Democratic Sentinel, Volume 2, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 April 1878 — Happy Form of Insanity. [ARTICLE]

Happy Form of Insanity.

Prof. McDonald recently delivered an exceedingly interesting lecture at the University Medical College, New York city, on that form of insanity known as general paresis. The lecture was illustrated by eight inmates of Ward’s Island Asylum, who sat quietly on the platform until called upon to speak. The cases of general paresis generally come from the better class of society. At first the patient suffers general mental depression, and that is followed by elation of the spirits to such a degree that the victim always imagines himself possessed of great wealth, power, or social influence. After occupying half an hour in lecturing, Prof. McDonald called up the patients one by one to speak for themselves. They spoke freely in answer to questions, each claiming for himself enormous wealth, power, and influence. The professor said that a peculiarity about these patients was that they not only believed themselves to be sine, but i

never doubted the sanity of other patients similarly afflicted. They often formed co-partnerships in the asylum for carrying on great enterprises. He knew a patient who imagined that he owned all the steamships in the world, and another who imagined that he owned all the dried apples in the world. They formed a co-partnership, agreeing that the dried apples should be shipped On board the steamers and transported to all points of the world, calculating the profits at fabulous amounts.