Insanity

In medicine, the general term psychosis is used to include the presence of delusions and/or hallucinations in a patient;[1] and psychiatric illness is "psychopathology", not mental insanity.

The term may also be used as an attempt to discredit or criticize particular ideas, beliefs, principles, desires, personal feelings, attitudes, or their proponents, such as in politics and religion.

Some traditional cultures have turned to witch doctors or shamans to apply magic, herbal mixtures, or folk medicine to rid deranged persons of evil spirits or bizarre behavior, for example.

[4] More recent research on the historical practice of trepanning supports the hypothesis that this procedure was medical in nature and intended as means of treating cranial trauma.

[5] The Greeks appeared to share something of the modern Western world's secular and holistic view, believing that afflictions of the mind did not differ from diseases of the body.

Europe's oldest asylum was the precursor of today's Bethlem Royal Hospital in London, known then as Bedlam, which began admitting the mentally ill in 1403 and is mentioned in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.

[12][13] In most jurisdictions within the United States, if the insanity plea is accepted, the defendant is committed to a psychiatric institution for at least 60 days for further evaluation, and then reevaluated at least yearly after that.

A number of treatises on medical jurisprudence were written during the nineteenth century, the most famous of which was Isaac Ray in 1838 (fifth edition 1871); others include Ryan (1832), Taylor (1845), Wharton and Stille (1855), Ordronaux (1869), Meymott (1882).

[14] One famous example of someone feigning insanity is Mafia boss Vincent Gigante, who pretended for years to be suffering from dementia, and was often seen wandering aimlessly around his neighborhood in his pajamas muttering to himself.

Testimony from informants and surveillance showed that Gigante was in full control of his faculties the whole time, and ruled over his Mafia family with an iron fist.

In a 2005 court case, United States v. Binion, the defendant was prosecuted and convicted for obstruction of justice (adding to his original sentence) because he feigned insanity in a Competency to Stand Trial evaluation.