The
patient begins by moping, then shows great lassitude and ennui, then
becomes abstracted, moody, and occupied with a solitary idea."
Jane clasped her hands and the tears stood in her eyes; so well did this
description tally with poor Alfred's case.
"And at this period," continued Dr. Wycherley, "my experience leads me to
believe that some latent delusion is generally germinating in the mind,
though often concealed with consummate craft by the patient: the open
development of this delusion is the next stage, and, with this last
morbid phenomenon, Incubation ceases and Insanity begins. Sometimes,
however, the illusion is physical rather than psychical, of the sense
rather than of the intelligence. It commences at night: the incubator
begins by seeing nocturnal visions, often of a photopsic* character, or
hearing nocturnal sounds, neither of which have any material existence,
being conveyed to his optic or auricular nerves not from without, but
from within, by the agency of a disordered brain. These the reason,
hitherto unimpaired, combats at first, especially when they are nocturnal
only; but being reproduced, and becoming diurnal, the judgment succumbs
under the morbid impression produced so repeatedly.
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