A letter to the Right Honourable Lord Ashley relative to the case Nottidge versus Ripley / by T.T. Wingett.

Date:
1849
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A letter to the Right Honourable Lord Ashley relative to the case Nottidge versus Ripley / by T.T. Wingett. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    recovery or even improvement. He has frequently been heard to threaten violence both to parties connected with the asylum and others. From what witness had seen of him had no doubt that he would commit violence to persons to whom he entertains antipathy in circum- stances of excitement. Has no doubt of this whatever. Thinks he is not a person who might with safety to the public be set at large. His delusions are very numerous, and may be specified as referring to property to which he lays claim; and that various individuals are suborned and bribed to coniine, calumniate, and do him evil. Sometimes the patient is cunning, plausible, and gentle; but repeating over and over again his ideas with regard to property and his other delusions, without reference to previous statements to the same effect. He has also delusions of seeing persons whom he does not actually see, and of hearing rumours which he does not actually hear. At other times, when contradicted, or when his word is disputed, he becomes irritated, excited, and uses threats. He talks rationally upon some points. He has a share of reason, more or less; but that must be affected by his delusions; and as he would proceed upon false principles, it would not guide him in the common affairs of life.” The counsel for the defence stated that even if it had been shown that the claimant laboured under a sort of monomania as regards his property, he held that he was entitled to a verdict, and quoted the opinion of the Lord Chief Baron in the Nottidge case as a corroboration of his statement. And the Sheriff, in summing up the evidence, said—“ other mental delusions there no doubt are, which arise from defective processes of reasoning, but these, strictly speaking, are not insanity ; as for instance, when a man by dint of reasoning gets himself into the belief that there is no God. there had been examples of men with great mental powers professing to have reasoned thus, though the strange result to which they had arrived was not owing to a diseased fancy. In the same way delusions of a religious nature arose :