THE FRONTTERS OF MADNESS.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3698, 22 May 1883, Page 4

THE FRONTIERS OF MADNESS.

Such is the title of an interesting lecture recently delivered by Dr Ball in his course at the Paris Faculty of Medicine. The generally received opinion that folly and reason are separated by a strictly drawn mathematical line is, according to Dr Ball, quite erroneous. There is a broad frontier, he says, between sanity and insanity, which is peopled by millions of inhabitants. Damasippiis, in Horace, laid down the doctrine that all men arc mad—" insulins cl, tii, tilitifl'/uv prii/ic oniiics. ,, Dr Ball, without going quite so far as this, holds that tho number of persons perfectly reasonable on all points throughout the entire period of their existence form but a minority of mankind. The world abounds with people, lie tells us, whom a strict scientific diagnosis would condemn as mad, or more or less " touched " ; yet at no time of their life Avould it be permissible to put them under restraint. Such people arc to be neon occupying honorably and successfully every position in life and society ; avc brush against them Avhen avc take our daily walks abroad; avo sec thorn in the mirror which reflects ourselves.

Dr Ball having stated tho thesis of his discourse, proceeds to a classification of these "sane madmen," and assigns the first place "in the order of merit" (from what point of view lie docs not specify) to those who suffer from unreasonable and in most cases irresistible impulses. Naturally enough, the lecturer referred to the case of Dr Johnson and the curious impulse which prompted him to touch each post as he walked along the .streets—an impulse so strong that if ho accidentally passed one by without the usual tribute of a touch, he felt irresistibly compelled to return and repair tho omission. Tho overpowering- impulse to laugh on occasions of peculiar solemnity is one which oven tho most serious have experienced. A. still more morbid impulse is that which sometimes urges pious people to indulge in blasphemous or profane language. A great English divine, Bishop Butler, Avas tormented all his life long by this temptation, which he only mastered by strong and sustained efforts of the will. The impulse sometimes assumes a suicidal form.

Dr Ball was recently consulted by a youug man who was engaged to be married, but who found it impossible to visit his intended bride because it would involve a journey of somo length in a railway carriage, and he could never enter one without feeling" a dcsii-o to jump out as soon as the train was in motion, He wan advised to accustom himself gradually to this mode of travelling , by taking short journeys on tho surburban line, but ho could never get beyond Autcuil; there he had Jto leave tho carriage for fear of accident. Homicidal impulse irf likewise mot with. Tliouviot'f) cftso is ono of tho oftenest quoted. For years this \mpleasaut person

was tortured with a burning desire to kill some women or other, but he never folt the slightest wish to take the life of a man. He battled with the impulse for years, but at length it got the better of him. One day he murdered a young girl, a perfect stranger to him, whom unfortunate chance threw in his way hi the kitchen of a restaurant, Dr Ball was consulted .some time ago by a painter of considerable talent who was a prey to three murderous impulses. He had married early in life, his family was large, and his cares and anxieties largo in proportion. At about eight-and-thirty, without physical ailment of any kind, or any specially unfavourable turn in his affairs, his mind began to bo affected. If he saw a mirror he experienced a desire to smash it; near a window ho felt a temptation to jump out; lie never got a bank note in his hand that he did not feel inclined to tear it to pieces. These morbid promptings presently assumed a more formidable shape ; he began to bo assailed with a temptation to strangle his children. His little daughter was dying of croup, and he spent night after night by her bedside, nursing her with the utmost tenderness. "Yet," said he to the physician, "at the moment when I was praying, with tears in my eyes, that the child's life might be spared, I was tormented with a horrible desire to take her out of tho cradle and throw her into the tire. Even now," he added, "as I speak to you, I feel a most intense desire to strangle you ; but I check myself." The doctor never saw this patient again; a circumstance Avhich he lias perhaps no reason to regret, for ho was a-man of powerful build and would have been an exceedingly " ugly customer " had his sanguinary impulses proved beyond his control. But up to that time, as the doctor remarks, he had kept them successfully in check. His nearest friends did not even suspect that he was subject to them. He fulfilled all tho duties of life in a correct and exemplary manner. No doctor could have certified to his being insane. Yet assuredly ho was one on the "borderland" of insanity."— St. James' Gazette.