552 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



RESPONSIBILITY OF THE INSANE. 



In the January number of the North American Review, a quintet of physi- 

 cians, who have the reputation of being especially intelligent upon the subject of 

 insanity, discuss the question of its moral responsibility. The sum of their dis- 

 quisitions impresses upon the reader the fact that the proper treatment of the 

 matter by the courts is yet in an uncomfortably dense fog, and that the best that 

 can be done, in the absence of definiteness, is to judge each case on its individ- 

 ual merits. All admit that society must protect itself, but there the unanimity 

 seems to end, though the idea is substantially advanced that too many criminals 

 escape upon untenable pleas of insanity. If the doctors can do no more for us 

 than this, the difficulty of procuring intelligent statutes from legislators must be 

 appreciated. 



Dr. J. L. Elwell leads off in the discussion with a paper which is severe on 

 the tendency to expand the insanity line of defense. He says that "there is no 

 dispute as to the entire irresponsibility of those not knowing the difference between 

 right and wrong," but there he would draw the line. This class, he claims, is a 

 very limited one, and is rarely guilty of capital crimes. "On the other hand, 

 the number of alleged insane thrown to the surface, as the emergency requires 

 — for whom the defense of irresponsibility is so constantly interposed in courts of 

 justice — probably constitute ninety-nine per cent of all the insane population." 

 Evidei^tly very few alleged insane murderers would escape if Dr. Elwell had his 

 way. He claims that society has the same right to protect itself that an individ- 

 ual has. The object of courts is the protection of society. " They are not mis- 

 sionary bodies for the conversion of the vicious classes," and society needs more 

 protection from the insane than from the sane. "It is said this is inhuman; 

 but would it not be more inhuman and brutal to spare the criminal at the ex- 

 pense of society ? To whom belongs the greater right to live, the assassin or so- 

 ciety, any member of which is constantly exposed to death at his hands?" 

 There have been so many refinements and amplifications of insanity of late, that 

 specialists can prove almost any one insane. Dr. Elwell shows that if Garfield 

 had killed Guiteau instead of Guiteau Garfield, the former could have presented 

 a good defense, from the fact that it could be proved that he had been repeatedly 

 superstitious about his death, and yet no more sane man lived than he. The 

 writer does not dwell on the medical aspects of lunacy ; he confines himself main- 

 ly to the defense of society, and closes thus : "This being the alarming state of 

 the question we have tried to examine, is it not time that the mania for excusing 

 crime on the ground of moral insanity be arrested, either by the medical profes- 

 sion, the courts, by the common consent of the people, or by all? " 



Dr. George M. Beard approaches the subject in an entirely different spirit 

 from that of Dr. Elwell. He calls a halt and criticises the angry mood that the 

 people are now in, contending that if Guiteau had killed a bootblack instead of a 

 president there would be no difficulty at all about his acquittal. He says : "If 



