INSANE CHARACTERS IN FICTION. 59 



of new forms of disease, wliicli hardly existed before. For example, 

 general progressive paralysis was formerly so rare that no special 

 name was given to it till our time, while now it forms the larger quota 

 of the maladies of the wealthy, of thinkers, and of military men. 

 Epilepsy has greatly increased in its psychical form, so that what are 

 called psychical and obscure epilepsy are a revelation of our times, 

 and that its close association with crime (which I believe to be one 

 of the sure facts of modern psychiatry) is still accepted by only a very 

 few alienists, not to say that it is rejected with indignation, and, I 

 will remark, with profound ignorance, by most modern jurists. 



Alcoholism, too, has taken on enormous proportions. Not that 

 the ancients did not drink, but rather that pure alcohol had not 

 yet been introduced ; while in the middle ages it passed for one of the 

 most efficacious remedies — aqua vita, living water. Dr. Beard has 

 made a most judicious observation in America which I have been 

 able to verify in Sicily — that there must be a very advanced degree 

 of civilization, or rather of degeneracy produced by civilization, for 

 inebriety to be transformed into that aggregation of disasters, espe- 

 cially of the nervous system, which is called alcoholism. ISTow we 

 have not alcoholism only, but morphinism, cocainism, all stimuli of 

 the nervous system, which are used by barbarians as potent excitants, 

 but not to the point of producing stable alterations except in rare 

 cases, like the amuck of the Malays. 



And now, we all of us, at least in the capitals and the great cen- 

 ters, find ourselves consumed by a feverish activity which makes the 

 mind labor much more than Nature intended it should, under which 

 is produced all this mass of neurasthenics, hystericals, besides the 

 multitudes of moral insane, profoundly egotistical persons, without 

 affection and wholly directed by a powerful passion for gold, for 

 which they sacrifice everything, even salvation ! 



And, finally, we have that group of semi-insane, which I call 

 mattoidi, and who are known as detraques in France and cranks in 

 North America — that is, those who have the livery of genius with a 

 substratum of weakness and the practical cunning of the average man, 

 who betray their errors only when they write, who hardly exist save 

 amon^ males (with a few exceptions, like Michel) and in the great 

 centers. I have never seen them in the country*. Civilization is now 

 depopulating the country and building up the cities, as it is also aug- 

 menting physical excitants with alcoholism, morphinism, etc. Civili- 

 zation emblazons the baton of the marshal, and not only of the marshal 

 but of the president of the republic, in the eyes of everybody who 

 can read and write. Why, then, should we not suppose that civi- 

 lization can further derange the equilibrium of mental labor and, indi- 

 rectly, therefore cause an increase of insanity? 



