THE CRIMINAL INSANE OF ENGLAND: A MEDICO-PSYCHOLOGICAL AND LEGAL STUDY
Abstract
MEDICO-PSYCHOLOGICALENGLAND:STUDY.*A.BOISMONT.a long succession of ages everything that has styled a crime has been visited in the name of hu-. man justice and the safety of society with severe punish ment, even to the penalty of death. These sentences were rendered under the influence of immutable princi pies which cannot be denied without disturbing the foundations of social order. These considerations have constituted the chief arguments for the condemnation of the sorcerers, the magi cians, the âpossessed,â the heretics of former times. In our days, these same considerations are reproduced, with variations, in most of the sentences passed upon insane persous, who have yielded to heinous passions, though reasoning clearly, and distinguishing right from wrong; upon the backward, the feeble-minded, the imbecile, even idiots; in fne, upon âhereditaries,â in whose cases degeneracy can be traced through many successive generations. The nature of the crimes committed, the physical and moral condition of those who committed them, were, however, the first questions to study; and this is what During beenMedico-Psychological 19th,Society It is here transwith the exceppassages in Insane for the in the1and the Academy of Medicine, January lated for the âAxmcAN Jouniai. tion of such portions as are almost article