succeeded, by his tact and the directness of his questions, in exposing the fraud and obtaining a full confession. It is, perhaps, scarcely necessary to add that the marriage did not

occur.

As I have already said, the subjects of hysterical mania are not disposed to attempt suicide. Occasionally, however, a tendency in this direction is manifested, but it is often more apparent than real. It is an act of deception, like so many others perpetrated by hysterical maniacs. As Legrand du Saulle says, when they attempt suicide they do not proceed as do other people: they try to hang themselves with the rosecolored ribbon of a box of bonbons, or they make a show of taking poison when others are present. In such instances they are generally actuated by a desire to accomplish some object they have in view, and which they think will be more readily secured by terrifying those in authority over them. Thus, a patient of my own, who for several years had suffered from attacks of hysterical mania, coming on at each menstrual period, and lasting for from six to ten days, made several attempts to kill herself with laudanum, but always took a dose so small that it produced no very marked result.

In another case, a lady, from a Western city, stopping at a hotel, terrified her friends and excited the greatest commotion by threatening to jump out of a fourth-story window. When I saw her she was fastened down to the bed by straps, which had been taken from her trunks, and her husband, mother, and half a dozen chambermaids were supplicating her with tears in their eyes not to kill herself. To all of which she was replying that she was determined to jump from the window, and begging them to let her end her life at once. Without saying a word of entreaty or condemnation, I loosened the straps, opened the window, and told her to jump out. I added that she was rendering her husband unhappy, disturbing the guests of the hotel, and that the sooner she put an end to the trouble she was causing the better. The strap around her waist trailed along the floor as she got up, went to the window, and looked down on the street below. I placed my foot on the strap as a measure of precaution, though I was sure such an act was not necessary. The result was just as I had anticipated, for, after a moment's contemplation of the pavement, and applying no very polite epithet to 1 Op. cit., p. 303.

me, she went back to bed, and I heard no more of her suicidal desires.

But at times the termination is not so fortunate, and, notwithstanding the publicity with which threats are made, and the obvious object of them, the act of self-destruction is really accomplished. Thus, the Marquise de Prie, mistress of the Duke de Bourbon, was exiled from court, and, of course, indifference and neglect followed her in her retreat. She, however, resolved to regain, by a coup de théâtre, the favor she had lost. She announced that on a certain day of the month, and at a certain hour, she would kill herself. Every one was amazed at the declaration that one so young, beautiful, and attached to life, contemplated suicide, and the news was received with derision. During the few days intervening, the Marquise gave several fêtes, at which she danced, played, and amused herself as in the days of her highest favor. No one had ever seen her gayer, more spirited, more adorable. The hour arrived. She called the new lover she had chosen to her side, and again announced her determination. The communication was received by him with a smile of incredulity. Believing it to be one of those mystifications to which she was accustomed, and that she was acting a part, he humored her so far as to give her, with his own hand, the draught she had prepared. It was in reality poison, and she died before assistance could be given.'

Although the vast majority of the cases of hysterical mania occur in women, it is by no means confined to the female sex, and many cases in men have been reported. Klein' has collected seventy-eight cases, and has added two others which have come under his own notice. The symptoms do not vary essentially from those met with in women, though, perhaps, they do not reach the same degree of intensity.

Two cases of well-marked hysterical mania, occurring in men who had for many years exhibited the ordinary phenomena of hysteria, have happened within my experience. In both of these there were paroxysms of delirium, characterized by the existence of illusions, hallucinations, and delusions, and by persistent and systematic lying, and other at1 Taguet, "Du suicide dans l'hystérie," Annales médico-psychologiques, mai, 1877, p. 347.

2 "De l'hystérie chez l'homme," Paris, 1880.

tempts to deceive in matters of no importance. In the intervals between the paroxysms both patients were in a measure free from mental symptoms, though there were twitchings of the facial muscles, the globus hystericus, insomnia, and a hyperexcitable condition of the nervous system generally.

The course of hysterical mania is rarely toward spontaneous cure, unless the conditions under which it exists are changed for the better. Thus, marriage and the cessation of the menstrual function are favorable therapeutic factors. Under the influence of proper medical and hygienic treatment the affection can generally be kept in check, and often effectually cured, though relapses may occur. The fact, however, must be recognized that, notwithstanding the generally beneficial influence of the menopause, there are cases in which this period is characterized by a recurrence of previously cured attacks, and others in which it is manifested for the first time.

.h-EPIDEMIC INSANITY.

Closely allied to hysterical mania is the form next to be described, which, on account of the manner in which it has prevailed, is called epidemic insanity. I say has prevailed, for it is exceedingly probable that, with advancing civilization and intelligence, future epidemics of insanity will be exceedingly rare, if, indeed, the enlightened part of the world is ever visited by another. In a practical work, such as this is intended to be, this type of mental aberration need not long engage our attention. It is interesting mainly from a historical stand-point, and on account of the lessons it teaches relative to the forces by which the human mind is moved, and the depths of folly and ignorance which it can reach. The last epidemic of the kind occurred in France over twenty years ago, and has been well described by Dr. Constans.'

Several different types of epidemic insanity have existed. One of the most common was that in which the subjects were believed to be possessed by the devil-demonomania, as it is called. An epidemic of this form prevailed during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in many convents of Europe. It appears to have begun in a convent of the Ursulines at Aix, toward the end of 1609, by the confession of Madeline de Mandol, one of the nuns, that she was possessed by a great number of demons, and that she had been seduced by a sor"Relation sur une épidémie d'hystéro-démonopathie in 1861," Paris, 1863.

cerer, through their agency, before she had arrived at her tenth year. At this time Madeline was nineteen years old. Very soon afterward another nun, named Louise Capel, declared that she was possessed by three devils.

At the time they made these confessions, these women were suffering from attacks of hystero-epilepsy, characterized, as they are at the present day, by illusions, hallucinations, delusions, violent convulsions, and cataleptic seizures, all of which they ascribed to the demons who had taken possession of their bodies, which demons, they alleged, were under the command of a priest, Louis Gaufridi, a man of cultivation and strict morality. At first the accused man denied the charges made against him, and endeavored, by arguments addressed to the reason of his judges, to show the true nature of the seizures. The effort, however, was in vain ; public opinion was against him. Nothing was more firmly believed than the doctrine that the devil and his demons had power to enter the bodies of human beings and the lower animals. The Bible, which was then appealed to to settle all questions in morals, ethics, and science-pathology included-as well as theology, supported the view. Witches and sorcerers-women and men-who had made compacts with the prince of darkness, were religiously believed to be living in the very midst of the people, and the Bible had said, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live."

From the excitement, from fear, and, perhaps, above all, by the force of the examples before him, Gaufridi became insane. He was affected with demonomania. He confessed all that was laid to his charge, and a great deal more that had not been imagined. He declared that he had worshipped the devil for fourteen years, and that he had engaged this demon to cause every woman on whom he breathed to become enamored of him; that more than a thousand women had been poisoned by the irresistible power of his breath, and had been seduced by him; and that Madame de la Pallude, the mother of Madeline, had been taken by him, in an unconscious condition, to the sabbath, and violated by him. Of course, Gaufridi was burned at the stake; but it is stated that the two nuns continued to be delirious.

Among the convents visited was that of Sainte Brigitte at Lille. Several of the nuns had been present at the proceedings against Gaufridi, and had thus been subjected to influ

ences readily capable of producing the disease. Among the sisters was one named Marie de Sains, who was remarkable for her many virtues, but who was now suspected of devoting herself to sorcery, and of being the cause of the possessions of the victims. She remained a year in prison without any formal proofs of her guilt being adduced, until at last she was positively accused by three of the sisters of having intercourse with the devil. At first the poor nun appeared to be surprised at this charge; but, as was generally the case, an accusation of intimacy with the devil was quite certain to induce demonomania in the accused person. It was not a surprising circumstance, therefore, that she should have recanted her denial and avowed herself the perpetrator of a series of such wicked and abominable acts that it was difficult to understand how the conception of them had ever entered her mind. Among them were numerous murders, stranglings of innocent children, ravaging of graves, feeding on human flesh, revelling in orgies of superhuman atrocity, unheard-of sacrileges, poisonings, and, in fact, every imaginable crime. In the presence of her accusers and exorcists she improvised sermons which she ascribed to Satan, discoursed learnedly on the apocalypse, and made long discourses on anti-Christ. She declared, also, that at a sabbath Gaufridi had invented a diabolical charm, with which the devil was so greatly pleased that he had given him the title of "prince of magicians." This charm was composed of the sacramental body and blood, of the powdered flesh of the male goat, of human bones, skulls of infants, hair, nails, human flesh, and the seminal fluid of the sorcerer, together with small portions of liver, spleen, and brain.

There are many other things confessed by this demonomaniac, and set forth with horrible accuracy of detail by Lenormand,' and to a sufficient extent by Calmeil.' The epidemic appears to have lasted in the Convent of Sainte Brigitte for about ten years.

A more noted example of diabolical possession is that afforded by the nuns of the Ursuline Convent at Loudun, in France, during the years 1632-'35, and which resulted in the death at the stake of Urban Grandier, after he had been sub

"Histoire de ce qui s'est passé sous l'exorcisme de trois filles possédées ès Flandres," etc., Paris, 1623.

"De la folie," etc., Paris, 1845, t. i, p. 511.