120 I N S A 
pi<3, calm, and mournful; and, coining to the knowledge 
of their misfortune, they are dejefted on account of their 
calamitous and miferabie fituation.” 
The [anguine mania greatly differs. It is at firft marked 
by irregularity of fpirits, fometimes highly elevated, and 
proportionally depreffed ; in either cafe without fufficient 
reafon. This kind of infanity is often the effect of fud- 
den and exceffive joy; and madnefs was more commonly 
the effeft of fuccefs in the South-Sea year, than of difap- 
pointment. An early fymptom is a loud and rapid elo¬ 
cution when fpeaking on common fubjefts, a feeling of 
peculiar high health, and boafling declarations of health 
and fpirits. The fleep is very difturbed, and the watch- 
fulnefs often unremitted. The fubjefls are as various as 
the fancy; each is fuddenly indulged, and as quickly fu- 
perfeded by another. The perfons mod loved before are 
now detebed ; and ftrangers, or the mod indifferent peo¬ 
ple, are fought after with anxiety. The eye appears wild 
and red, quickly glancing at every objefl; the face flufned, 
a tingling in the ears is perceived, and fufpicion is alive 
in apprehenfion of intended injury; for there is always an 
enemy in the rear, which is often one of the nearelf re¬ 
lations. It is not an uncommon fancy to fuppofe thofe 
around them mad ; and their greated amufement to con¬ 
trive dratagems in. order to fecure and confine them. 
When any objeft is in view, difappointment does not 
didrefs them. Theobjeft dill remains, and it is to be ac- 
complifhed on another occafion. The profpeff is always 
cheerful, and fuccefs conllantly at hand. The pulfe, in 
this cafe, is often natural, but frequently quick; the 
tongue is always dry, the fkiu without the l'oftnefs of 
health, the urine generally high-coloured. 
Though we may declaim, “What a wonderful piece 
of work is man !” yet, when we view him in this date, 
where his boafted reafon, indead'of abiding, mideads him; 
when we fee him expofed to elemental war, infenfible of 
cold, of the comforts of cleanlinefs, of the dictates of re¬ 
ligion, of even common decency ; when we hear him ut¬ 
tering blafphemous execrations, employing the groOeft 
and mod obfcene language, language abhorred in the lu¬ 
cid moments, when recollection often adds to the horrors 
of his fituation ; we may truly exclaim, “ Alas, poor hu¬ 
manity!” We have Iketched only the outline of the pic¬ 
ture, the difcriminating features of the objeft. To fill it 
would require a volume ; for, fo various, fo fingular, and 
i'o numerous, are the eccentricities, when judgment no 
longer guides, that it is impoflible to detail them. 
Mania often remits, and at times recurs, periodically. 
It has been laid to return at thq full and new moon, or, 
at lead, to be exal'perated at thofe ieafons. In the fourth 
chapter of St. Matthew’s Gofpel, verle 25, we find the 
word o-ihMiat-ois.Evovc, which is rendered in the Englilh 
verfion “thofe which were lunatic.” Notwithdanding 
the notion of being moon-bruck might prevail among the 
ignorant people of Galilee, yet Hippocrates, a philofopher, 
and correct obferver of natural phenomena, does not ap¬ 
pear to -have placed any faith in this planetary induence; 
although the Romans were infefted with this popular 
tradition, as may be feen in the following paffage of the 
Ai t of Poetry : 
Ut mala quem fcabies ant morbis regius urget, 
Aut fanaticus error, et iracunda Diana 
Velanuni tetigiffe tinlent fugiuntque poetam, 
Qui fapiunt;— 
yet Celfus did not confider the operation of the moon on 
the human'intelleft fufficientiy well-founded to admit it 
into his medical work. Dr. Cox has however quoted a 
padage to prove that Celfus was imprefled with the truth 
of this vulgar opinion ; but its application to infanity 
Mr. Hallam denies. 
Popular iuperbitions and national proverbs are feldom 
without fome foundation ; and, with refpeft to the pre- 
fent, it may be obferved, that, if it were not in fome de- 
NITY. 
gree rooted in faff, and trained up by observation, it 
would become difficult to afcertain how fuch an opinion 
came to be adopted ; and this invedigation is rendered 
dill more important from the consideration, that the ex¬ 
iting law in this country, refpefting infame perfons, has 
been edabliffied on the fuppofed prevalence of this lunar 
regulation. A commiffion is iffued, de lunatico inquircndo, 
and the commiffioners fitting, for that purpofe, are parti-* 
cular in their enquiries, whether the patient enjoys lucid 
intervals. The term liicid interval has been properly con¬ 
nected with (die word lunacy ; for, if the patient, as they 
fuppofed, became infane at particular changes of the 
moon, the inference was natural, that in the intervening 
fpaces of time he would become rational. It is more than 
probable, (fays Mr. Haflam,) that the origin of this fup- 
pofition of the lunar induence may be traced to the fol¬ 
lowing circumdances]: The period of the return of the 
moon, and of regular menbruation in women, is four 
w'eeks; and the terms which delignate them have been irn- 
pofed from the period of time in which both are com¬ 
pleted. Infanity and epilepfy are often connefled with 
menbruation, and fuffer an exacerbation of their parox- 
yfms at the period when this difcharge happens, or ought 
to take place. If, therefore, the period of menbruation 
in an infane woman ffiould occur at the full of the moon, 
and her mind fliould then be more violently didurbed, 
the recurrence of the fame date may be naturally expedited 
at the next full moon. This is a neceffary coincidence, 
and ffiould be difcriminated from effect. But fuch has 
been the prevalence of this opinion, that when patients 
have been brought to Bethlem hofpital, efpecially thofe 
from the country, their friends have generally dated them 
to be worfe at fome particular change of the moon, and 
of the neceffity they were under, at thofe times, to have 
recourle to a feverer coercion. Indeed I have underdood, 
from fome of thefe lunatics who have recovered, that the 
overfeer or maderof the workhoufe h-imfelf has frequently 
been fo much under the dominion of this planet, and 
keeping deadily in mind the old maxim, Venienti occurrite 
morbo, (Meet the approaching difeafe,) that, without wait¬ 
ing for any difplay of increafed turbulence on the part of 
the patient, he has bound, chained, flogged, and deprived 
thefe miferabie people of food, according as he difcovered 
the moon’s age by the almanac. Mr. Haflam’s expe¬ 
rience ought to lay the quedion entirely at red : “To af¬ 
certain how far this opinion was founded in fa6l, I kept, 
during more than two years, an exact regider, but without 
finding, in any infiance, that the aberrations of the human intel- 
IcB correfpondcd with, or were influenced by, the viciffiludes of 
this luminary." 
In periodical malnia, as in other acute difeafes, the ap¬ 
parent violence of the fymptoms is often lei's to be dread¬ 
ed than a deceitful calm, the forerunner frequently of tem- 
peftuous paffions or other more durable indifpofitions. It 
is a general property of fuch paroxyfms as are diftinguiffi- 
ed by more than ufual extravagance, to diminiffi gradu¬ 
ally in their intenfity, until at length no vediges of their 
influence are to be traced, either in the conduct or in the 
date of the feelings. And hence M. Pinel is of opinion, 
that paroxyfms of active infanity are, in fome circum- 
dances, to be hailed as falutary efforts of nature to throw 
off the difeafe; and he mentions the following cafes in 
fupport of this fingular notion: Five young men, between 
the ages of eighteen and twenty-eight, were admitted at 
Bicetre, whofe intelledflualfaculties appeared really oblite¬ 
rated. They continued in that date,fome for three months, 
fome for fix, and others for more than a twelvemonth. 
After thole intervals of different, duration, they were fe- 
verally attacked by a paroxyfm of confiderable violence, 
which laded from fifteen to twenty-five days; after which 
they recovered the perfedb ufe of their reafon. “ It would 
however appear, (lays M. Pinel,) that it is only during 
the vigour of youth that tire fyltem is fufceptible of the 
reaction which has been defcribed to any very falutary 
extent j 
