§ 381. To determine exactly the mental condition of an epileptic at the moment of his committing a criminal act, is often a difficult task. It may have taken place in the absence of any observer, in a fit of fury that rapidly passed away, and which, perhaps, may not have followed any previous paroxysm; or the accused, though subject to the disease, may not have recently suffered an attack, and may have appeared perfectly rational to those around him. The suspicion that the accused was deprived of his moral liberty when committing the criminal act, would be strengthened, if the paroxysms had been recently frequent and severe; if one had shortly preceded or succeeded the act; if he had been habitually subject to mental irritability, or other symptoms of nervous disorder; and by those circumstances generally which would lead to the same conclusion, were the supposed disease a form of moral mania, instead of epilepsy. (§ 217.) Cases of this kind should be closely scrutinized, and where the accused has been undeniably subject to epilepsy, he should have the benefit of every reasonable doubt that may arise respecting his sanity. Less than this common humanity could not ask; more even has sometimes been granted under the operation of milder codes than the English common law.

§ 382. In the following case, the criminal act was the result of that morbid irritability which sometimes succeeds the paroxysms. Joachim Hoewe, twenty-nine years old, had been an epileptic since his sixth year. Since the age of puberty, the disease had become aggravated, and latterly had attacked him once in three weeks. He was long in recovering from the effects of the fits, being troubled with pain in the head and vertigo, and manifesting strong aversion to food, though never furious or insane. In July, 1826, after an hour's walk, he experienced a fit, and in the course of the three next days, he had several, appearing all the while to be quite unconscious, and refusing nourishment. On the third day he arose from his bed, and went down into the yard, where he met with a son of his brother ten years old, and a daughter of a relative to whom he was attached, eleven

years old. The boy asked him if he did not wish to eat. The patient made no reply, but struck at him, when the children ran off. He followed them, overtook the girl, knocked her down, and catching up a hatchet from the ground, fractured her skull in several places, when the neighbors rushed in, and, after considerable resistance, overpowered him. He now remained quiet, till they proceeded to carry him to the magistrate, when he broke out into violent expressions of hatred against his fellow-townsmen. In prison he layed two days in a state of unconsciousness, took no nourishment, and had a fit. On the third day his reason returned; he expressed some interest in his friends, complained bitterly of his sufferings, but had no recollection of what had occurred. The question having been put to the medical expert, (by whom the case was reported,) whether the accused was in a responsible condition of mind when he committed the murder, it was answered in the negative, for the following reasons. Unlike real criminals, he had no definite purpose in view, and did not fly, after having committed the act. The mental condition of epileptics just before and after the fit, is usually very peculiar, and for many years, medical jurists have not been in the habit of considering an epileptic as deserving of punishment for any offence he might commit within three days before or after a fit. Among the exciting causes of his fits at the time in question, and of the criminal act, the reporter mentioned the exercise and heat of the weather to which the accused had been exposed, and the inquiry of the child whether he would eat, which, on account of his morbid aversion to food, excited him, in his unconscious and irritable condition, to expend his fury on the nearest object. Two months after, he died in a fit.1

§383. Epilepsy is often accompanied by imbecility, congenital or acquired, and by disordered appetites and propensities. Although its immediate effect on the mind, in these cases, may not be so definite and prominent as in others, yet it is no less effectual in weakening and perverting its facul

1 Jahn in Henke's Zeitschrift. 1827, iv. 282.

ties. The medical jurist should preserve himself from the common error of viewing these bad propensities as indicative of a depraved and sin-loving character, instead of being the result of an abnormal condition of the nervous system. The following case from an old writer, will illustrate this form of the disorder. C. F. Oppel, sixteen years old, twice set fire to the royal stable in Saxony, once in April, and again in May, 1725. The fire was discovered before much damage was done, and the second time, he extinguished it himself. It appeared in evidence that he had always manifested a good and peaceable disposition; that from childhood, he had always been troubled, especially in the summer time, with bleeding from the nose; that when ten years old, he had an attack of scarlet fever; and that about a year before the incendiary attempts, he began to suffer from epilepsy, the paroxysms of which were light at first, but gradually increased in severity. Four weeks before the fire he had a fit, and two days after he had another, and they continued for some time to be very frequent and severe. The reasons which he himself gave for the act were, that when he had been drinking, he felt strongly impelled to commit incendiary acts, and that on this occasion, he also hoped to save something from the fire, with which he might buy drink, instead of being obliged to ask his mother for money. It appeared that his father was an epileptic, and addicted to drinking. The physician who was directed to inquire whether the accused was in perfect possession of his reason when he committed the offence, reported that he was not, and had been of unsound mind from childhood. The reasons offered in support of his opinion though remarkably correct for the time, will not all bear a critical examination now, and therefore it will not be worth our while to state them at length. The fact that he might have inherited a depraved constitution which was still more weakened by the accession of a severe nervous disease, is sufficient to warrant the suspicion that his mind may have been a prey to morbid impulses which, when under the influence of drink, he would find it difficult to resist. The fact that, shortly before and after the offence, he had suffered

from epilepsy, furnishes a presumption that, however rational he may have appeared, his mind was far from being in a sound and healthy condition. True, he alleged as his motive, the gratification of an appetite, but it does not appear that the appetite existed till after the invasion of the epilepsy.1

1 Troppaneger, decis. med. forens. 1735, quoted in Henke's Abhandlung, iv. 25, 2te Aufl.

CHAPTER XVIII.

§ 384.

SUICIDE.

AT the present day, the subject of suicide is deprived of much of the medico-legal importance which it once possessed. Still, however, as questions occasionally come up in which dispositions of property are made to depend on the judicial views that are formed respecting its relations to mental derangement, it is highly proper that mistakes should not be committed from a want of correct notions of its nature. With all the light on the subject which the researches of modern inquirers have elicited, many probably are yet unable to answer understandingly the question so often started, whether suicide is always or ever the result of insanity. It may be proper, therefore, to lay before the reader the present state of our knowledge on this subject, in order that he may have the materials for forming correct and well-grounded opinions respecting it.

§ 385. To the healthy and well-balanced mind, suicide appears so strange and unaccountable a phenomenon, that many distinguished writers have inconsiderately regarded it as, in all cases, the effect of mental derangement; while, by many others, it has, with still less reason, been viewed as always the act of a sound, rational mind. Neither of these views can be supported by an impartial consideration of all the facts, and the truth probably lies between the two extremes. Suicides may be divided into two classes, founded upon the different causes or circumstances by which they are actuated. The first includes those who have deliberately committed the act from the force of moral motives alone; the second, those who have been affected with some patho