HOMICIDAL MANIA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9220, 24 November 1888, Page 2 (Supplement)

HOMICIDAL MANIA.

Dr. George H. Savage contributes' to the new number of the Fortnightly Review an article on "Homicidal Mania." Having defined the forms of insanity from which murderous attacks may result, Dr. Savage goes on to illustrate his views by facts and incidents which have chielly come under his own observation. We extract the following : — THE CRIMES OF THE EPILEPTIC. Probably some of the most brutal crimes have been committed by epileptics. In an asylum there are always patients who are dreaded on account of their objectless and murderous fury. A. fit of fury may precede a lit of epilepsy, or, what is much the more common, may follow it, or, according to some, may take the place of a fit. In these eases apparently purposeful acts are done, The victim may be cunningly decoyed, and later may be dismembered and mutilated, andyet the epileptic taken red-handed may deny all knowledge of his acts. The crimes of the epileptic are, as a rule, single, often causeless, and though at times there are attempts at concealment, yet at others, and more frequently, there are no attempts at escape from the crime. It is almost certain that the epileptic criminal is j ignorant of his act, which may have been started by some impression or thought at the moment of the onset of the lit; he is started like an automaton by this impression. a MAD BRIDEGROOM. A young French lady of good family was, after the fashion of our neighbours, taken ! from her convent school to be married to a gentleman of whom she knew little. The marriage services were completed, and the bride and bridegroom were to spend the honeymoon in their country home, where in quiet and alone they could begin their now life. The bridegroom on joining his bride had a slight loss of consciousness ; he appeared rapidly to recover, but had the idea that he had to protect his wife from evil and defend himself and his honour. In his wife lie saw an enemy and at once attacked her, and then in the quiet part of a lonely chateau for hours a terrible struggle went on. The bride was saved, though seriously injured, bearing to her grave the signs of that awful night. MURDER RESULTING FROM DELIRIUM TREMENS. Murders are often the result of delirium tremens; in this disorder the senses are often perverted, and friends' faces appear to be like those of foes, and the painful sensory impressions may drive the patient into a, state of frantic panic in which murder of a wholesale and general character mas occur. In more chronic alcoholic poisoning the senses may be more deeply affected, so that the patient believes that he is electrified, or else he may think that his food—which does not taste right— is poisoned; and thus from these uneasy feelings he may believe that ho is being conspired against. Once I saw a foreman of works who was fully persuaded that his workmen, whom he did not support in a strike, were in league against him, and it would have been a dangerous thing to have allowed him to continue with these surroundings. In another case a publican is fully determined to "do lor some one," including a doctor who has not only kidnapped him, but has " trombones" and telephones, batteries and poison, phantasmagoria and "little games," always ready to turn on. AX IMPULSE TO KILL. Dealing next with cases of nervous instability, Dr. Savage says : —A man may be dotingly fond of wife or family, and yet their presence at once conjures up a feeling that he must kill them ; he does not attempt to explain it, he only says he feels sure he will do it. Mo threats can strengthen his affection for his wife, and no dread of punishment would stay his hand. I have had main- narrate their 'feelings, and how impossible they felt it to live with the person who thus affected them. One told me that he slept quietly by his wife as long as lie did not see her, but if in the early morning he awoke he would pass through a perfect torment of hell as he watched her peaceful sleep, being driven by an all but irresistible force to kill the being for whom ho would readily die himself. 1 have spoken to mothers, J too, who would shudder as they spoke of I the power of the impulse to kill. These ! cases, as I have said, are specially related to a dominant idea arising almost as an antagonist to the usual habit of mindpleasure passing to pain, and love balanced by unreasonable hate. IMAGINARY voices commanding TO murder. The most common-sense perversion is that of hearing, and "voices" are the most common form of this disorder. The growth of the auditory hallucination, from the simple singing in the ears, through whispered sounds up to shouted commands, has often been watched, both in the onset and with the remission of the disease. These "voices" may reproduce the thoughts of the person ; or they may criticise the thoughts, words, or actions; or they may go one step further and use words of abuse or accusation ; and last and most dangerous, they may assume a right of commanding, and may be taken for the direction of God. Many single murders have been committed under such direction, and in one case at least preparations of the most elaborate kind had been made by the homicide to continue his work of worldpurifying. In this case, v. hich occurred early in the century, an artist of great power and promise killed his father by decapitating him in a wood whither he decoyed him. He is said to have escaped for a time ; and a tale is told of his being in a travelling-carriage during the night with a foreigner, who was aroused by strange fumblings about his throat. He could not explain it ; but it turned out he was travelling with this parricide, who had directions to kill his companion, but failed to understand what the precise method was which he was to follow, and so a life was probably saved. This same artist had, I have heard, a note-book with sketches of the persons lie was going to kill and the methods he was going to adopt. TUB WHITECIIAPEL MURDERS. After all this I suppose I shall be expected to sum up in some sort of way on the Whitechapel murders ; but I feel much more inclined to say, the facts are before you, judge for yourselves. Yet I may suggest a few points of special interest. First, the murders may not have all been committed by one man. There is a fashion in murder, or, rather, there are epidemics of similar crimes; or, again, the imitative action may have come into play. Ido not think that any epileptic or drunken maniac would have so cunningly selected his victims and avoided detection, and the failure to identify anyone is in favour of there being only one agent. A mere lust for blood would not have been satisfied by the selection of victims. The skill with which the murders Mere perpetrated and the skill of the multilation point to someone with some anatomical knowledge. This might be possessed by a butcher or someone who had had medical knowledge ; but there are so many nowadays with mechanical knowledge of the body, in the form of post-mortem room and anatomy room porters, that to suppose the murders to be the work of a medical man is, to my thinking, going too far. The cunning o; the evasion, the ferocity of the crimes, the special selection of the victims, seem to me to depend either on a fiendishly criminal revenge, cr else upon some fully organised delusion of persecution or world-regenera-tion.