.
I remember in the very first asylum
with which was connected one of the
patients was a strikingly handsome
and very we'll educated man, who was
as sane as you or l except on one point.
He was really a man Of considerable
wealth, but his delusion was that he
was a pauper, and he would tell the
most pitiful tales of his restitution,
begging, with tears in his eyes, for
few coppers with which to buy bread.
According to the story told me, he
was the only son of wealthy mer-
chant. In his youth he had fallen
among evil companions and had led
such dissolute life that his father
not only threatened to disinherit him,
but forbade him ever to enter his house
again. After that he seems to have
sunk irto the lowest depths of poverty
| until ne was glad to earn a few cop
pers by selling papers or matches in
the streets.
1t was at this last and lowest stage
that news came to him that his father
had died intestate and that he was heir
to all his vast fortune. The sudden
news completely turned the mans
brain and brought on such condition
of excitement that he had to be sent
to an asylum, and when he Gained
down again he had lost all recollection
of his good fortune, and nothing can
shake his delusion that he is on the
verge of starvation.
! Another patient in the same asylum
was young and in his lucid moments
| a most intelligent fellow, whose brain
was turned as the saying is, on learn
ing that he had passed an examination.
He had sat for the matriculation exam
ination at the University of London, on
passing which he had set his heart
| and had asked a friend in London to
wire the result as soon as the names
were screened at Burlington House.
| About three weeks later came fatal
| telegram, "Failed-sorry," which sent
the young man into the lowest depths
! of despair, for he was too old to sit
again. Not many hours later, however,
! came another telegram, "Passed honors
very sorry crush so great did not see
| name this morning. The revulsiOn
| of feeling was so great that the stu
| dents reason gave way, and he be-
| came SO violent in his excitement that
| he had to be confined. Fortunately he
! was not with us long and is now, am
| glad to know, doing very well as So
/ licitor.
| Disappointed love sends many peo-
| pie to asylums, but it is very seldom
| that success in wooing drives man
| mad. 1t had this strange effect, how
| ever, OH one of my late patients. The
| girl he loved had gone out to India to
! keep house for her brother before he
| had screwed up his courage to the point
! of proposing to her, but an offer fol-
lowed by mail very quickly after her.
| Weeks and months passed, and no an
swer came to the impatient lover until,
after waiting two years in despair, he
| became engaged to a girl who had
nothing but her money bags to recon-
mend her and for whom he had not
particle of love. Scarcely, however, was
his fate sealed than he received the
| long despaired of letter from India, ac-
cepting his offer and explaining that
| the girls brother had received and mis-
laid the letter, which had only just
| been found and had come into her
hands.
| Within an hour Of the receipt Of this
letter the man was a raving maniac,
and although his condition is improved
I doubt whether he will ever recover
his reason.
| In another remarkable case it was
| the joy at seeing her husband again
that robbed a lady patient of her rea-
son. Her husband was the captain of
a merchant ship which was reported
| to have gone down with all hands. The
widow had deeply mourned her hus-
band for nearly a year, when one day
on returning from a walk she found
| him sitting in the drawing room as
! hale and robust as ever.
| With a shrek she fell unconscious on
| the floor, and when she recovered her
reason was gone. 1t seems that her
| husband, after floating for some time,
had been picked up by a passing
tramp and had been landed on the
west coast of Africa, from which he
had returned home by the first availa-
BILE vessel.-London Tit-Bits.
|