On Uncontrollable Impulse
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- Author:
Claye Shaw, M.D., M.R.C.P.
In this paper the writer very energetically and ably takes up the cudgels in defence of those unhappy persons who commit a crime under some unconquerable impulse. He maintains that in many instances an unfortunate person has been condemned to death in our courts of law for an offence for which he was at the time morally irresponsible.
Impulses are subjective and objective. How often we see numbers of people, acting upon subjectively evoked ideas, rush into print, and write pages of matter, and only satisfied after expending much ex- plosive energy. See again the ” mad” speculator; the vows made under religious fervour. Savages not only appease themselves by blood, but tender it to their gods. Impulses leading to suicide we condone, returning a verdict of ” unsound mind “; but those leading to murder we hesitate to acknowledge as deserving any amenity in treatment. A case is recorded of a man, set. 40, who was admitted to the Leavesden Asylum as imbecile. He had no delusions; but con- fessed to an unconquerable feeling to ” do something.” At times he would smash the windows, always being very pale before the act. One morning he seized a knife and inflicted a small wound upon his throat. Just before this act he turned very pale, and the impulse ceased immediately after its commission. No doubt in this case there is some disease of the brain, but no indication of its locality?no paralysis, no defined pain, no muscular convulsion. If, on the first occurrence of the impulse, the man had committed a murder, he would assuredly have been hanged. Now that the impulse is shown to be recurrent, there would be no hesitation in excusing him. The difficulty is that, whilst an act of destructive impulse in a person already in an asylum, or who has formerly been under certificate, is condoned, a similar act done by a person whose sanity has never been disputed, is visited by the extreme penalty of the law. A great step will be gained if the judges can be made to believe in the existence of such a thing as un- controllable impulse. Dr Claye Shaw has worked out his subject in a highly interesting and instructive manner; and we quite think with him, that more importance should be attached to this matter of impulse as regards the exhibition of leniency in trials for murder.
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