bscure Diseases of the Brain and
Nerves' {258} contains a passage so very descriptive of the case of Lord
Byron, that it might seem to have been written for it. The sixth chapter
of his work, on 'Anomalous and Masked Affections of the Mind,' contains,
in our view, the only clue that can unravel the sad tragedy of Byron's
life. He says, p.87,--

'These forms of unrecognised mental disorder are not always
accompanied by any well-marked disturbance of the bodily health
requiring medical attention, or any obvious departure from a normal
state of thought and conduct such as to justify legal interference;
neither do these affections always incapacitate the party from
engaging in the ordinary business of life . . . . The change may have
progressed insidiously and stealthily, having slowly and almost
imperceptibly induced important molecular modifications in the
delicate vesicular neurine of the brain, ultimately resulting in some
aberration of the ideas, alteration of the affections, or perversion
of the propensities or instincts. . . .

'Mental disorder of a dangerous character has been known for years to
be stealthily advancing, without exciting the slightest notion of its
presence, until some sad and terrible catastrophe, homicide, or
suicide, has painfully awakened attention to its existence. Persons
suffering from latent insanity often affect singularity of dress,
gait, conversation, and phraseology. The most trifling circumstances
stimulate their excitability. They are martyrs to ungovernable
paroxysms of passion, are inflamed to a state of demoniacal fury by
the most insignificant of causes, and occasionally lose all sense of
delicacy of feeling, sentiment, refinement of manners and
conversation. Such manifestations of undetected mental disorder may
be seen associated with intellectual and moral qualities of the
highest order.'

In another place, Dr. Winslow again adverts to this latter symptom, which
was strikingly marked in the case of Lord Byron:--

'All delicacy and decency of thought are occasionally banished from
the mind, so effectually does the principle of thought in these
attacks succumb to the animal instincts and passions . . . .

'Such cases will commonly be found associated with organic
predisposition to insanity or cerebral disease . . . . Modifications
of the malady are seen allied with genius. The bio