For this purpose sequestration is necessary, the method of moral treatment and the watchful care obtained within a criminal asylum.
VI.--The following report, by O. Hotzen (here abbreviated), appeared in the _Vierteljahresschrift für gerichtliche Medicin_, and in the _Archivio di Psichiatria_ for 1889, fasc. 2.
Maria Köster died at the age of 22 of tuberculosis; at the age of 18 she had killed her mother with a hatchet; sixty wounds were found in the mother's body, some of them penetrating the skull.
As until then the girl had always been of good character, quiet and hard-working, and on account of her youthful age, she was examined by medical experts in order to ascertain if any morbid conditions had limited her free will.
No mental alienation was recognised, especially at the time of the deed, but certain preceding morbid phenomena and other subsequent circumstances led the experts to an opinion which resulted in the commutation of the death penalty to which she had been condemned.
Among her maternal ancestors, and in the mother herself, there had been extreme avarice; they were most eager of money, and possessed by the fury of gain; it was proved that this impulse had in some members of the family paralysed the sentiments of equity and honesty.
The girl had a certain amount of education; she wrote, in an exact style, a diary of her impressions. She had acted as a servant, as an assistant in a printing-office, as a sempstress. She was thin, and slightly developed; menstruated at 19; had a very high opinion of herself.
Apparently of tranquil disposition, she was declared by some to be envious, a liar, and a thief.
Notwithstanding simulated indifference, she coveted the savings which her mother had scraped together; she cherished hatred against her parents; continual quarrels and unworthy calumnies revealed a heart apparently good, in reality selfish and depraved.
There was slight asymmetry of the face, due to flattening on the right side; there was no perceptible lack of cranial symmetry.
The right pupil was larger than the left; both movable and perfectly sensitive.
She had hysterical attacks, which became rare before the deed, and were interpreted as a sexual neurosis of puberty. These attacks began with præcordial anxiety and oppression of breathing, and usually ended with a strong desire for movement, to which she yielded with only partial consciousness. She was sometimes for hours in a semi-conscious condition, with extravagant movements, vociferations, senseless talk, etc. Sometimes she exaggerated the attacks; at other times opposed them. From papers that she wrote in prison, it appears that some of these attacks were entirely simulated.