Abstract :
Abstract The former alienist doctors had already noted that the ‘‘insane’’ can sometimes commit acts of wisdomand that the reasonable person can occasionally commit acts of madness. The present study recalls three famousclassic French treatises on the civil and penal capacity of the mentally ill and on the power of nuisance of the insanewhose psychic abnormality remains unknown to those around them. They are La folie lucide, by Ulysse Trélat (1861),La raison dans la folie, by Victor Parant (1888) and La raison chez les fous, by Paul Voivenel (1926).
Keyword :
Keywords: Discernment, History of psychiatry, Psychiatric pathology, Forensic psychiatry