456 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



3. We may now pass to the most important group of facts 

 namely, instances of men of genius who have suffered from fully 

 developed mental disease. 



In certain cases this disruption of the organs of mind shows itself 

 in old age, and here, it is evident, we have to distinguish what is 

 known as senile dementia from the impairment of faculty incident 

 to old age. A clear instance of cerebral disease is afforded by the 

 botanist Linnaeus, whose faculties gave way after a stroke. The 

 mental stupor into which the poet Southey finally sank was a similar 

 phenomenon. Swift's fatal disease, the nature of which has only 

 recently been cleared up by science, was cerebral disorganization 

 brought on by peripheral disease in the organ of hearing. Zimmer- 

 mann, the author of the work on " Solitude," who had been a hypochon- 

 driac from the age of twenty, ended his life in a state of melancholy 

 indistinguishable from insanity. The final collapse, under the pressure 

 of pecuniary anxieties, of Scott's cerebral powers, is too well known to 

 need more than a bare mention. 



Besides these instances of senile collapse, there are several cases 

 of insanity showing itself in the vigorous period of life. Sometimes, 

 as in the instance of Richelieu, who had shown himself an erratic 

 being from his childhood, the madness appeared as a sudden and 

 transient fit of delirium. In other cases the disorder took a firmer 

 hold on the patient. Charles Lamb, Handel, and Auguste Comte 

 suffered from insanity for a time, and had to be put under restraint. 

 Tasso, whose whole nature was distinctly tinged with the " insane 

 temperament," had again and again to be confined as a madman. 

 Donizetti was also for a time insane and confined in an asylum. 

 Among those who became hopelessly insane were the poets Lenau and 

 Holderlin and the composer Schumann, the latter of whom had long 

 been the victim of melancholy and hallucinations, and had before his 

 confinement attempted to drown himself in the Rhine. 



I have preferred to dwell on the physical aspect of the relation be- 

 tween genius and disease. But no adequate investigation of the sub- 

 ject is possible which does not consider the physical aspect as well. 

 No one now, perhaps, really doubts that to every degree of mental dis- 

 turbance and mental disorganization there corresponds some degree of 

 deterioration and disorganization of the nerve-centers. Psychical dis- 

 turbance and disruption proceed pari passu with physical. 



This being so, it is pertinent to our study to remark that men of 

 genius have in a surprising number of cases been affected by forms of 

 nervous disease which, though not having such well-marked psychical 

 accompaniments as occur in states of insanity, are known to be allied 

 to these. 



4. To begin with, it seems certain that a number of great men 

 have died from disease of the nerve-centers. Among other names may 

 be mentioned Pascal, who had all his life been the victim of nervous 



