174 On Insanity. [April, 



ists who manifest their sanctity by extraordinary physical exertions 

 and tortures contain a large percentage of men who are not much 

 more mad than the founder of the Faithful was. 



It is impossible to admit that many of the great conquerors 

 who were the curse of the world were sane. Cambyses, Alexander, 

 and Attila were subject to attacks of homicidal mania, which were 

 only salient points in a long period of unreason qualified by the 

 prevailing warlike spirit. Their insanity took on the type which 

 reflected the ordinary disposition of the age. So did that of Saul 

 and Ajax. It is hard to believe in the sanity of Domitian and 

 Nero, or of many of the emperors whose bloodthirstiness was 

 appalling, and whose cruelties were atrociously wanton, and espe- 

 cially as madness was so common in the best days of Rome that its 

 symptoms have been admirably rendered by the physicians of the 

 period. Yiolence, homicide, and suicide, although the most marked 

 of the symptoms of the earlier civilizations, were not unaccompanied 

 by the melancholy madness so common at the present time. Hippo- 

 crates notices a case of melancholia in a woman of his day, "from 

 an accidental cause of sorrow." She lost her power of sleep, and 

 had aversion to food, and suffered from thirst and nausea, being of 

 a melancholic turn of mind. Her cure by nature is recorded also. 

 The method of madness simulated by David bears witness to the 

 acquaintance of the Philistines of Gath with the complaint, other- 

 wise the stratagem would not have had the desired result. Thus 

 early in the history of the world the sanctity of the insane was 

 clearly acknowledged. The unsatisfactory notices of uncivilized 

 and ancient madness appear to indicate the prevalence of violent 

 maniacal and homicidal attacks, and the opposite condition of im- 

 becility. There is every reason to believe that the affliction does 

 not increase amongst savage nations, and that it never attained a 

 very great importance in classical times, Probably the mass of the 

 demented of Europe was not represented by a corresponding type 

 of disease in the olden time. The truth is melancholy enough now. 



The increase of the population of England and Wales and Scot- 

 land year by year is beyond doubt; and unfortunately, so far as 

 England is concerned, there is no doubt about the yearly increase of 

 pauperism. Emigration has been compensated for by the annual 

 excess of births over deaths, and it is certain that the exodus 

 has not taken away a great proportion of the best of the peasantry, 

 as it has in the case of Ireland. The condition of the agricultural 

 labourers and miners has slightly improved ; but that of the popu- 

 lation of the worst parts of our great cities has retrograded.* On 

 the other hand, commercial enterprise and great engineering opera- 



* At a recent meeting of the Liverpool Select Vestry, a brewer (sic I) attributed 

 the fulness of the lunatic asylums which he had visited to indulgence in poisoned 

 beer. 



