The alternative method of bringing a person of unsound mind under lunacy jurisdiction was created by § 116 of the Lunacy Act 1890. The effect of that section briefly is to enable the Master, on a summons being taken out in his chambers and heard before him, to apply the powers of management and administration summarized in the last preceding paragraph, without any inquisition, to the following classes of cases: lunatics not so found by inquisition, for the protection or administration of whose property any order was made under earlier acts; every person lawfully detained, within the jurisdiction of the English courts, as a lunatic, though not so found by inquisition; persons not coming within the foregoing categories who are “through mental infirmity arising from disease or age†incapable of managing their affairs; persons of unsound mind whose property does not exceed £2000 in value, or does not yield an annual income of more than £100; and criminal lunatics continuing insane and under confinement.
In Scotland the insane are brought under the jurisdiction in lunacy by alternative methods, similar to the English inquisition and summary procedure, viz. “cognition,†the trial taking place before the Lord President of the Court of Session, or any judge of that court to whom he may remit it, and a jury of twelve—see 31 & 32 Vict. c. 100, and Act of Sederunt of 3rd December 1868—and an application to the Junior Lord Ordinary of the Court of Session or (43 & 44 Vict. c. 4, § 4) to the Sheriff Court, when the estate in question does not exceed £100 a year, for the appointment of acurator bonisor judicial factor.
The powers of the Lord Chancellor of Ireland with regard to lunatics are generally similar to those of the English Chancellor (see the Lunacy Regulations (Ireland) Act 1871, 34 & 35 Vict. c. 22, and the Lunacy (Ireland) Act 1901, 1 Ed. VII. c. 17; also Colles onThe Lunacy Regulation(Ireland)Act.
The main feature of the French system is the provision made by the Civil Code (arts. 489-512) for the interdiction of an insane person by the Tribunal of First Instance, with a right of appeal to the Court of Appeal, after a preliminary inquiry and a report by a family council (arts. 407, 408), consisting of six blood relatives in as near a degree of relationship to the lunatic as possible, or, in default of such relatives, of six relatives by marriage. The family council is presided over by theJuge de Paixof the district in which the lunatic is domiciled. This system is also in force in Mauritius.
There are provisions, it may be noted, in Scots law for the interdiction of lunatics, either voluntarily or judicially (see Bell’sPrinciples, § 2123). The German Civil Code provides for insane persons being made subject to guardianship (vormundung), on conditions similar to those of Scots and French law (see Civil Code, §§ 6, 104 (1896, 1906), 645-679). In the United States the fundamental procedure is an inquisition conducted on practically the same lines as in England. (Cf. Indiana,Rev. Stats.(1894) §§ 2715 et seq.; Missouri, Annot. Code (1892) §§ 2835 et seq.; New Mexico,General Laws(1880) c. 74 §§ 1 et seq.).
4.Asylum Administration.—Asylum administration in England is now regulated by the Lunacy Acts 1890 and 1891. Receptacles for the insane are divisible into the following classes: (i.) Institutions for lunatics, including asylums, registered hospitals and licensed houses. The asylums are provided by counties or boroughs, or by union of counties or boroughs. Registered hospitals are hospitals holding certificates of registration from the Commissioners in Lunacy, where lunatics are received and supported wholly or partially by voluntary contributions or charitable bequests, or by applying the excess of the payments of some patients towards the maintenance of others. Licensed houses are houses licensed by the Commissioners, or, beyond their immediate jurisdiction, by justices; (ii.) Workhouses—see articlePoor Law; (iii.) Houses in which patients are boarded out; (iv.) Private houses (unlicensed) in which not more than a single patient may be received. A person, not being a pauper or a lunatic so found by inquisition, cannot, in ordinary cases, be received and detained as a lunatic in any institution for the insane, except under a “reception order†made by a county court judge or stipendiary magistrate or specially appointed justice of the peace. The order is made on a petition presented by a relative or friend of the alleged lunatic, and supported by two medical certificates, and after a private hearing by the judicial authority. The detention of a lunatic is, however, justifiable at common law, if necessary for his safety or that of others; and the Lunacy Act 1890, borrowing from the lunacy law of Scotland, provides for the reception of a lunatic not a pauper into an asylum, where it is expedient for his welfare or the public safety that he should be confined without delay, upon an “urgency order,†made if possible by a near relative and accompanied by one medical certificate. The urgency order only justifies detention for seven days (the curtailment of this period to four days is proposed), and before the expiration of that period the ordinary procedure must be followed. “Summary reception orders†may be made by justices otherwise than on petition. There are four classes of cases in which such orders may be made, viz.: (i.) lunatics (not paupers and not wandering at large) who are not under proper care and control, or are cruelly treated or neglected; (ii.) resident pauper lunatics; (iii.) lunatics, whether pauper or not, wandering at large; (iv.) lunatics in workhouses. (As to pauper lunatics generally, see articlePoor Law.) A lunatic may also be received into an institution under an order by the Commissioners in Lunacy; and a lunatic so found by inquisition under an order signed by the committee of his person.
The chief features of English asylum administration requiring notice are these. Mechanical restraint is to be applied only when necessary for surgical or medical purposes, or in order to prevent the lunatic from injuring himself or others. The privacy of the correspondence of lunatics with the Lord Chancellor, the Commissioners in Lunacy, &c., is secured. Provision is made for regular visits to patients by their relatives and friends. The employment of males for the custody of females is, except on occasions of urgency, prohibited. Pauper lunatics may be boarded out with relatives and friends. Elaborate provision is made for the official visitation of every class of receptacle for the insane. The duties of visitation are divided between the Commissioners in Lunacy, the Chancery Visitors and various other visitors and visiting committees. There are ten Commissioners in Lunacy—four unpaid and six paid, three of the latter being barristers of not less than five years’ standing at the date of appointment, and three medical. The Commissioners in Lunacy, who are appointed by the Lord Chancellor, visit every class of lunatics except persons so found by inquisition. These arevisited by the Chancery Visitors. There are three Chancery Visitors, two medical and one legal (a barrister of at least five years’ standing at the date of his appointment), who are appointed and removable by the Lord Chancellor. The Chancery Visitors (together with the Master in Lunacy) form a Board, and have offices in the Royal Courts of Justice. In addition to these two classes of visitors, every asylum has a Visiting Committee of not less than seven members, appointed by the local authority; and the justices of every county and quarter-sessions borough not within the immediate jurisdiction of the Commissioners in Lunacy annually appoint three or more of their number as visitors of licensed houses.
Provision is made for the discharge of lunatics from asylums, &c., on recovery, or byhabeas corpus, or by the various visiting authorities. Any person who considers himself to have been unjustly detained is entitled on discharge to obtain, free of expense, from the secretary to the Lunacy Commissioners a copy of the documents under which he was confined.
The Irish [Lunacy Acts 1821-1890; Lunacy (Ireland) Act 1901] and Scottish [Lunacy Acts 1857 (20 & 21 Vict. c. 71), 1887 (50 & 51 Vict. c. 39)] asylum systems present no feature sufficiently different from the English to require separate notice, except that in Scotland “boarding out†is a regular, and not merely an incidental, part of asylum administration. The “boarding out†principle has, however, received its most extended and most successful application in the Gheel colony in Belgium. The patients, after a few days’ preliminary observation, are placed in families, and, except that they are under ultimate control by a superior commission, composed of the governor of the province, the Procureur du Roi and others, enjoy complete liberty indoors as well as out of doors. The patients are visited by nurses from the infirmary, to which they may be sent if they become seriously ill or unmanageable. They are encouraged to work. The accommodation provided for them is prescribed, and is to be of the same quality as that of the household in which they live. Clothing is provided by the administration.
In the French (see laws of 30th June 1838 and 18th December 1839) and German (seeJournal of Comparative Legislation, n.s. vol. i. at pp. 271, 272) asylum systems the main features of English administration are also reproduced.
The lunacy laws of the British colonies have also closely followed English legislation (cf. Ontario,R.S.1897, cc. 317, 318; Manitoba,R.S.1902, c. 80; Victoria (No. 1113, 1890); New Zealand (No. 34 of 1882 and Amending Acts); Mauritius (No. 37 of 1858).
In America the different states of the Union have each their own lunacy legislation. The national government provides only for the insane of the army and navy, and for those residing in the District of Columbia and in Alaska. The various laws as to the reception, &c., of the insane into asylums closely resemble English procedure. But in several states the verdict of a jury finding lunacy is a necessary preliminary to the commitment of private patients (Kentucky, Act of 1883, c. 900, § 14; Maryland,R.S.1878, c. 53, § 21; Illinois,R.S.1874, c. 85, § 22).
Authorities.—The following works may be consulted: Collinson on theLaw of Lunatics and Idiots(2 vols., London, 1812); Shelford on theLaw of Lunatics and Idiots(London, 1847). On all points relating to the history and development of the law these two treatises are invaluable. Pope onLunacy(2nd ed., London, 1890); Archbold’sLunacy(4th ed., London, 1895); Elmer onLunacy(7th ed., London, 1892); Wood Renton onLunacy(London and Edinburgh, 1896); Fry’sLunacy Laws(3rd ed., London, 1890); Pitt-Lewis, Smith and Hawke,The Insane and the Law(London, 1895); Hack-Tuke,Dictionary of Psychological Medicine(London, 1892), and the bibliographies attached to the various legal articles in that work; Clevenger,Medical Jurisprudence of Insanity(2 vols., New York, 1899); Semelaigne,Les Aliénistes français(Paris 1849); Bertrand,Loi sur les aliénés(Paris, 1872), presents a comparative view of English and foreign legislations. In forensic medicine the works of Taylor,Medical Jurisprudence(5th ed., London, 1905); Dixon Mann,Foreign Medicine and Toxicology(3rd ed., London, 1902); and Wharton and Stillé,A Treatise on Medical Jurisprudence(Philadelphia, 1873); Hamilton and Godkin,System of Legal Medicine(New York, 1895); are probably the English authorities in most common use. See also Casper and Liman,Praktisches Handbuch der gerichtlichen Medicin(Berlin, 6th ed., 1876); Tardieu,Étude médico-légale sur la folie(Paris, 1872); Legrand du Saulle,La Folie devant les tribunaux(Paris, 1864); Dubrac,Traité de jurisprudence médicale(Paris, 1894); Tourdes,Traité de médecine légale(Paris, 1897); and especially Krafft-Ebing,Lehrbuch der gerichtlichen Psychopathologie(Stuttgart, 1899).
Authorities.—The following works may be consulted: Collinson on theLaw of Lunatics and Idiots(2 vols., London, 1812); Shelford on theLaw of Lunatics and Idiots(London, 1847). On all points relating to the history and development of the law these two treatises are invaluable. Pope onLunacy(2nd ed., London, 1890); Archbold’sLunacy(4th ed., London, 1895); Elmer onLunacy(7th ed., London, 1892); Wood Renton onLunacy(London and Edinburgh, 1896); Fry’sLunacy Laws(3rd ed., London, 1890); Pitt-Lewis, Smith and Hawke,The Insane and the Law(London, 1895); Hack-Tuke,Dictionary of Psychological Medicine(London, 1892), and the bibliographies attached to the various legal articles in that work; Clevenger,Medical Jurisprudence of Insanity(2 vols., New York, 1899); Semelaigne,Les Aliénistes français(Paris 1849); Bertrand,Loi sur les aliénés(Paris, 1872), presents a comparative view of English and foreign legislations. In forensic medicine the works of Taylor,Medical Jurisprudence(5th ed., London, 1905); Dixon Mann,Foreign Medicine and Toxicology(3rd ed., London, 1902); and Wharton and Stillé,A Treatise on Medical Jurisprudence(Philadelphia, 1873); Hamilton and Godkin,System of Legal Medicine(New York, 1895); are probably the English authorities in most common use. See also Casper and Liman,Praktisches Handbuch der gerichtlichen Medicin(Berlin, 6th ed., 1876); Tardieu,Étude médico-légale sur la folie(Paris, 1872); Legrand du Saulle,La Folie devant les tribunaux(Paris, 1864); Dubrac,Traité de jurisprudence médicale(Paris, 1894); Tourdes,Traité de médecine légale(Paris, 1897); and especially Krafft-Ebing,Lehrbuch der gerichtlichen Psychopathologie(Stuttgart, 1899).
(A. W. R.)
III. Hospital Treatment
The era of real hospitals for the insane began in the 19th century. There had been established here and there in different parts of the world, it is true, certain asylums or places of restraint before the beginning of the 19th century. We find mention in history of such a place established by monks at Jerusalem in the latter part of the 5th century. There is evidence that even earlier than this in Egypt and Greece the insane were treated as individuals suffering from disease. Egyptian priests employed not only music and the beautiful in nature and art as remedial agents in insanity, but recreation and occupation as well. A Greek physician protested against mechanical restraint in the care of the insane, and advocated kindly treatment, the use of music, and of some sorts of manual labour. But these ancient beneficent teachings were lost sight of during succeeding centuries. The prevailing idea of the pathology of insanity in Europe during the middle ages was that of demoniacal possession. The insane were not sick, but possessed of devils, and these devils were only to be exorcised by moral or spiritual agencies. Medieval therapeutics in insanity adapted itself to the etiology indicated. Torture and the cruellest forms of punishment were employed. The insane were regarded with abhorrence, and were frequently cast into chains and dungeons. Milder forms of mental disease were treated by other spiritual means—such as pilgrimages to the shrines of certain saints who were reputed to have particular skill and success in the exorcism of evil spirits. The shrine of St Dymphna at Gheel, in Belgium, was one of these, and seems to have originated in the 7th century, a shrine so famed that lunatics from all over Europe were brought thither for miraculous healing. The little town became a resort for hundreds of insane persons, and as long ago as the 17th century acquired the reputation, which still exists to this day, of a unique colony for the insane. At the present time the village of Gheel and its adjacent farming hamlets (with a population of some 13,000 souls) provides homes, board and care for nearly 2000 insane persons under medical and government supervision. Numerous other shrines and holy wells in various parts of Europe were resorted to by the mentally afflicted—such as Glen-na-Galt in Ireland, the well of St Winifred, St Nun’s Pool, St Fillans, &c. At St Nun’s the treatment consisted of plunging the patient backwards into the water and dragging him to and fro until mental excitement abated. Not only throughout the middle ages, but far down into the 17th century, demonology and witchcraft were regarded as the chief causes of insanity. And the insane were frequently tortured, scourged, and even burned to death.
Until as late as the middle of the 18th century, mildly insane persons were cared for at shrines, or wandered homeless about the country. Such as were deemed a menace to the community were sent to ordinary prisons or chained in dungeons. Thus large numbers of lunatics accumulated in the prisons, and slowly there grew up a sort of distinction between them and criminals, which at length resulted in a separation of the two classes. In time many of the insane were sent to cloisters and monasteries, especially after these began to be abandoned by their former occupants. Thus “Bedlam†(Bethlehem Royal Hospital) was originally founded in 1247 as a priory for the brethren and sisters of the Order of the Star of Bethlehem. It is not known exactly when lunatics were first received into Bedlam, but some were there in 1403. Bedlam was rebuilt as an asylum for the insane in 1676. In 1815 a committee of the House of Commons, upon investigation, found it in a disgraceful condition, the medical treatment being of the most antiquated sort, and actual inhumanity practised upon the patients. Similarly the Charenton Asylum, just outside Paris, near the park of Vincennes, was an old monastery which had been given over to the insane. Numerouslike instances could be cited, but the interesting point to be borne in mind is, that with a general tendency to improvement in the condition of imbeciles upon public charge, idiots and insane persons came gradually to be separated from criminals and other paupers, and to be segregated. The process of segregation was, however, very slow. Even after it had been accomplished in the larger centres of civilization, the condition of these unfortunates in provincial districts remained the same. Furthermore, the transfer to asylums provided especially for them was not followed by any immediate improvement in the patients.
Twenty-five years after Pinel had, in 1792, struck the chains from the lunatics huddled in the Salpétrière and Bicêtre of Paris, and called upon the world to realize the horrible injustice done to this wretched and suffering class of humanity, a pupil of Pinel, Esquirol, wrote of the insane in France and all Europe: “These unfortunate people are treated worse than criminals, reduced to a condition worse than that of animals. I have seen them naked, covered with rags, and having only straw to protect them against the cold moisture and the hard stones they lie upon; deprived of air, of water to quench thirst, and all the necessaries of life; given up to mere gaolers and left to their surveillance. I have seen them in their narrow and filthy cells, without light and air, fastened with chains in these dens in which one would not keep wild beasts. This I have seen in France, andthe insane are everywhere in Europe treated in the same way.†It was not until 1838 that the insane in France were all transferred from small houses of detention, workhouses and prisons to asylums specially constructed for this purpose.
In Belgium, in the middle ages, the public executioner was ordered to expel from the towns, by flogging, the poor lunatics who were wandering about the streets. In 1804 the Code Napoleon “punished those who allowed the insane and mad criminals to run about free.†In 1841 an investigation showed in Belgium thirty-seven establishments for the insane, only six of which were in good order. In fourteen of them chains and irons were still being used. In Germany, England and America, in 1841, the condition of the insane was practically the same as in Belgium and France.
These facts show that no great advance in the humane and scientific care of the insane was made till towards the middle of the 19th century. Only then did the actual metamorphosis of asylums for detention into hospitals for treatment begin to take place. Hand in hand with this progress there has grown, and still is growing, a tendency to subdivision and specialization of hospitals for this purpose. There are now hospitals for the acutely insane, others for the chronic insane, asylums for the criminal insane, institutions for the feeble-minded and idiots, and colonies for epileptics. There are public institutions for the poor, and well-appointed private retreats and homes for the rich. All these are presided over by the best of medical authorities, supervised by unsalaried boards of trustees or managers, and carefully inspected by Government lunacy commissioners, or boards of charities—a contrast, indeed, to the gaols, shrines, holy wells, chains, tortures, monkish exorcisms, &c., of the past!
The statistics of insanity have been fairly well established. The ratio of insane to normal population is about 1 to 300 among civilized peoples. This proportion varies within narrow limits in different races and countries. It is probable that intemperance in the use of alcohol and drugs, the spread of venereal diseases, and the over-stimulation in many directions induced by modern social conditions, have caused an increase of insanity in the 19th as compared with past centuries. The amount of such increase is probably very small, but on superficial examination might seem to be large, owing to the accumulation of the chronic insane and the constant upbuilding of asylums in new communities. The imperfections of census-taking in the past must also be taken into account.
The modern hospital for the insane does credit to latter-day civilization. Physical restraint is no longer practised. The day of chains—even of wristlets, covered cribs and strait-jackets—is past. Neat dormitories, cosy single rooms, and sitting- and dining-rooms please the eye. In the place of bare walls and floors and curtainless windows, are pictures, plants, rugs, birds, curtains, and in many asylums even the barred windows have been abolished. Some of the wards for milder patients have unlocked doors. Many patients are trusted alone about the grounds and on visits to neighbouring towns. An air of busy occupation is observed in sewing-rooms, schools, shops, in the fields and gardens, employment contributing not only to economy in administration, but to improvement in mental and physical conditions. The general progress of medical science in all directions has been manifested in the department of psychiatry by improved methods of treatment, in the way of sleep-producing and alleviating drugs, dietetics, physical culture, hydrotherapy and the like. There are few asylums now without pathological and clinical laboratories. While it is a far cry from the prisons and monasteries of the past to the modern hospital for the insane, it is still possible to trace a resemblance in many of our older asylums to their ancient prototypes, particularly in those asylums built upon the so-called corridor plan. Though each generation contributed something new, antecedent models were more or less adhered to. Progress in asylum architecture has hence advanced more slowly in countries where monasteries and cloisters abounded than in countries where fixed models did not exist. Architects have had a freer hand in America, Australia and Germany, and even in Great Britain, than in the Catholic countries of Europe.
Germany approaches nearest to an ideal standard of provision for the insane. The highest and best idea which has yet been attained is that of small hospitals for the acutely insane in all cities of more than 50,000 inhabitants, and of colonies for the chronic insane in the rural districts adjacent to centres of population. The psychopathic hospital in the city gives easy and speedy access to persons taken suddenly ill with mental disease, aids in early diagnosis, places the patients within reach of the best specialists in all departments of medicine, and associated, as it should be, with a medical school or university, affords facilities not otherwise available for scientific research and for instruction in an important branch of medical learning. A feature of the psychopathic hospital should be the reception of patients for a reasonable period of time, as sufferers from disease, without the formality of legal commitment papers. Such papers are naturally required for the detention and restraint of the insane for long periods of time, but in the earlier stages they should be spared the stigma, delay and complicated procedure of commitment for at least ten days or two weeks, since in that time many may convalesce or recover, and in this way escape the public record of their infirmities, unavoidable by present judicial procedures.
There should be associated with such hospitals for the acutely insane in cities out-door departments or dispensaries, to which patients may be brought in still earlier stages of mental disorder, at a period when early diagnosis and preventive therapeutics may have their best opportunities to attain good results. In Germany a psychopathic hospital now exists in every university town, under the name of Psychiatrische Klinik.
Colonies for the chronic insane are established in the country, but in the neighbourhood of the cities having psychopathic hospitals, to receive the overflow of the latter when the acute stage has passed. The true colony is constructed on the principle of a farming hamlet, without barracks, corridored buildings, or pavilions. It is similar in most respects to any agricultural community. The question here is one of humane care and economical administration. Humane care includes medical supervision, agreeable home-life, recreation, and, above all things, regular manual and out-of-door occupation in garden, farm and dairy, in the quarry, clay-pit or well-ventilated shop. Employment for the patients is of immense remedial importance, and of great value from the standpoint of economical administration. In the colony system the small cottage homes of the patients are grouped about the centres of industry. The workers in the farmstead live in small families about the farmstead group of buildings; the tillers of the soil adjacent to the fields,meadows and gardens; the brickmakers, quarrymen and artizans in still other cottages in the neighbourhood of the scenes of their activities. In addition to these groups of cottages, which constitute the majority of the buildings in the village, an infirmary for bedridden, excited and crippled patients is required, and a small hospital for the sick. All the inhabitants of the colony are under medical supervision. A laboratory for scientific researches forms a highly important part of the equipment. The colony is not looked upon as a refuge for the incurable; it is still a hospital for the sick, where treatment is carried on under the most humane and most suitable conditions, and wherein thepercentageof recoveries will be larger than in asylums and hospitals as now conducted. In respect of the establishment of colonies for the insane upon the plan outlined here, Germany has, as in the case of the psychopathic hospital, led the world. It has been less difficult for that country to set the example, because she had fewer of the conditions of the past to fight, and with her the progress of medical science and of methods of instruction in all departments of medicine has been more pronounced and rapid.
Among the German colonies for the insane, that at Alt-Scherbitz, near Leipzig, is the oldest and most successful, and is pre-eminent in its close approach to the ideal village or colony system. In 1899 Professor Kraeplin of Heidelberg stated (Psychiatrie, 6th edition) that the effort was made everywhere in Germany to give the exterior of asylums, by segregation of the patients in separate home-like villas, rather the appearance of hamlets for working-people than prisons for the insane, and he said, further, that the whole question of the care of the insane had found solution in the colony system, the best and cheapest method of support. “I have myself,†he writes, “had opportunity to see patients, who had lived for years in a large closed asylum, improve in the most extraordinary manner under the influence of the freer movement and more independent occupation of colony life.â€
In America the colony scheme has been successfully adopted by the state of New York at the Craig Colony for Epileptics at Sonyea and elsewhere.
That the tendency nowadays, even outside of Germany, in the direction of the ideal standard of provision for the insane is a growing one is manifested in all countries by a gradual disintegration of the former huge cloister-like abodes. More asylums are built on the pavilion plan. Many asylums have, as it were, thrown off detached cottages for the better care of certain patients. Some asylums have even established small agricultural colonies a few miles away from the parent plant, like a vine throwing out feelers. What is called the boarding-out system is an effort in a similar direction. Patients suffering from mild forms of insanity are boarded out in families in the country, either upon public or private charge. Gheel is an example of the boarding-out system practised on a large scale. But the ideal system is that of the psychopathic hospital and the colony for the insane.
Authorities.—Sir J. B. Tuke,Dictionary of Psychological Medicine, (London and Philadelphia, 1892); W. P. Letchworth,The Insane in Foreign Countries(New York, 1889);Care and Treatment of Epileptics(New York, 1900); F. Peterson,Mental Diseases(Philadelphia, 1899); “Annual Address to the American Medico-Psychological Association,â€Proceedings(1899).
Authorities.—Sir J. B. Tuke,Dictionary of Psychological Medicine, (London and Philadelphia, 1892); W. P. Letchworth,The Insane in Foreign Countries(New York, 1889);Care and Treatment of Epileptics(New York, 1900); F. Peterson,Mental Diseases(Philadelphia, 1899); “Annual Address to the American Medico-Psychological Association,â€Proceedings(1899).
(F. P.*)
1The word for “lunatic†in several other languages has a similar etymology. Cp. Ital.lunatico, Span.alunado, Gr.σεληνιακός(epileptic), Ger.mondsüchtig.2It has sometimes been stated that this power, which ought clearly, in the interests alike of prisoners and of the public, to be exercised with caution, is in fact exerted in an unduly large number of cases. The following figures, taken from the respective volumes of theCriminal Judicial Statistics, show the number of criminal lunatics certified insane before trial. In 1884-1885, out of a total of 938 criminal lunatics, 169 were so certified; in 1885-1886, 149 out of 890; in 1889-1890, 108 out of 926; in 1890-1891, 95 out of 900; in 1894, 78 out of 738; in 1895, 84 out of 757; in 1896, 88 out of 769; in 1897, 85 out of 764; in 1898, 17 out of 209; in 1899, 13 out of 159; in 1900, 12 out of 185; in 1901, 15 out of 205; in 1902, 7 out of 233; in 1903, 11 out of 229.
1The word for “lunatic†in several other languages has a similar etymology. Cp. Ital.lunatico, Span.alunado, Gr.σεληνιακός(epileptic), Ger.mondsüchtig.
2It has sometimes been stated that this power, which ought clearly, in the interests alike of prisoners and of the public, to be exercised with caution, is in fact exerted in an unduly large number of cases. The following figures, taken from the respective volumes of theCriminal Judicial Statistics, show the number of criminal lunatics certified insane before trial. In 1884-1885, out of a total of 938 criminal lunatics, 169 were so certified; in 1885-1886, 149 out of 890; in 1889-1890, 108 out of 926; in 1890-1891, 95 out of 900; in 1894, 78 out of 738; in 1895, 84 out of 757; in 1896, 88 out of 769; in 1897, 85 out of 764; in 1898, 17 out of 209; in 1899, 13 out of 159; in 1900, 12 out of 185; in 1901, 15 out of 205; in 1902, 7 out of 233; in 1903, 11 out of 229.