Mad Kings

The late King Louis IL ol Bavaria was of a ■ mail family. If accounts are correct, bis father was of unsounil miad, aud hls bruiher i kuown . to l;e an lmbccilc. Dr. Ball, m hls "Lecons sur les Maladles Mentales," describes a forro oí lnsanity that verv wull fllls the case of Knie Louis. Tuere i Ís, he says, a klud of manincal eicltatlon and disordered actlon of all tlie facullles, without any ciear deraiigement of Intelligcuce. Ideas Ure qiilckly flowing and exaggcr&ted, but Hiere U uo incoberencc. The patients often show a remarkublc development of certaln intelk-ctual , powers, especially in poetic or artistlc directiotis. Their niinds are filled with speculntions j and new Drojects, and the moral soase is greatly weakened or pervcrted. ür. Ireland flnds auother royal illustration of thls psychosis iu Mohammed Toghlak, sultan of India, in the fourteouth centurv; aud, as wc will show later, it has plaiuly affected one oí the j czars of Kus sia. and very liüely raembers oí other roja] fuinllie. The (Jernian wrlters have eiven to thls forra of insanity the name of paranota, aud lliis wsb the diagnosis made by the late klug's phvsicians. In earller times there were many royal families in whom mental disease anddecnr showed ltself. Uncontrolled exercise of power, the free opportunlty for tlie Indulgcnce of every ppetite aud caprice, seem surely to bring on disease elthcr in the Individual himsulf or bis descendant!. In modern tunes monarchs have to regúlate their conduct and restraln thelr passious more thau formerly, and in consequince royalty Is a much more heultbful occupation tuan it used to be. lu'tue Claudlan Jullau family, berinnln wlth Julius Ceesar hiuiself and endiui' with Nero, we have an almost anbroken line oí neuroses. Caesar bimelf was epileptic, but probably the disease developed late In life, irom exposure aud excesses, and did not much ffect his health. Augustus, hls prandnephew, bad, lt Is believed, writer's cramp; Juila, his daughter, seems to have been liitle better than a nymnhomaniac. Shc hal an imbedle son. Tibenus was a ma naturally heartless, cruel, and llcentious. In his later vean he secms to have lost all moral seuse, and illustrated the most shameless scnsuality and cruelty. Caligula, reputed great-grand■on of Augustus, was epiloptic as a bov, badly formed aud weak-minded as a man. He stuttered, was insomnio, and appanntly had hallucinatlons. Claudius was also weak-minded, tlmld a:ul crcdulous, with ñatead; Kat, weak kuees, seaking head, aud drlbbllng lips. In Kussia, Uiu present himse of Komanoff has sliown plain evidence of the development of mental woakuess and defecU. The sister of Peter the Great was a bi llliant woman, but his two brothers were weak-minded aud had . physical defects. Peter himsolf, thouuh a man of genius, bore traces of the family neurosis. He had. at timos, convulsiona, and was, when young. the victlin of a morbld antlpatby to the water. Peter's danghter Elizaboth, was a dlssolute and hard-drinkin? woman. His grandson was weak minded, coarse, aud extremeiy llcentious. The Kmperor Paul, who succoeded Catliarinc II., was, accordincr to Dr. Irolaud, unquestlonably deranged. II s whlms and fits 01 unreason were much more coarse and brutal in their tculonct than those of KIiik Louis, but thcy suïgest tte same malady Implanted on a man of fess reflned nature and reflned sensiblities. Paul was treated finally In much the same wny as King Louis, ouly, a the fiirmer refused to ubdicate, he was summarilv strangled. The house of Romanoff bas improved in the last three generatlons, as a result, doubtles, of the constant iufuslon of Teutouic blood. -