Angels Abroad Devils at Home.

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 9 October 1914, Page 2

Angels Abroad Devils at Home.

There is a form of insanity, now so well recognised that wills have been broken on the strength of it, tha.t takes the form of brutality to those of one's own family when "at the same time its victim is kind, benevolent and charming to all outside. This is knovvn to alienists and lawyers as "oikeLmania." Historic cases of it are those of Dean Swift. Mrs. John Wesley, and the father of l'Yederick the Great. In women it generally takes the form of an unreasoning and baseless jealously, leading them to make life a burden to their hus-. bands, to sulk perversely at home while shining in society or spending much time in religious devotion or in works of benevolence. In men oikeiomania takes the form, of active britality to their wives and children. It is often accompanied .by continuous and exhausting remorse, under the terrible . misciousness that they really love. But they are unable to shake off the habit. Sometimes, when the object of their persecution is dead, they themselves become actually insane. Sue)), it is said, was the case with Dean Swift, after the death of Stella, the victim of his brutality, when he paid the penalty in pathetic alternations of delirium and melancholy. This form of insanity, if it can be proved, leads the courts in some countries to reject the will of a person who has manifested it if this will cuts on' natural heirs. The doctors are silent about the curability of this form of mania. "Doubtless "Suggestion" w'ovld be useful, but cases rarely come into the right hands early enough.