KIDD'S OWN JOURNAL. 



297 



apparent indifference, this apathy, this perfidious 

 silence, ordinarily marks the most dangerous cases. 

 Some annoy all around those them by trifling 

 bickerings ; they see everywhere nothing hut 

 misfortune and wickedness ; and even when their 

 affairs present a picture of prosperity, they are 

 in despair, lest their children be plunged in famine 

 and misery. Some imagine that everybody 

 despises or persecutes them ; they complain un- 

 ceasingly that they are neglected, that justice is 

 not done them. Sometimes all the symptoms 

 suddenly disappear, and again show themselves 

 as suddenly. The melancholy and pusillanimity 

 increase daily. Most of these subjects feel a 

 sharp and permanent pain above the root of the 

 nose, and in the middle of the lower part of the fore- 

 head ; sometimes this pain has its seat at the top of 

 the head ; often, too, some complain of an insup- 

 portable tension in the region of the forehead, and 

 a painful constriction in the region of the bowels, 

 which are, as it were, compressed by a hoop. To 

 these symptoms are frequently added paroxysms 

 of suffocating convulsions, of frightful anxiety, of 

 despair, of an involuntary propensity and secret 

 impulse to commit suicide. In a word, this 

 malady, besides the symptoms we have indicated, 

 presents all those which ordinarily accompany 

 the propensity to self destruction. I shall here- 

 after treat in detail of this propensity, and shali 

 prove that it arises from real disease. That of 

 which I now speak, is only a frightful variety of 

 the same malady. 



A baker of Manheim, who, from his youth, 

 had shown in all his enterprises a very timid 

 character, and who had for ten years experienced 

 attacks of deep melancholy, also experienced from 

 this last epoch a general weakness of nerves. He 

 imagined that the purchase he had made of a 

 house caused his unhappiness, and that of his 

 wife, whom he greatly loved. He complains in- 

 cessantly, and laments his situation, which he re" 

 gards as most desolate. He has sometimes had 

 paroxysms of insupportable agony; he continually 

 wishes for death, and would long since have in- 

 flicted it on himself, if, to use his expression, it 

 were not a sin. He often speaks of a French 

 blacksmith, who killed himself after destroying 

 his wife. " You are to be pitied," he will some- 

 times say to his wife, in the most moving tone ; 

 " I must do as the French blacksmith did." We 

 advised him to separate himself from his wife ; we 

 know not whether he has adopted our precaution. 



I know a woman twenty -six years of age, now 

 well, who was attacked with the same disease : 

 she has had successively all the symptoms of this 

 disease : she experienced, at certain seasons in 

 particular, inexpressible torture, and the fearful 

 temptation to destroy herself, and to kill her 

 husband and children, who were exceedingly 

 dear to her. She shuddered with fear, as she 

 pictured the combat which took place within her, 

 between her duty, her principles of religion, and 

 the impulse which urged her to this atrocious act. 

 For a long time she dared not bathe the youngest 

 of her children, because an internal voice con- 

 stantly said to her, " Let him slip, let him slip." 

 Frequently, she had hardly the strength and the 

 time necessary to throw away a knife which she 

 was tempted to plunge in her own bosom, and 

 that of her children. Did she enter the chamber 



of her children or husband, and find them asleep — 

 the desire of killing them at once assailed her. 

 Sometimes she shut precipitately after her, the 

 door of their chamber ; and threw away the key 

 to remove the possibility of returning to them 

 during the night — if she happened not to be able 

 to resist this infernal temptation. 



It is thus that these unfortunate beings often 

 pass whole years in a fearful struggle. Many 

 keep a regular journal, in which, though touching 

 on every other subject, they return without 

 ceasing to their own unhappy condition. They 

 often exclaim, in the accent of despair, I am mad, 

 I am insane! Often the purpose towards which 

 they feel themselves drawn, excites in them the 

 most poignant anguish, and yet the idea is con- 

 tinually renewed. They say, and they write, still 

 thinking of self-destruction — " 1 shall do it, not- 

 withstanding." Who would believe that these 

 expressions, and these writings, which so well 

 depict the trouble of these unhappy beings, have 

 often contributed to cause their actions to be 

 regarded as premeditated and done deliberately ? 

 Their madness, it is said, is only feigned ; a 

 madman does not say I am mad, and madness 

 does not reason. This false and barbarous mode 

 of argument has sent to the scaffold beings in 

 whom there was nothing to reproach, except the 

 derangement of their reason, or, more properly 

 speaking, a disease of the brain. 



Some of these subjects carry about them for 

 several months, and even several years, instruments 

 of murder; uncertain and irresolute, as to the 

 manner, the place, the time of putting an end to 

 their life, and that of those who belong to them. 

 Their nervous system is daily more agitated; 

 their pusillanimity and weakness of mind 

 augment unceasingly ; they harass themselves, 

 despair of the safety of their souls, consider them- 

 selves the children of eternal reprobation, or 

 regard the world as a valley of tears and perdition, 

 and form but a single wish — that of delivering 

 themselves and their children from it. Thence- 

 forth they make continual efforts to break the 

 chains which bind them. Though their measures 

 are commonly well taken, the execution does not 

 always succeed. It often happens, that the blow 

 they give themselves is not mortal, or that, 

 in throwing themselves from the precipice, their 

 destruction is not completed, or that they are 

 drawn from the water too soon. 



. It is, however, very rare that such adventures 

 cure them. The greater part remain melancholy 

 or depressed. At the end of some days they seem 

 to repent of what they have done; they are 

 ashamed of it, and for some time take apart in the 

 business of life. But the paroxysms soon return 

 with new violence; till, at length, the most per- 

 fidious symptoms, such as visions, apparitions, the 

 sound and the orders of strange voices are joined 

 to them. These are the prognostics of the most 

 terrible paroxysms. If, during one of these, the 

 madman kills the persons who are dear to him, he 

 generally hastens to destroy himself ; or, if it 

 happens that his paroxysm is in some sort quieted 

 by the blood he has spilled, or the blows he has 

 given himself have been too weak, or he has been 

 interrupted in his proceedings, he delivers himself 

 up to justice, and begs for death, whirl: alone 

 affords him the hope of a period to his suffering. 



