Barristers and legislators did not trouble
themselves particularly over the fact that in 1843 the study
of mental disease was in its infancy, and judges, including
those of England, probably knew even less about the subject
than they do now. In 1843 it was supposed that insanity, save
of the sort that was obviously maniacal, necessitated
"delusions," and unless a man had these delusions no one
regarded him as insane. In the words of a certain well-known
judge:
"The true criterion, the true test of the absence or presence
of insanity, I take to be the absence or presence of what,
used in a certain sense of it, is comprisable in a single
term, namely, delusion .... In short, I look on delusion
.... and insanity to be almost, if not altogether, convertible
terms."*
* Dew vs. Clark.
This in a certain broad sense, probably not intended by the
judge who made the statement, is nearly true, but,
unfortunately, is not entirely so.
The dense ignorance surrounding mental disease and the
barbarous treatment of the insane within a century are
facts familiar to everybody.
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