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5. Mrs. Lincoln Admitted Today
- Southern Illinois University Press
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5 Mrs. Lincoln Admitted Today Today, there is much disagreement as to whether or not Mary Lincoln was in fact “insane” in May 1875 and, if she was, from which disease she suffered and to what degree. Moreover, the term insanity is a troublesome one with various meanings, which also muddles the discussion . Typically, it is used as a lay term for crazy thought or behavior, and this episode in Mary’s life has become established as the “Insanity Episode” in the Lincoln literature. The term insanity has also come to be used as a legal term, where an insanity defense argues that the accused suffered a mental condition that rendered that person not responsible for his or her actions. In this context, Mary could be dubbed “insane,” because her trial declared her sufficiently irresponsible as to be unfit to control her person or her property. Twenty-first-century mental health professionals, however, dislike the term insanity, which has largely been replaced by psychosis in modern psychiatric terminology. In fact, the words insanity and insane do not even appear in the index to the most up-to-date official listing of acceptable psychiatric diagnoses, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual IV-TR, published by the American Psychiatric Association.1 Psychosis basically means any condition that causes the affected person to lose contact with reality. The most common of these breaks with reality are delusions (fixed beliefs in something that is untrue) and hallucinations (sensations of sound, sight, etc. of something that is not really there). The evidence shows that Mary suffered from both, such as her stories of the Wandering Jew, the Indian spirit, and the voices in the walls and floor. Psychoses are not the only serious psychiatric illnesses, however. Patients who are severely depressed may not have delusions or hallucinations, but they may be extremely unhappy in a sustained way, lose their ability to enjoy things, lose their energy and motivation, stop doing their usual activities, feel irretrievably helpless and hopeless, and even cease functioning . Mary had both psychotic and severe depressive symptoms at various times in her life, not just in 1875, suggesting she suffered from what came to be known as Manic-Depressive Illness, now called Bipolar Disorder. 62 63 . Mrs. Lincoln Admitted Today Since these episodes recurred, she actually suffered numerous “insanity episodes,” and not simply one episode that resulted in her commitment. In this respect, it would be more medically accurate to describe the events beginning in March 1875 as Mary’s “Institutionalization Episode,” rather than her “Insanity Episode.”2 In spite of the technical classifications of insanity, or perhaps because of them, historians have offered radically different conclusions and interpretations of Mary’s actions and mental condition, utilizing the exact same evidence. This has caused one historian to wonder “whether evidence matters in matters of historical importance.”3 In the days following Mary’s trial, however, no one was terribly surprised at the tribunal or its verdict. The news spread rapidly across the country. Public opinion and newspaper editorials generally supported Robert in his action and at the same time lamented that it had been necessary. They sympathized with Mary Lincoln, found her blameless, and attributed her derangement to the murder of her husband.4 “Nothing but an imperative sense of duty and of filial devotion could have compelled the institution of the inquiry,” the Chicago Tribune editorialized . It has been generally known in the circle of the lady’s acquaintances and personal friends that something of this kind would eventually be necessary. As will be seen from the evidence, Mrs. Lincoln’s mind has been for ten years prey to growing madness, and this fact, now made public, will cast a new light on many of her past actions, which were harshly criticized by those who did not know her, and which, while understood by her personal friends, could not be explained by them, since to have done so would have been to have exposed her mental condition, which it was then hoped might improve.5 The Chicago Inter Ocean called it “one of the saddest trials that has ever appeared on the docket of any court in this or any other country.” It stated the witness testimony was “conclusive as to her insanity,” which began with her husband’s assassination and increased after Tad’s death in 1871, and it was the “sorrowful duty of her son” to institute proceedings...