Part 7 (1/2)
The reasoners against the transmission of madness urge, that, if the contrary were true, we should by this time have detected the rule or law by which nature acts, and that we should have been able to determine,--First, whether the disorder descended to the male or female children accordingly as the father or mother was affected.--Secondly, which of the parents is most capable of transmitting the disease?--Thirdly, what alternations in the succession take place, does it s.h.i.+ft from the male to the female line, and, does it miss a generation, and afterwards return?
These, and a mult.i.tude of other queries, might be proposed; I believe much faster than they could be answered. Nature appears to delight in producing new varieties, perhaps less in man than in other animals, and still less in the animal than in the vegetable kingdom. Before these subtile reasoners expect, from those who maintain that madness generally descends from the parent to the offspring, a developement of the laws by which Nature acts, it would be convenient first to settle whether in this matter she be under the dominion of any law whatever.
The investigation of the hereditary tendency of madness is an object of the utmost importance, both in a legal and moral point of view. Parents and guardians, in the disposal, or direction of the choice of their children in marriage, should be informed, that an alliance with a family, where insanity has prevailed, ought to be prohibited.
Having directed some attention to enquiries of this nature, I am enabled truly to state, that, where one of the parents have been insane, it is more than probable that the offsprings will be similarly affected.
Madness has many colours, and colours have many hues; actual madness is a severe calamity, yet experience has pointed out the treatment, and the law has permitted the imposition of the necessary restraint: but it very frequently occurs that the descendants from an insane stock, although they do not exhibit the broad features of madness, shall yet discover propensities, equally disqualifying for the purposes of life, and destructive of social happiness.
The slighter shades of this disease include eccentricity, low spirits, and oftentimes a fatal tendency to immoral habits, notwithstanding the inculcation of the most correct precepts, and the force of virtuous example.
In ill.u.s.tration of the fact, that the offsprings of insane persons are, _ceteris paribus_, more liable to be affected with madness than those whose parents have been of sound minds; it was my intention to have constructed a table, whereon might be seen the probably direct course of this disease, and also its collateral bearings: but difficulties have arisen. It appeared, on consideration, improper to attempt precision with that which was variable, and as yet unsettled; I have therefore been content to select a few histories from my book of notes, and to exhibit them in the rude state in which they were set down.
_1st._--R. G. His grandfather was mad, but there was no insanity in his grandmother's family. His father was occasionally melancholic, and once had a raving paroxysm. His mother's family was sane. His father's brother died insane. R. G. has a brother and five sisters; his brother has been confined in St. Luke's, and is occasionally in a low spirited state. All his sisters have been insane; with the three youngest the disease came on after delivery.
_2d._--M. M. Her grandmother was insane and destroyed herself. Her father was mad for many years, but after the birth of all his children. M. M. has two brothers and a sister; both her brothers have been insane; the sister has never been so affected, but was a person of loose character. The insanity of M. M. was connected with her menstruation; after its cessation she recovered, although she had been confined more than sixteen years.
_3d._--M. H. Her father had been several times insane; her mother was likewise so affected a few months before her death. Afterwards her father married a woman perfectly sane, by whom he had three children, two female and a male; both the females are melancholic, the male was a vicious character, and has been transported. M. H. has had ten children, three have died with convulsions, the eldest, a girl, is epileptic.
_4th._--T. B. His mother became insane soon after being delivered of him, and at intervals has continued so ever since. He has a brother who became furiously mad at the age of twenty, and afterwards recovered. T. B.'s disorder came on at the age of twenty-six.
_5th._--S. F. Her father's mother was insane, and confined in the hospital. Her father never discovered any symptoms of insanity, and her mother was perfectly sane. Her only sister (she had no brothers) was mad about five years ago, and recovered. S. F. has been twice in the hospital.
_6th._--P. W. After the best enquiries it does not appear that her father or mother ever experienced any attack of madness or melancholy. P. W.'s disorder commenced shortly after the delivery of a child. She has three sisters, the eldest has never been married, and has. .h.i.therto continued of sound mind. The two younger have been mothers, and in both insanity has supervened on childbearing.
_7th._--J. A. H. His father's father was insane, and his father was also disordered, and destroyed himself. His mother was of sound mind. J. A. H.
became insane at the age of twenty-three. He has two sisters, the elder has once been confined for insanity, the younger is of weak intellects, nearly approaching to ideotism.
_8th._--M. D. Her mother was insane and died so. M. D. continued of sane mind until she had attained the age of fifty-seven, when she became furiously maniacal; her only daughter, eighteen years of age, was attacked with mania during the time her mother was confined.
_9th._--G. F. His mother was melancholic during the time she was pregnant with him, and never afterwards completely recovered. She had five children previously to this melancholic attack, who have hitherto continued of sound mind. She bore another son after G. F. who is extremely flighty and unmanageable. G. F. was attacked with madness at the age of nineteen, and died apoplectic, from the violence and continued fury of his disorder.
_10th._--M. T. Her mother was of sound mind. Her father was in a melancholic state for two years, before she was born, but this was afterwards dissipated by active employment. M. T. has two brothers, younger than herself, who have been attacked with insanity, neither of whom have recovered. She has two sisters, some years older than herself, these have never been deranged. M. T. has had nine children. The three first have been melancholic. The youngest, at the age of five years, used to imagine she saw persons in the room covered with blood, and other horrible objects, she afterwards became epileptic and died. The youngest of her three first children has been married and had three children, one of whom is afflicted with ch.o.r.ea Sancti Viti, and another is nearly an ideot.
Of the causes termed moral, the greatest number may, perhaps, be traced to the errors of education, which often plant in the youthful mind those seeds of madness which the slightest circ.u.mstances readily awaken into growth.
It should be as much the object of the teachers of youth, to subjugate the pa.s.sions, as to discipline the intellect. The tender mind should be prepared to expect the natural and certain effects of causes: its propensity to indulge an avaricious thirst for that which is unattainable, should be quenched: nor should it be suffered to acquire a fixed and invincible attachment to that which is fleeting and perishable.
Of the more immediate, or, as it is generally termed, the proximate cause of this disease, I profess to know nothing. Whenever the functions of the brain shall be fully understood, and the use of its different parts ascertained, we may then be enabled to judge, how far disease, attacking any of these parts, may increase, diminish, or otherwise alter its functions. But this is a degree of knowledge, which we are not likely soon to attain. It seems, however, not improbable, that the only source, from whence the most copious and certain information can be drawn, is a strict attention to the particular appearances which morbid states of this organ may present.
From the preceding dissections of insane persons, it may be inferred, that madness has always been connected with disease of the brain and of its membranes. Having no particular theory to build up, they have been related purely for the advancement of science and of truth.
It may be a matter, affording much diversity of opinion, whether these morbid appearances of the brain be the cause or the effect of madness: it may be observed that they have been found in all states of the disease.
When the brain has been injured from external violence, its functions have been generally impaired, if inflammation of its substance, or more delicate membranes has ensued. The same appearances have for the most part been detected, when patients have died of phrenitis, or in the delirium of fever: in these instances, the derangement of the intellectual functions appears evidently to have been caused by the inflammation. If in mania the same appearances be found, there will be no necessity of calling in the aid of other causes, to account for the effect: indeed, it would be difficult to discover them.
Those who entertain an opposite opinion are obliged to suppose, _a disease of the mind_. Such a morbid affection, from the limited nature of my powers, perhaps I have never been able to conceive. Possessing, however, little knowledge of metaphysical controversy, I shall only offer a few remarks upon this part of the subject, and beg pardon for having at all touched it.
Perhaps it is not more difficult to suppose, that matter, peculiarly arranged, may _think_,[17] than to conceive the union of an immaterial being with a corporeal substance. It is questioning the infinite wisdom and power of the Deity to say, that he does not, or cannot, arrange matter so that it shall think. When we find insanity, as far as has been hitherto observed, uniformly accompanied with disease of the brain, is it not more just to conclude, that such organic affection has produced this incorrect a.s.sociation of ideas, than that a being, which is immaterial, incorruptible, and immortal, should be subject to the gross and subordinate changes which matter necessarily undergoes?