Some further Cases of General Paralytics committed to Prison for Larceny; with Remarks

Abstract

In the “Journal of Mental Science” for Jan., 1873, I ventured to lay before you, as members of the Medico-Psychological Association, notes of six cases in which undoubted general paralytics had committed theft after the onset of the disease, and had, consequently, suffered a greater or less term of imprisonment, the disease remaining unrecognised both before the trial and for some considerable time afterwards. In each of these cases, as I showed, from the previous good character and absence of reasonable motive for the crime, as well as from the general history and advanced condition of the disease on admission into the asylum, there was every reason to believe that the crime was merely an early mental symptom of the disease; and, in one case, a clear relation between the delusions of the patient and the objects stolen was ascertained to exist. Since then I have collected notes of a few further cases of a similar nature, which I am, on this occasion, induced to lay before you in the hope that those members of the Association present at this meeting may, perhaps, be led to state the results of their experience as to the occurrence of such cases, and give us the benefit of their opinion with regard to them. By such a collation of experiences we shall lay the foundation for a more comprehensive view of the facts of the subject, which appears to me to be one of very considerable medicolegal interest and importance.