With regard to lucid intervals, many persons have been of opinion that they were only to be classed with well-marked remissions of the disease, while others have held that they were only to be distinguished from intermissions by the length of their duration. Perhaps the truth is that intermissions are not to be distinguished in any way from remissions; and that the distinction between functional or dynamic and organic disease, is more apparent than real. Those persons who have held that a lucid interval was only a remission of the violence of the symptoms of the disease are at variance with some of the best legal opinions upon this point. Dr. Haslam has been mentioned as one of those who hold the impossibility of lucid intervals, as it has been defined in the courts of law upon the authority of some of the ablest members of the medical profession, but we find him saying in one place, "I should define a lucid interval to be a complete recovery of the patient's intellects, ascertained by repeated examinations of his conversation, and by constant observation of his conduct for a time sufficient to enable the superintendent to form a correct judgment. Unthinking people are frequently led to conclude that if, during a short conversation, a person under confinement shall betray nothing absurd or incorrect, he is well, and often remonstrate on the injustice of secluding him from the world. Insane people will often, for a short time, conduct themselves both in conversation and behaviour with such propriety that they appear to have the just exercise and direction of their faculties; but let the examiner protract the discourse until the favorite subject shall have got afloat in the madman's brain, and he will be convinced of the hastiness of his decision."* This is not quite consistent with what Dr. Haslam says in another work, where he remarks, "As a constant observer of this disease for more than twenty-five years, I cannot affirm that lunatics, with whom I have had daily intercourse, have manifested alternations of insanity and reason. They may at intervals become more tranquil, and less disposed to obtrude their distempered fancies into notice."+ In one of these extracts he seems to be of opinion that a lucid interval is an intermission of the disease, and in the other he identifies a lucid interval with a remission. In this place, however, we have more to do with legal than with

medical definitions. And there have been inconsistencies in the decisions upon this point. In the Attorney General v. Parnther, Lord Thurlow said, "By a perfect lucid interval I do not mean a cooler moment, an abatement of pain or violence, or of a higher state of torture -a mind relieved from excessive pressure, but an interval in which the mind having thrown off the disease, had recovered its general habit." And Sir William Wynne, in Cartwright v. Cartwright, said,† “I think that the strongest and best proof that can arise as to a lucid interval is, that which arises from the act itself that I look upon as the thing to be first examined, and if it can be proved and established that it is a rational act rationally done, the whole case is proved."

That

Little or no exception has, so far as we are aware, been taken to Lord Thurlow's definition, but much has been said as to the want of precision of the text laid down in the latter case by the court. It is evident that many insane persons can do rational acts with perfect rationality, and that when no one could pretend that there was a lucid interval between the paroxysms of the disease. the rationality of the act, and the rational manner in which it was performed, might be a test as to the possession of sufficient mind to enjoy the privilege of disposing of property by will, is certainly true. But the use of the term lucid interval made use of by the learned judge in this case is not warranted either by medical opinions or by legal opinions, either before or after his time.

In a case in which a medical man who had seen the testator frequently, and deposed that on no occasion did he manifest any symptoms of insanity, but " conducted himself and talked and discoursed in a rational manner, and was in full possession of his mental faculties," Sir John Nicholl decided that the proof of a lucid interval was not sufficient, and that, although in the testamentary acts there was nothing to show that the testator was not of sound mind; and in giving judgment Sir John Nicholl said, "It is clear that persons essentially insane may be calm, may do acts, hold conversations, and even pass in general society as perfectly sane. It often requires close examination by persons skilled in the disorder to discover and ascertain whether or not the mental derangement is removed and the mind again perfectly sound. When there is calmness, when there is rationality on ordinary subjects, those who see the party usually conclude that recovery is perfect. Where there is not actual + 1 Phillim. 90.

* 3 Bro. C. C. 441.

recovery, and a return to the management of himself and his concerns by the unfortunate individual, the proof of a lucid interval is extremely difficult."* In another case the same learned judge said, "I am not able exactly to understand what is meant by a lucid interval; if it does not take place when no symptom of delusion can be called forth at the time, how but by the manifestation of the delusion is the insanity to be proved to exist at any one time? The disorder may not be permanently eradicated; it may only intermit. It may be liable to return, but if the mind is apparently rational on all subjects, and no symptom of delusion can be called forth on any subject, the disorder is for that time absent. There is then a lucid interval, if there be such a thing as a lucid interval, because it is difficult to ascertain the total absence of all delusions."+ Now, all this difference of opinion indicates a difficulty connected with the subject; and experience proves that there is much difficulty in ascertaining when a lucid interval is really present.‡

The remarks made in another place will show in how many cases individuals who are quite insane have a power of concealing their insanity, and if the difficulty is great in such cases, it is, perhaps, greater in determining the condition of mind which has been defined above. When, however, its existence is admitted or satisfactorily proved, there is no question as to the legal consequences. The law which looks upon a lucid interval as a shorter period of intermission between two attacks of insanity, and which regards intermission as a return to sanity, just as the intermission in an ague fit is a return to health, cannot regard the insane person with a lucid interval in any other light than as a person of sound mind. As this is the case, the greatest caution is necessary in determining the actual existence of this state, and careful examination must be made, and very little reliance is to be placed upon the opinion of friends or relatives in such a case. Even in the commencement of insanity little is to be satisfactorily gathered from the stories of relatives who, in many instances, have most limited powers of observation, and are

*Groom and Thomas v. Thomas and Thomas, 2 Hagg Ecc. Rep. 433. See also White v. Driver, 1 Phillim. 84.

† 3 Hagg Ecc. Rep. 599.

See Jarman on Wills, vol. i, p. 32; Waring v. Waring, 6 Moo. P. C. C. 341; 12 Jur. 947; Creagh v. Blood, 2 J. & Lat., 509; Dyce Sombre v. Troup, 1

Deane 22.

very long before they can associate the idea of somewhat odd conduct with the idea of insanity in a person they have all along regarded as sane. That extra caution is required in the case of a lucid interval when the character of an act has to be determined, will be evident when we remember that as it is ex hypothesi, an intermission of short duration, it is most difficult to predicate when it will come to an end and what acts are influenced by the returning morbid conditions. It is also well to bear in mind that although an insane person during a lucid interval is to be regarded for all the purposes of law as sane, he must, for many obvious reasons, be regarded as a person very liable to go insane, and in that respect as mentally inferior to what he was before he suffered from the disease at all. The acts of such a person should be carefully looked at, just as the act of one who is proved to have a strong hereditary taint of insanity would excite a suspicion of possible insanity if they resembled the acts ordinarily done by persons of unsound mind. Thus, we find that in criminal courts there is a reluctance to convict an individual who has committed a criminal act during a lucid interval, and this reluctance is worthy of the better name prudence. For, although an individual may, during such a remission of mental disease, commit an act for which he is really in strictness responsible, and although he may be at his trial in such a state of mind as to be capable of instructing solicitors and pleading, still, with the certainty of recurring insanity before them, the jury are right in not subjecting an individual to prison discipline, which might aggravate or confirm his malady, while the discipline and treatment of an asylum might do something to make him a good citizen and a sane man. One other circumstance it is well to bear in mind in connection with this subject, and that is, the gradual enfeeblement of the mental powers as the disease progresses, so that each lucid interval which may make a little light in the darkness finds the individual weaker mentally than he was before. And as the changes in structure progress, the lucid intervals will become shorter and less marked, until a time comes when there are none of those second summers of All these things are to be kept in mind by those who would recognise a lucid interval when it really exists, and who may have some influence, by means of their evidence, upon the legal relations of persons, whose desert lives are broken here and there by those little fertile spots, to the state and laws.

reason.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE ADMISSIBILITY OF THE EVIDENCE OF THE INSANE.

It is of some importance at the present time to endeavour to discover in what cases the evidence of persons of unsound mind should be relied upon. There are panics in the world which interests itself about social economy, just as there are on the Stock Exchange. We have had one recently. Fiction has gone so far in the direction of sensation, that actual current history has had to follow. There is a close connection between the novels and the histories of a period. They are both, in their tone of method, outcomes of the same spirit. The newspapers, then, which bear the same relation to history that a photograph does to a painting, found a sensational subject in what is called "Rib-breaking in Asylums." Many journals endeavoured to increase their circulation by exposing the abuses of the asylum system, and commissioners in lunacy and medical superintendents of lunatic asylums were subject to the cheap vituperation of an incensed press. Abuses pay. If it were not for disease doctors could not live. If it were not for those diseases of society, abuses and anomalies, newspapers would be almost useless. But as some doctors shake their heads when there is nothing the matter with the patient, and make visits when there is no necessity for attendance, so newspapers sometimes let loose their "rosin'd lightnings" when there is no necessity for it. However, the panic is almost passed. The subject is no longer found remunerative, and the time seems to have come for the consideration of one or two of the questions which were raised, and to which no satisfactory answer has as yet been given. One of the cases which gave rise to the consternation alluded to was that which came before Mr. Justice Willes at the Lancaster Assizes about a year

ago.