Various

“ A commander-in-chief keeps himself free from the contact with the turmoil of battle so long as he has to calculate, to study reports or to manœuvre, and commanders of lower grades, in proportion as their duty brings them into the midst of danger, are subjected to greater or less disturbing influences. The man in the fighting line where the danger is greatest is altogether the slave of the unconscious. Overtaxed infantry, whether defeated or successful, have been observed to present an appearance of absolute insanity. ”

“ It was only when a group of human beings became too large to be surprised and assassinated by a few lurking enemies, that proper fighting became the normal method of settling a quarrel or a rivalry. Two groups, neither of which had been able to surprise the other, had to meet face to face, and the instinct of self-preservation had to be reconciled with the necessity of victory. ”

“ Cavalry therefore became, in a very loose sense of the word, infantry. But we are tracing the history not of all troops that stood on their feet to fight, but of infantry and the special tactics of infantry, and the period before and after 1370, when the moral foundations of the new English tactics had disappeared, and the personality of Du Guesclin gave even the bandits of the “free companies” an intrinsic, if slight, superiority over the invaders, is a period of deadlock. ”

“ These infantry nations, without any infantry system comparable to that of the Greeks and Romans, succumbed in turn to the crowd of mounted warriors—not like the Greeks and Romans for want of good military qualities, but for want of an organization which would have distributed their fighting powers to the best advantage. One has only to study the battle of Hastings to realize how completely the infantry masses of the English slipped from the control of their leaders directly the front ranks became seriously engaged. ”

“ Delusions of the wildest character may also be present. The patient may believe himself to be in possession of millions of money, to be unsurpassed in strength and agility, to be a great and overruling genius, and the recipient of the highest honours. This grandiose condition is by no means present in every case and is not in itself diagnostic of the disease. But mental facility, placid contentment, complete loss of judgment and affection for family and friends, with impaired memory, are symptoms universally present. As the disease advances the motor symptoms become more prominent. ”

“ In many cases of insanity there is no difficulty in appreciating the pathological nature of the deficiency, but there are others in which the conduct is otherwise so rational that one is apt to attribute the deficiency to physiological rather than to pathological causes. Perversion of the moral sense is common to all the insanities, but is often the only symptom to be noticed in cases of imbecility and idiocy, and it as a rule may be the earliest symptom noticed in the early stages of the excitement of manic-depressive insanity and general paralysis. ”

“ If the depression is the sequel to an attack of excitement, the onset may be very sudden or it may be gradual. If, on the other hand, the depression is not the sequel of excitement, the onset is very gradual and the patient complains of lassitude, incapacity for mental or physical work, loss of appetite, constipation and sleeplessness often for months before the case is recognized as one of insanity. In the fully developed disease the temperature is very rarely febrile, on the contrary it is rather subnormal in character. ”

“ The cavalry, too, learned its lesson, and pitted mobile three-pounders against the foot-soldiers’ one- and two-pounders, and the wagenburg became no more than a helpless target. Thus when, not many years after the end of the Hussite wars, the Wars of the Roses eliminated the English model and the English tactics from the military world of Europe, the French system of fire tactics—masses of archers, arblasters and handgun-men, with some spearmen and halberdiers to stiffen them—was left face to face with that of the Swiss and Landsknechts, the system of the “long pike.” ”

“ The importance of the infantry arm, both in history and at the present time, cannot be summed up better and more concisely than in the phrase used by a brilliant general of the Napoleonic era, General Morand—“L’infanterie, c’est l’armée.” ”

“ One lesson of Leuthen that contemporary soldiers took to heart was that even a two-to-one superiority in numbers could not remedy want of manoeuvring capacity. It might be hoped that with training and drill an Austrian battalion could be made equal to a Prussian one in the front-to-front fight, and in fact, as losses told more and more heavily on Frederick’s army as years went on, the specific superiority of his infantry disappeared. ”

“ By 1550, then, infantry had entirely ceased to be an auxiliary arm. It contained within itself, and (what is more important) within its regimental units, the power of fighting effectively and decisively both at close quarters and at a distance—the principal characteristic of the arm to-day. It had, further, developed a permanent regimental existence, both in Spain and in France, and in the former country it had progressed so far from the “residue” state that young nobles preferred to trail a pike in the ranks of the foot to service in the gendarmerie or light horse. ”

“ Now we know that the constant repetition of a certain act, whether on a given impulse or of the individual’s own volition, will eventually make the performance of that act a reflex action. For this reason peace-drilled troops have often defeated a war-trained enemy, even when the motives for fighting were equally powerful on each side. The mechanical performance of movements, and loading and firing at the enemy, under the most disturbing conditions can be ensured by bringing the required self-control from the domain of reason into that of instinct. ”

“ That these columns must in action dissolve sooner or later into dense irregular swarms was of course foreseen, but Napoleon had accustomed the world to long and costly fire-fighting as the preliminary to the attack of the massed reserves, and for the short remainder of the period of smooth-bore muskets, troops were always launched to the attack in columns covered by a thin line of picked shots as skirmishers. The moral power of the offensive “will to conquer” and the rapidity of the attack itself were relied upon to evade and disconcert the fire-power of the defence. ”

“ The liability to contract influenza, and the danger of an attack if contracted, are increased by depressing conditions, such as exposure to cold and to fatigue, whether mental or physical. Attention should, therefore, be paid to all measures tending to the maintenance of health. Persons who are attacked by influenza should at once seek rest, warmth and medical treatment, and they should bear in mind that the risk of relapse, with serious complications, constitutes a chief danger of the disease. ”

“ The modern hospital for the insane does credit to latter-day civilization. Physical restraint is no longer practised. The day of chains—even of wristlets, covered cribs and strait-jackets—is past. Neat dormitories, cosy single rooms, and sitting- and dining-rooms please the eye. ”

“ A parent who has abandoned or deserted his child is, prima facie, unfit to have the custody of the child. And before the court can make an order giving him the custody, the onus lies on him to prove that he is fit. The same rule applies where the child has been allowed by the parent “to be brought up by another person at that person’s expense, or by the guardians of a poor-law union, for such a length of time and under such circumstances as to satisfy the court that the parent was unmindful of his parental duties.” ”

“ In the British Field Service Regulations it is laid down that when an army acts on the defensive no less than half of it should if possible be earmarked, suitably posted and placed under a single commander, for the purpose of delivering a decisive counter-attack. The object of the purely defensive portion, too, is not merely to hold the enemy’s firing line in check, but to drive it back so that the enemy may be forced to use up his local reserve resources to keep the fight alive. ”

“ In the earliest epochs of medicine the corporeal character of insanity was generally admitted, and it was not until the superstitious ignorance of the middle ages had obliterated the scientific, though by no means always accurate, deductions of the early writers, that any theory of its purely psychical character arose. At the present day it is unnecessary to combat such a theory, as it is universally accepted that the brain is the organ through which mental phenomena are manifested, and therefore that it is impossible to conceive of the existence of an insane mind in a healthy brain. ”

“ Sleeplessness is the earliest symptom in the onset of insanity; it is universally present in all the acute forms, and the return of natural sleep is generally the first symptom of recovery. The causes of sleeplessness are very numerous, but in the majority of acute cases the sleeplessness is due to a state of toxaemia. The toxins act either directly on the brain cells producing a state of irritability incompatible with sleep, or indirectly, producing physical symptoms which of themselves alone are capable of preventing the condition of sleep. ”

“ The onset of the condition is always gradual and the symptoms which first attract attention are mental. The patient becomes restless, is unable to settle to work, becomes solitary and peculiar in habits and sometimes dissolute and mischievous. As the disease advances the patient becomes more and more enfeebled, laughs and mutters to himself and wanders aimlessly and without object. There is no natural curiosity, no interest in life and no desire for occupation. Later, delusions may appear and also hallucinations of hearing, and under their influence the patient may be impulsive and violent. ”

“ Whether insanity at the time when an alleged matrimonial offence was committed is a bar to a suit for divorce or separation is an open question; and in any event, in order that it may be so, the insanity must be of such a character as to have prevented the insane party from knowing the nature and consequences of the act at the time of its commission. The laws of Scotland, Ireland, India (see, e.g., Act IX. of 1872, § 12) , the colonies and the United States are substantially identical with English law on the subject of the civil capacity of the insane. ”

“ The mood is sometimes expansive and benevolent, interruption in the flow of talk may suddenly change the subject of the conversation or the patient may with equal suddenness fly into a violent rage, use foul and obscene language, ending with loud laughter and protestations of eternal friendship. In other words the mental processes are easily stimulated and as easily diverted into other channels. The train of thought is, as it were, constantly being changed by accidental associations. ”

“ Tracing the history of the world to the earliest date for which there is any kind of evidence, we are faced with the problem that for everything there is a prior something: the mind is unable to conceive an absolute beginning (“ex nihilo nihil”) . Mundane distances become trivial when compared with the distance from the earth of the sun and still more of other heavenly bodies: hence we infer infinite space. Similarly by continual subdivision we reach the idea of the infinitely small. For these inferences there is indeed no actual physical evidence: infinity is a mental concept. ”

“ Folie circulaire implies that the disease invariably passes through a complete cycle, which description is only applicable to very few of the cases. Manic-depressive insanity implies that the patient may either suffer from excitement or depression which do not necessarily succeed one another in any fixed order. As a matter of fact, the majority of patients who suffer from the disease either have marked excited attacks with little or no subsequent depression, or marked attacks of depression with a subsequent period of such slight exaltation as hardly to be distinguished from a state of health. ”

“ A person, not being a pauper or a lunatic so found by inquisition, cannot, in ordinary cases, be received and detained as a lunatic in any institution for the insane, except under a “reception order” made by a county court judge or stipendiary magistrate or specially appointed justice of the peace. The order is made on a petition presented by a relative or friend of the alleged lunatic, and supported by two medical certificates, and after a private hearing by the judicial authority. The detention of a lunatic is, however, justifiable at common law, if necessary for his safety or that of others ”

“ Law.—The crime of infanticide among civilized nations is still frequent. It is however due in most cases to abnormal causes, such as a sudden access of insanity, privation, unreasoning dislike to the child, &c. It is most closely connected with illegitimacy in the class of farm and domestic servants, the more common motive being the terror of the mother of incurring the disgrace with which society visits the more venial offence. Often, however, it is inspired by no better motive than the wish to escape the burden of the child’s support. ”

“ Consanguinity.—It has been strongly asserted that consanguineous marriage is a prolific source of nervous instability. There is considerable diversity of opinion on this subject; the general outcome of the investigations of many careful inquirers appears to be that the offspring of healthy cousins of a healthy stock is not more liable to nervous disease than that of unrelated parents, but that evil consequences follow where there is a strong tendency in the family to degeneration, not only in the direction of the original diathesis, but also towards instability of the nervous system. ”

“ A person would become amenable to the lunacy jurisdiction not only where habitual drunkenness made him a “lunatic” in the legal sense of the term, but where it created, such a state of disease and consequential “mental infirmity” as to bring his case within section 116 of the Lunacy Act 1890, the effect of which is explained in the article Insanity. Any “habitual drunkard” within the above definition may obtain admission to a “licensed retreat” on a written application to the licensee, stating the time (the maximum period is two years) that he undertakes to remain in the retreat. ”

“ It might be said with perfect justice that without infantry there would never have been discipline, for cavalry began and continued as a crowd of champions. Discipline, which created and maintained the intrinsic superiority of the Roman legion, depended first on the ideal of patriotism. ”

“ When epileptics do become insane the insanity is generally one of the forms of mania. Either the patient suffers from sudden furious attacks of excitement in which consciousness is entirely abolished, or the mania is of the type of the elevated stage of folie circulaire (manic-depressive insanity) and alternates with periods of deep depression. In the elevated period the patient shows exaggerated self-esteem, with passionate outbursts of anger, and periods of religious emotionalism. While in the stage of depression the patient is often actively suicidal. ”

“ The universally accepted predisposing cause is hereditary predisposition. As to the exciting causes nothing is known beyond the fact that certain forms of disease, closely resembling delusional insanity, are apparently associated or caused by chronic alcoholism or occur as a sequel to syphilitic infection. In the vast majority of cases the onset is lost in obscurity, the patient only drawing attention to the diseased condition by insane conduct after the delusional state is definitely established. The friends of such persons frequently affirm that the patient has always been abnormal. ”

“ INFORMER, in a general sense, one who communicates information. The term is applied to a person who prosecutes in any of the courts of law those who break any law or penal statute. Such a person is called a common informer when he furnishes evidence on criminal trials or prosecutes for breaches of penal laws solely for the purpose of obtaining the penalty recovered, or a share of it. An action by a common informer 557 is termed a popular or qui tam action, because it is brought by a person qui tam pro domino rege quam pro se ipso sequitur. ”

“ The commonest seat for atheroma of the cerebral vessels is the arteries at the base of the brain and their main branches, especially the middle cerebral. As a general rule the other arteries of the cerebrum are not implicated to the same extent, although in a not inconsiderable number of cases of the disease all the arteries of the brain may participate in the change. When this is so, we obtain those definite symptoms of slowly advancing dementia commencing in late middle life and ending in complete dementia before the usual period for the appearance of senile dementia. ”

“ But as in no two states or territories are the rules of descent identical, the only safe guides are the statutes and decisions of the particular state in which the land to be inherited is situated. The law of primogeniture as understood in England is generally abolished throughout the United States, and male and female relatives inherit equally. In some states, as in Massachusetts, relatives of the half-blood inherit equally with chose of the whole-blood of the same degree; in others, like Maryland, they can inherit only in case none of whole-blood exist. ”

“ In later years it has been frequently observed to follow attacks of influenza. Recently our views have broadened and we find that the delirium of collapse is an acute, confusional insanity which may arise without any previous febrile symptoms, and is in fact one of the common forms of acute insanity. The nature of the physical symptoms, the mental confusion and hallucinations which accompany it, as well as the fact that it frequently follows some other infective disease, leave no doubt as to its toxic origin. ”

“ Such a crowd generates a collective will that dominates the wills of the individuals composing it. It coheres and acts on the common property of all the instincts and habits in which each shares. Further it tends to extremes of baseness and heroism—this being particularly marked in the military crowd—and lastly it reacts to a stimulus. The last is the keynote of the whole subject of infantry training as also, to a lesser degree, of that of the other arms. The officer can be regarded practically as a hypnotist playing upon the unconscious activities of his subject. ”

“ Acute Mania.—Acute mania is a disease which attacks both sexes at all ages, but its onset is most prevalent during adolescence and early adult life. Hereditary predisposition, physical and mental exhaustion, epileptic seizures and childbirth are all predisposing causes. The direct exciting cause or causes are unknown, but the physical symptoms suggest that the condition is one of acute toxaemia or poisoning, and the changes in the blood are such as are consequent on bacterial toxaemia. ”

“ The need of artillery support for the attack was indeed felt (though the gunners had not as yet evolved any substitute for the case-shot preparation of Napoleon’s time) , but men remembered that artillery was used by the great captain, not so much to enable good troops to close with the enemy, as to win battles with masses of troops of an inferior stamp, and contemporary experience seemed to show that (if losses were accepted as inevitable) good and resolute troops could overpower the defence, even in face of the rifle and without the aid of case shot. But a revolution was at hand. ”