Scknlijic Intelligence, — Zoologi/. 379 



Majesty William the Fourth. The appearance was one of utter 

 desolation, there being no vestige whatever of animal or vegetable 

 Hfe. — Lit. Gazette. 



ZOOLOGY. 



3. Ilhisions in Maniacs, — M. Esquirol has deposited a me- 

 moir relative to this distinction of maniacs, considered in a 

 medico-legal point pf view, and has read another paper, entitled 

 Illusions in Maniacs. The design of the author is to dis- 

 tinguish clearly in this new work hallucinations from illusions. 

 In the former, every thing, according to him, goes on in the 

 brain ; the visionaries are persons who rave quite awake, and 

 whose cerebral activity is so energetic, that it invests with sub^ 

 stance and reality the images which are produced by the me- 

 mory, without the intervention of the senses. In illusions, 

 on the contrary, the patients are deceived with respect to the 

 nature and cause of their sensations. Illusions are not at all 

 rare in the state of health, but reason soon destroys them, 

 whilst in maniacs the case is not so. Two conditions, in fact, 

 are necessary for the perception of a sensation ; integrity of the 

 organ which receives the impression, and integrity of the instru- 

 ment which reacts on the impression. If the sensibility and 

 activity of the organs are disturbed, the impressions made by 

 external objects must be modified ; and if, at the same time, 

 the brain is diseased, it cannot rectify the error of the senses ; 

 hence arise illusions. The very volatile attention of maniacs 

 cannot rest long on external objects, and then the perception is 

 incomplete ; the patient perceives but badly the qualities and 

 relations of the objects which make impressions on them. In 

 monomania, on the contrary, the attention is too much con- 

 centrated, and cannot carry itself successively over the objects 

 which are external and foreign, from the prepossessions and con- 

 ceits which predominate over the patient''s thoughts. In a word, 

 the mind and the passions concur with the senses in producing 

 the illusions of maniacs ; but it is from the senses that the pro- 

 cess commences. Hypochondriacs have illusions arising from 

 internal organs ; they are deceived with respect to the severity 

 of their suffering, but they are not actually bereft of reason 

 (dc raisonnent), unless the case be complicated with lypcmania 



