Mania

In medical jurisprudence. This is the most common of all the forms of recent insanity, and consists of one or both of the following conditions, viz., intellectual aberration, and morbid or affective obliquity.

— In other words, the maniac^ either misapprehends the true relations ' between persons and things, in consequence of which he adopts notions manifestly absurd, and believes in occurrences that never did and never could take place, or his sentiments, affections, and emotions are so perverted that whatever excites their activity is viewed through a distorting medium;

— or, which is the most common fact, both these conditions may exist together, in which case their relative share in the disease may differ in such a degree that one or the other may scarcely be perceived at all.

According as the intellectual or moral element prevails, the disease is called "intellectual" or "moral" mania. Whether the former is ever entirely wanting has been stoutly questioned, less from any dearth of facts than from some fancied metaphysical incongruity. The logical consequence of the doubt is that, in the absence of intellectual disturbance, there is really no insanity, — ■ the moral disorders proceeding rather from unbridled passions than any pathological condition. Against all such reasoning it will be sufficient here to oppose the very common fact that in every collection of the insane may be found many who exhibit no intellectual aberration, but in whom moral disorders of the most flagrant kind present a marked contrast to the previous character and habits of life. Both forms of mania may be either general or partial. In the latter, the patient has adopted some notion having a very limited influence upon his mental movements, while outside of that no appearance of impairment or irregularity can be discerned. Pure "monomania," as this form of insanity has been often called, — that is, a mania confined to a certain point, the understanding being perfectly sound in every other respect, of the insane, constituting insane belief, are of two kinds, — "delusions" and "hallucinations." By the former is meant a Arm belief in something impossible, either in the nature of things or in the circumstances of the case, or, if possible, highly improbable, and associated in the mind of the patient with consequences that have to it only a fanciful relation. By "hallucination" is meant an impression supposed by the patient, contrary to all proof or possibility, to have been received through one of the senses. For instance, the belief that one is Jesus Christ or the pope of Rome is a delusion; the belief that one hears voices speaking from the walls of the room, or sees armies contending in the clouds, is a hallucination. The latter implies some morbid activity of the perceptive powers; the former is a mistake of the intellect exclusively.