98 



MEDICAL JURISPRUDENCE 



91. In the case of The State v. Reuben Sedler Stark, tried 

 before Mr. Justice "VVardlaw, at Sumter, S. C, Spring Term, 

 1847: — The prisoner was charged with the murder of his wife 

 and his two only children. After the deed he attempted to take 

 his own life by cutting his throat with a razor. The murder 

 was manifest; and, in his defence, it was contended that he was 

 labouring under mania a potu, so as to be an irresponsible agent. 

 It was proved in the testimony that he had said that rather than 

 see his family in poverty he would murder them; and, on the 

 night previous to the day on which the act was committed, he had 

 spoken of having seen persons whom he had not seen, and done 

 horrid acts which he had not performed. All testified that he was 

 of intemperate habits ; and a physician deposed to having attended 

 him some years before for delirium tremens. After the deed, he 

 gave no evidences of insanity, except using a single expression about 

 a hawk, which was irrelevant, and, if it may be considered as such, 

 the most perfect indifference as to the deeds he had committed. The 

 physician who was on the spot immediately after the act, testified, 

 that neither in his breath or otherwise, did he give any evidence of 

 having been recently drinking. Several physicians who were exa- 

 mined, attempted to draw distinctions between mania a potu and 

 delirium tremens ; the latter being the consequence of the withdrawal 

 of stimulants, the former coming on during the debauch, and, being 

 thus an immediate consequence of the act of drinking, and co-exist- 

 ing with the state of drunkenness, cannot be distinguished from it 

 during the time that ordinary drunkenness lasts. Charging the jury 

 upon this view of mania a potu, and upon the facts of the case, the 

 Judge instructed them that, in the eye of the law, he could not be 

 regarded as entitled to the leniency due to one of unsound mind.* 

 He was found guilty, and a motion for appeal rejected. 



The distinction here made between mania a potu and delirium 

 tremens we have not found supported by any authority we have been 

 able to consult. Neither Beck nor Dickson, upon whom the medical 

 opinions seem to rely, afford them any grounds. 



92. Another question, to which a recent trial, of much celebrity, in 

 New York, has given great interest, is this : At what period of utero- 



* Strobart's Reports, Vol. i. 



