INSANITY IN COURT.

Witnessing insanity: madness and mad-doctors in the English court

In his Trial by medicine (1981) Roger Smith gave a magisterial account of the history of forensic psychiatry in the late-nineteenth century, mainly focusing on insanity pleas in the murder trials that took place after the McNaughton Rules of 1843. Smith's basic picture is that of a titanic battle of ideas between law and psychiatry, between the two incommensurable concepts about human agency. W...

Commentary: the insanity defense and youths in juvenile court.

Juveniles, like adults, should be afforded the right to raise an insanity defense. In this commentary on the article by Morse and Bonnie on the abolition of the insanity defense, we explain why so few juveniles across the United States are granted access to the insanity defense and the reasons that they should have that option. We also consider whether the Delling case was the best suited vehic...

Insanity

On Hallucinations in Insanity

The hallucinations and illusions of melancholic monomania (lypemania of Esquirol) are characterized by fixity, intensity, and tenacity, as well as by expression, which distinguish them from those observed in acute delirium and mania. The integrity of the reasoning power, excepting always some obscured portions, "permits lis in most cases to analyse the phenomena and follow their modifications w...

Insanity in Switzerland