Text-book of forensic medicine and toxicology

by R. J. M. Buchanan

MORAL MANIA

Pinel first drew attention to this form of madness. Pritchard defines it as “consisting in a morbid perversion of the natural feelings, affections, inclinations, temper, habits, and moral dispositions, without any notable lesion of the intellect or knowing and reasoning faculties, and particularly without any maniacal hallucinations.”

It is divided into—General Moral Mania. Partial Moral Mania.

General Moral Mania.—“There are many individuals,” says Pritchard, “living at large, and not entirely separated from society, who are affected in a certain degree with this modification of insanity. They are reputed persons of a singular, wayward, and eccentric character. An attentive observer will often recognise something remarkable in their manners and habits, which may lead him to entertain doubts as to their entire sanity; while circumstances are sometimes discovered on inquiry which add strength to this suspicion. In many instances it has been found that a hereditary tendency to madness has existed in the family, or that several relatives of the person affected have laboured under other diseases of the brain. The individual himself has been discovered to have suffered, in a former period of life, an attack of madness of a decided character. His temper and disposition are found to have undergone a change, or to be not what they were previously to a certain time; he has become an altered man, and the difference has perhaps been noted from the period when he sustained some reverse of fortune which deeply affected him, or the loss of some beloved relative. In other instances, an alteration in the character of the individual has ensued immediately on some severe shock which his bodily constitution has undergone. This has been either a disorder affecting the head, a slight attack of paralysis, or some febrile or inflammatory complaint, which has produced a perceptible change in the habitual state of his constitution. In some cases, the alteration in temper and habits has been gradual and imperceptible; and it seems only to have consisted in an exaltation and increase of peculiarities which were always more or less natural and habitual. Persons labouring under this disorder are capable of reasoning, or supporting an argument upon any subject within their sphere of knowledge that may be presented to them; and they often display great ingenuity in giving reasons for the eccentricities of their conduct, and in accounting for, and justifying, the state of moral feeling under which they appear to exist. In one sense, indeed, their intellectual faculties may be termed unsound—they think and act under the influence of strongly excited feelings; and persons accounted sane are, under such circumstances, proverbially liable to error, both in judgment and conduct.” (For interesting cases of this form of madness, see Ray‘s Jurisprudence of Insanity.)

Partial Moral Mania.—In the case of the unfortunate sufferers from this malady, one or two only of the moral powers are perverted.

This division admits of several subdivisions:—

Kleptomania.—A marked propensity to theft. “There are persons,” says Rush, “who are moral to the highest degree as to certain duties, but who, nevertheless, lie under the influence of some vice. In one instance, a woman was exemplary in her obedience to every command of the moral law except one—she could not refrain from stealing. What made this vice more remarkable was, that she was in easy circumstances, and not addicted to extravagance in anything. Such was the propensity to this vice that, when she could lay her hands on nothing more valuable, she would often, at the table of a friend, fill her pockets secretly with bread. She both confessed and lamented her crime.”

Pyromania.—This consists in an insane impulse to set fire to everything—houses, churches, and property of every kind and description.

Erotomania and Nymphomania.—This is known as amorous madness, and consists in an inordinate and uncontrollable desire for sexual intercourse. The unfortunate victims of this disease often express the greatest disgust and repugnance for their conduct.

Homicidal Mania—In this form of madness the propensity to homicide is very great, and in most cases uncontrollable. In the case of the notorious Deeming, hanged in Australia in 1892 for the murder of his wife, an appeal was made from the finding of the Colonial Court by which he was tried to the Privy Council, on the ground of his being affected with homicidal mania. The plea was not sustained. (See the case of Henrietta Cornier, given by Pritchard, Ray, and others.)