e case in the ordinary well-known
forms of functional and organic disorders developing in prison, but with
psychotic manifestations which bear the most intimate relation to some
definite situation, and which are characteristically colored and shaped
by the prison milieu.

As a matter of fact, the population of institutions for insane criminals
divides itself into two distinct and unmistakable groups. On the one
hand we meet with the well-known functional and organic psychotic
entities such as occur in individuals in freedom; we see patients who in
the course of their careers as insane people have come in conflict with
the law either accidentally or because of their insane ideas. In them
the psychosis develops and takes its definitely determined course
independently of the milieu in which the individual happens to be
placed. In the majority of instances they suffer from the various forms
of dementia praecox and progress toward demential end-results in the same
proportion as the general run of dementia praecox cases do, whether or
not they have come in conflict with the law. Occasionally we also see a
case of organic brain disease or manic-depressive psychosis, and in more
frequent instances a case of epilepsy. The other, and according to many
authorities, by far the most predominant group of mental disorders met
with in imprisonment, belongs to the so-called "prison psychoses", and
bears definite, unmistakable ear-marks which differentiate it from the
former group. These are, as we have stated, products of a particularly
degenerative soil plus definite environmental conditions, and are of the
utmost importance both from a purely clinical and an administrative
point of view.

The term "reactive manifestation", as applied here, is a happy one, and
inasmuch as the accidental criminal differs from the habitual criminal
as day differs from night, we will expect a different sort of reaction
to a more or less similar situation in the two instances. To
illustrate:--An apparently healthy and in most instances law-abiding and
non-corrupt individual, as a result of a series of overwhelming and
uncontrollable circumstances, commits murder in a fit of passion. Upon
being arrested and upon the sudden realization of the enormity of his
deed the entire constitution experiences a tremendous shock and reacts
to it accordingly. He falls into a stupor, into utter oblivion of the
world about him, becomes in turn excited and confused, his se