Morals of the Church
Library › Wouters, Manual of Moral Theology › Volume I › Book I. On the General Principles of the Christian Life › Treatise II. On Motion in Order to the Final End, or on the Human Act, Considered according to Moral Being › Dissertation I (Preliminary). On the Human Act, Considered according to Physical Being › Part II. The Elements of the Human Act Considered Separately › Section II. On the Free › Chapter II. On Those Things which Influence Liberty › Article VI. On the Principal Psychic Abnormalities › Section II. Abnormalities which Arise from Morbid Disturbance of the Psychic Faculties

point — Wouters, Manual of Moral Theology

Point I. Amentia Properly So Called

¶1.

Today amentia properly so called is reduced, for the most part, to two species, namely endogenous psychoses and exogenous psychoses. The latter lead to complete intellectual degeneration or dementia; not so the former.

Amentia Properly So Called

53.

I. Endogenous psychoses have the cause of their origin in the very physical habitual disposition of the subject. But exogenous psychoses come from an added cause, namely from the fact that the cerebral cells are affected by certain poisonous materials, which either come from outside or are produced by the body itself. To endogenous psychoses are reduced: manic-depressive psychosis and paranoia.

  1. Manic-depressive psychosis occurs in a twofold way, namely as mania and as depressive or melancholic psychosis.

a) The manifestations of mania are cheerfulness and mobility, which exceed the ordinary and normal mode.

b) The sign of depressive psychosis is the highest melancholy. This psychosis carries with it great danger of suicide, since the one affected by this psychosis is vexed by various thoughts of desperation and anxiety.

c) Both mania and depressive psychosis usually remit after an intervening time; nevertheless, it can happen that they endure chronically.

  1. Paranoia is a certain chronic amentia by which a certain delusional persuasion rules the whole life. The operation of the intellect, especially at the beginning of the disease, is not immediately ruined; from this it happens that such sick persons, if there is question of matters which are not found within the sphere of the disease, can judge perfectly. Gradually one idea or another invades the soul more and more, so that at last they hold fictive and vain things for true. These fictive things have various objects. Some persuade themselves that they are suffering persecution; others, that they have been called to great things; others, that some person, especially a noble one, has been seized with love for them; others finally are disturbed by religious ideas. They think that they converse with angels and saints, whose voices they perceive; they wish always to be occupied with vocal prayer, etc.

Amentia Properly So Called

54.

II. Exogenous psychoses. To exogenous psychoses belong: 1. schizophrenia or dementia praecox; 2. paralytic dementia; 3. epilepsy.

  1. Schizophrenia, or dementia praecox, generally arising at a rather younger age, usually before the thirty-fifth year of age, ends in total hebetude, or dementia. The distinctive marks of this disease are: the dissolution of the unity and coherence which, in the normal condition, exist among a person's thoughts, affections, and actions, and the loss of the sense of the reality of things.

  2. Paralytic dementia, which is a consequence of syphilis. About three percent of those who suffer from syphilis fall into this psychosis. It generally appears eight to ten years after the infection has begun, and at first it is manifested by the greatest forgetfulness and carelessness. Generally it progresses quickly and after two or three years brings on death. They say, nevertheless, that a remedy by which it is checked has been found.

  3. Epilepsy is a disturbance of the nerves which periodically recurs and brings on a crisis in which the patient is not master of himself. When the crises take place rather rarely, sick persons of this sort, outside the time of the attack, enjoy an almost normal use of the intellectual faculties. But if the crises recur more often, the soul is changed at its foundation, so that there can be discussion of an epileptic character.

Corollary. Concerning the moral responsibility of the insane, two very expert physicians speak thus: "In the demented, whose sensitive life, both cognitive and concupiscible, is disturbed, for this reason almost never can full moral responsibility be present. It is clear that moral responsibility is especially diminished with respect to those acts which cohere directly with psychic abnormalities; hence it is evident that the temptation to kill someone cannot be imputed to him who, either because of hallucination, thinks that this has been commanded him, or imagines that someone is persecuting him. Partial responsibility can be present in those acts which do not cohere with psychic abnormalities."1

1 Schim van der Loeff and Barnhoorn, o.c., p. 94.

Amentia Properly So Called