Diseases of the Internal Senses. 733 



or inflammation. Any occurrence in the environment which adds to 

 this condition, may carry the excitement to the point of insanity. There 

 are often insane actions which result from the suggestion conveyed to 

 the brain by the performance of the action by another. Thus, the ac- 

 count of an incendiary fire in the papers, is very apt to be followed by 

 other incendiary fires, the first one "suggesting" the crime toother 

 persons who happen to be in such an emotional state that this sugges- 

 tive stimulus is just sufficient to determine motor action. Executions, 

 and other punishments for crimes, also frequently stimulate crime in 

 the same way. Suicide and homicide are often the result of sugges- 

 tion. "After the suicide of Lord Castlereagh, a large number of per- 

 sons destroyed themselves in a similar mode. Within a week after the 

 Dentonville tragedy, in which a man cut the throats of his four children, 

 and then his own, there were two similar occurrences elsewhere. After 

 the trial of Henriette Cornier for child murder, which excited a consider- 

 able amount of public discussion on the question of homicidal insanity, 

 Esquirol was consulted by numerous mothers who were haunted by a 

 propensity to destroy their offspring. " 



Delusions, illusions and hallucinations very often arise from disease, 

 and they also arise from the perverted and unsound condition of the 

 emotional cerebral organs. The feelings become involved with the in- 

 tellectual processes to such an extent that their suggestions become ele- 

 ments in the intellectual ideas. Ideas so formed are of course apt to 

 be delusions. To emotional people, the bearer of bad tid'ings is apt to 

 incur aversion. So will any person whose opinions are opposed to theirs. 

 An opponent in an argument is to them necessarily an enemy ; and the 

 argument is, on their side, pretty certain to degenerate into personal 

 censure or abuse. The state of their feelings is to them the same as 

 intellectual convictions, and, in extreme cases, have all the weight of 

 positive, unquestionable facts. 



When there is a general tendency to delusion, external suggestion is 

 often the means of determining and particularizing it upon some one 

 subject. In 1850 "the Queen's public visit to Scotland seemed to give 

 a special direction to the ideas of several individuals, who became in- 

 sane at that period, the attack of insanity being itself, in some instances, 

 traceable to the excitement induced by that event. One of the patients, 

 who was affected with puerperal mania, believed that in consequence of 

 her confinement having taken place on such a remarkable occasion, she 

 must have given birth to a person of royal or divine dignity. During 

 the religious excitement which prevailed at the time of the disruption' 

 of the Scottish church, an unusually large number of patients were ad- 

 mitted into the various asylums of Scotland, laboring under delusions 

 connected with religion ; the disorder having here, also, doubtless com- 



