Responsibility in mental disease / by Henry Maudsley.

  • Maudsley, Henry, 1835-1918.
Date:
1874
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Responsibility in mental disease / by Henry Maudsley. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    madness of disease, running at times so close to one another as not to be distinguishable. The prophets of the Old Testament, speaking as they probably did, in an impassioned manner, and with vehement gesticulation, as though possessed by a spirit which they could not resist, were looked upon as raving madmen. Wherefore came this mad fellow unto thee ? is asked of Jehu. And Shemaiah writes a letter declaring that the prophet Jeremiah is mad, and ought to be put in prison—(Jeremiah xxix., 26 ; Isaiah lix., 15). Then, as sometimes now, it was true : Yea truth faileth ; and he that departeth from evil is accounted mad. Of Christ himself it was afterwards said— He is beside hunself.' He hath a devil and is mad,—why hear ye him ? To Paul Festus exclaimed— Paul, thou art beside thyself; much learning doth make thee mad. It is plain then that there has always been something in common recog- nised between the mental state of the inspired genius or prophet, and the mental state of the madman, whence it has come to pass that the terms mania and alienation of mind have been used to designate both states. There was an alienation of mind which was the result of divine inspiration, in which the mind was in an exalted state, and there was an alienation of mind which was the result of disease—a mania which was divine inspiration, and a mania which was properly madness or possession by an evil spirit. Possessed by a good spirit, the individual was a prophet; possessed by an evil spirit, he was a madman. Nor was it always easy to distinguish one state from the other, some of the prophets of the Old Testament, for B 2