On suicidal impulse.

  • Christie, James, 1829-1892.
Date:
1864
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On suicidal impulse. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    A person affected somewhat in the manner described, suddenly stopped short during conversation and looked steadily and earnestly towards the city, as if the attention had been unex- pectedly arrested and fixed on some wonderful object. The evening was peculiarly calm and beautiful, the atmosphere being clear and unusually cloudless. The only object visible in the direction looked at, was a small cloud very brilliantly tinged by the setting sun; and the only sounds heard in the direction of the city, proceeded from some building yards on the Clyde. There was nothing calculated to arrest the attention of an ordinary observer; but if ever strongly excited emotions were faithfully delineated in the expression, they were, on that occa- sion, in the case of this individual. Attention, alarm, fear, terror, despair, and frenzy, were in rapid succession depicted on the coun- tenance. The object that arrested the attention primarily was the red cloud, and then the wild train of ideas followed—the city in flames, the loud clang of arms, battles in the streets, and the in- discriminate slaughter of the four hundred thousand inhabitants. The feelings were too strong to be suppressed, but too intense to be expressed except in queries and ejaculations. To the eyes, probably dazzled by the bright cloud, everything appeared as if tinged with blood, the peculiar odour of which seemed also to pervade the atmosphere. Escape was deemed impossible, and, the carnage having been completed in the city, the destroyers were supposed to be at hand. It would be impossible to delineate, with any degree of accu- racy, the intensity of the feelings when such a scene of horror is suddenly, like a vast panorama, exposed to the view. In time of war the mind is gradually prepared for scenes of rapine and bloodshed, and the thoughts are familiarized with the contempla- tion of danger. Each spectator or actor, from his own peculiar point of view, looks upon the fortunes or reverses of war, with all its accompanying horrors, as the inevitable awards of those who struggle in a good cause, and, armed with this conviction, such scenes are deprived of half their terrors. But in this case there was no self-confidence, no fortitude, no reasoning power to con- trol the feelings; nothing was looked forward to but a speedy and cruel death. This form of cerebro-mental disease assumes in others a much less acute aspect. In the cases mentioned the impressions were peculiarly vivid, owing to the accession of hallucinations and illusions, but in those to be noticed there is less emotional exci- tation and greater reasoning power. Death is anticipated as impending, but it is death under peculiar circumstances, and the mind is incessantly occupied in surrounding it with every variety of revolting circumstances. In some cases, tortures o£ the most