The Daytona daily news. [volume] (Daytona, Fla.) 1903-1926, 1910-03-01
JOY THAT BRINGS WOE
Shock Of Sudden Glad Things at
Times Turns the Brain.
1T HAS DRIVEN PEOPLE MAD.

Some of the saddest Cases of l-unacy
Are Those Where the Mind is I'm
able to Stand the Strain of News Of
Unexpected Good Fortune.
1t is no exaggeration to assert, said
an asylum doctor of long and varied
experience, that there are scores of
men and women in insane asylums
who have literally been sent there
through excess of joy Many of these
cases which are, in my opinion, the
saddest of all have come under my
own observation.
l remember in the very first asylum
with which / was connected one of
the patients was a strikingly hand
someN and very well educated man,
who was as sane as you or / 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 20 the story told me. he
was the only son of a wealthy mer-
chant. In his youth he had fallen
among evil companions and had led
such a 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 into the lowest depths of
poverty until he was glad to earn
few coppers by selling papers or
matches in the Streets
1t was at this last and lowest stage
that news came to him that his IA
Their 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 q
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 could shake his delusion that
he was 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 examina-
| ton. He had sat for the matriculation
examination at the University of Lon
don, on passing which he had set his
heart and had asked a friend in Lon
don to wire the result as soon as the
| names We're screened at Burlington
House.
About three weeks later came a ia
tai telegram, .Failed-eorry," 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-yery sorry crush SO
great did not see name this morning"
The revulsion of feeling was SO great
that the students reason gave way,
| and he became SO violent in his ex-
| element that he had to be confined
Fortunately he was not with us long
and is now, am glad to know, doing
very we'll as a solicitor
Disappointed love sends many people
to asylums, but it is very seldom that
success in wooing drives a man mad
1t had this strange effect, however, on
| 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 followed
| by mail very quickly after her
Weeks and months passed and no
| answer came to the impatient lover
| until, after waiting two years in de-
spair he became engaged to a girl who
had nothing but her money bags to
| recommend her and for whom he had
| not a particle of love. Scarcely, how
| ever, was his fate sealed than he re-
| ceived the long despaired of letter
| from India accepting his offer and ex-
planning that the girls brother had re-
| ceived and mislaid 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 improv-
| ed, | doubt whether he will ever re-
cover his reason.
| In another remarkable case it was
| the joy at seeing her husband again
| tnat foDDed lady patient OF her rea-
son. Her husband was the captain of
| merchant ship which was reported
to have gone down with all hands.
| The widow had deeply mourned her
/ husband 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.
/ l. en-
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 avail
| able yeSsel-London Spectator
| Charitable.
! 1t is said of the author OF d volume