The impetuosity of mania appears tinder two leading forms, furor and delirium. Furor consists in an extreme irascibility, and an invincible propensity to commit indecent or atrocious actions. It is considered as a disease of the will. Deliri..nn consists in an extreme hurry of imagina tion, sometimes attended with a false perception of objects as present which are not, and always depriving the patient or those just notions of the relations of things around him which he entertains in a state of health. It is, therefore, considered as a symptom of disease in the intellectual pow ers. Impetuosity, however, is a characteristic in which it agrees with furor. A diseased inclination attaches the pa tient to those rambling thoughts which derange the opera tions of his judgment.
Mania has seldom been known to attack any person be fore the age of puberty, after which period all ages are sub ject to it. It is sometimes preceded by deep melancholy, or by a slight lowness of spirits. In persons addicted to intemperate drinking, the approach is sometimes indicated by an increase in the extravagance of conduct attending their excesses. The most general mark of decided mania is a total change of feeling towards connections and ac quaintances, indicated by a suspiciousness, and a violent ha tred towards those persons who at other times are objects of affection and confidence. Very often the patient sinews remarkable proofs of penetrating sagacity, brilliant wit, and au imposing eloquence. He seems to understand better than at other times what is going forward around him, but gives an erroneous and generally a malignant construction to every transaction. There have been cases in which he has felt a strong inclination to assault, and even to murder, every person that came in his way, although he inclinations con verse rationally, and deplore those ungoverned nclinations by which he felt himself so inevitably swayed. Sometimes there is an inclination to suicide, seeming to arise not so much from a sense of unhappiness, as from a mere tenden cy to extravagance. The patient is so prone to novelty,and so regardless of consequences, as to grasp eagerly at any opportunity that may be given him, of throwing himselt from a dangerous height. Here we have only a greater degree of those nervous feelings which are experienced by some persons in apparent health and soundness of NVe have known a man of the greatest respectability, who acknowledged that, whenever he passed a particular bridge, he felt a slight inclination to throw himself over, accompanied with a slight dread that this inclination might hurry him away.
The delirious ravings which characterize mania in its perfect form, are as various as the characters and ideas of individuals. Sometimes they are confined to one ob ject, which absorbs an inordinate degree of interest ; but most generally there is a false judgment on every subject that occurs.
The cunning of maniacs has often been remarked, as appearing in the uncommon address with which they ac eomplish their whimsical purposes, and the pertinent ques tions which they propose in order to obtain satisfactory an swers, instead of the evasions practised by inexperienced attendants. A patient in the lunatic asylum of Manchester, when the writer of this article attended that institution, was found one mottling to have lost his ear, and, when in terrogated about the instrument with which he had thus mutilated himself, lie first made a great mystery of it, and then boasted of his address in abstracting a button from his neighbour's coat, sharpening it on a stone, and cutting of his car with it before any person could observe him. In this instance, we may remark the horrid contrast be tween the unnatural object which the patient had in view, and the skill which he employed to accomplish it. A similar contrast under a variety of forms is of fre quent occurrence. The impressions which objects make en the patient's mind are often extravagant, while the rea sonings which he establishes on these impressions arc close and strong.
Mania is often subject to intermissions, during which the patient appears as well as previous to the attack, ex cept that, not being engaged in his usual occupations, and being sensible of the existing tendency to disease, he spews less of the regular interest which he used to take in surrounding objects, and a degree of shyness towards those who address him. It is currently supposed by per sons not intimately acquainted with the phenomena of mental disease, that the lucid interval must he the most horrid of all possible states of mind. They conceive that the temporary return of reason, bringing to the patient's mind a view of his deplorable malady, must continually shock him with much greater violence, than it can affect those who imagine to themselves the same disease in others. This, boss ever, is a mistake. The lucid inter val brings with it an exercise of reason less indeed to be depended en, but in some respects more correct than it is found in the generality of persons who never laboured un• tier the disease. The patient becomes resigned to his situation, and feels the propriety of not suffering the thought of it to distress hint. Were it not for this reflec tion, his experience has taught him, it et uld not he that mania would have any intermission, or ever terminate in recovery. The sensibility, besides, is often exhausted to such a degree, by the perplexity suffered previous to the attack, that circumstances really gloomy have much less influence than formerly in depresoing the mind. The patient also experiences a secret delight in the return of sound impressions, and knows that the best way of cherishing them is to avoid every afflicting thought.