LUCID INTERVALS. In Medical Jurisprudence. Periods ha which an in sane person is so far free from his disease that the ordinary legal consequences of in sanity do not apply to acts done therein.
2. Correct notions respecting the lucid interval are no less necessary than correct notions respect ing the disease itself. By the earlier writers on ineanity, lucid intervals were regarded as a far more common event than they have been found to be io recent times. They were aloe supposed to be characterized by a degree of mental clearoess and vigor not often witneseed now. These views of medical writere were shared by distinguished legal authorities, by whom the lucid interval was de scribed as a complete, though temporary, restora tion. D'Aguesseau, in his pleading in the case of the Abbe d'Orleans, says, "It must not be a au perficial tranquillity, a shadow of repoee, but, on the contrary, a profound tranquillity, a real repose; it must not be a mere ray of reason, which makes its abeence more apparent when it is gone,—not a flash of lightning, which pierces through the dark ness only to render it more gloomy and dismal,— n ot a glimmering which joins the night to the day,— but a perfeot light, a lively and continued lustre, a full and entire day interposed between the two separate nights of the fury which precedes and fol lows it; and, to use another image, it is not a de ceitful and faithless stillness which follows or fore bodes a storm, but a sure and eteadfast tranquillity for a time, a Taal calm, a perfect serenity. In fine, without looking for so many metaphora to repre sent our idea, it must not he a mere diminution, a remission of the complaint, but a kind of temporary cure, an intermission so olearly marked as in every respect to resemble the restoration of health." Pothier, Obl. Evans ed.579. So Lord Thurlow says, by a perfect interval, "I do not mean a cooler mo ment, an abatement of pain or violenve or of a higher state of torture,—a mind relieved from ex oessive preesure; but an interval in which the mind, having thrown off the disease, had recovered its general habit." 3 Brown, Ch. 234. That there eometimes ocours an intermission in which the per son appears to he perfectly rational, restored, in fact, to his proper self, is an unquestionable fact. It is equally true that they are of rare oecurrenoe, that they continue hut for a very brief period, and that with the apparent clearness there is a real loss of mental force and acuteness. In most cases of insanity there may be observed, from time to tune, a remission of the symptoms, in which ex citement and violence are replaced by quiet and calm, and, within. a certain range, the patient con verses correctly and properly. A superficial ob server might be able to detect no trace of disease ; but a little further examination would show a confusion of ideas and singularity of behavior, in dicative of serious, though latent, diaease. In this condition the patient may hold some correct no tions, even on a matter of business, and yet be quite incompetent to embrace all the relations con nected with a oontract or a will, even though no delusion were present to warp his judginent. The revelations of patients after recovery furnish in dubitable proof thot during this remission of the symptoms the mind is in a state of confusion ut terly unreliable for any business purpose. Georget, Des Mal. Men. 46; Reid, Essays on Hypochondri acal Affections, 21 Essay; Combe, Men. Derang. 241; Ray, Med. Jur. 376.
3. Of late years—whatever may have been the earlier practice—courts have not required that proof of a lucid interval which consists of complete restoration of reason, as described above. They have been satisfied with such proof as was furnished by the traneaction in question. They cared less to consider the general state of mind than its special Maaffestations on a particular occasion. In 1 Phill. Lect. 90, the oourt said, " I think the strongest and best proof that can arise ae to a lucid interval is that which arises from the act itaelf;" if that "is a rational act, rationally done, the whole case is proved;" " if she could converse ratinnally, that is a lucid interval." Proctor, 2 (Jam 86 P. 415. Thie is a mere begging of the question, which is whether the act so rational and so rationally done—and not for that reason necessarily incompatible with iiisanity—was or was not done in a lucid interval.
Persons very insane, violent, and full of delusions frequently do and say things evincing no mark of disease, while no one' supposes that there is any lucid interval in the oase. Correcter views pre vailed in 2 Hagg. 433, where the court pronounced against two wills which showed no trace of folly, because the testator had been confeesedly so insane as to require an attendant from an asylum, until vithin a few montha of the date of the last will, and had mnnifeated delusi(xis during the period that intervened between the two wills in question. "It is clear," said the court, " that persona essentially insane may be calm, may do acts, hold conversa • Gong, and even pass in general society, as perfectly sane. It often requires close examination by pt.r. sons akilled in the disorder, to discover and ascer tain whether or not the mental derangement removed and the mind become again perfectly sound. Where there is calmness, where there is rationality on ordinary subjects, those who see the party usually conclude that his recovery is perfect. . . . When there is not actual recovery, and a return to the management of himself and his con cerna -by the unfortunate individual, the proof of a lucid interval is extremely difficult." 4. In criminal cases, the proof of a lucid interval must be still more difficult, in the very nature of the case. For although the mental manifeatations may be perfectly right, it cannot be supposed that the brain has resumed its normal condition. In its outward expression, insanity, like many other nervoua diseases, is characterized by a certain peri odicity, whereby the prominent symptoms disappear for a time, only to return again ' within a very limited period. An epileptic, in the intervals be tween his fits, may evince to the closest observer not single trace of mental or bodily disease; and yet, for all that, nobody supposes that he has recovered from his malady. No more doca a lucid interval in a case of insanity imply that the disease has dis appeared because its outward manifestations have ceased. There unquestionably remains an abnor mal condition of the brain, by whatever name it may he called, whereby the power uf the mind to suatain provocations. to resist temptations, or with stand any other causea of excitement, ia greatly weakened.
Lucid intervals. properly so called, should not be confounded with those periods of apparent recovery which occur between two successive attacks of mental disease, nor with those transitions from one phasis of insanity to' another, in which the indi vidual seems to be in his natural condition. They may not be essentially different, but the suddenness and brevity of the former would be likely to impart to an act a moral complexion very different from that which it would bear if perf6rmed in the larger and more indefinite intermissions of the latter. Still, great forbearance should be exercised towards persone committing criminal acts while in any of these equivocal conditions. Those who have suf fered repeated attacks of mental disease habitually labor under a degree of nervous irritability, which renders them peculiarly susceptible to many of those incidents and influences which lead to crime. Tbe law may make no distinction, but executive and judicial tribunals are generally intrusted with discretionary powers, whereby they are enabled to apportion the punishment according to the moral guilt of the party. Ray, Med. Jur. chap. Lim. htt.
It is the duty of the party who contends for a lucid interval, to prove it; for a person once insane is presumed so, until it is shown that he had a lucid interval, or has recovered, Swinb. 77 ; Coke, Litt. 185, n.; 3 Brown, Ch. 443; 1 Const. So. C. 225; 1 Pet. 163; 1 Litt. Ky. 102; and yet, on the trial of Hadfield, whose insanity, 'both before and after the act, was admitted, the court, Lord Kenyon, said that " were they to rnn into nicety, proof might be demanded of hie insanity at the precise moment when the act was committed." See IN