Legal Term: HALLUCINATION

Definition: med. jur. It is a species of mania, by which "an idea reproduced by the memory is associated and embodied by the imagination." This state of mind is sometimes called delusion or waking dreams.

2. An attempt has been made to distinguish hallucinations from illusions; the former are said to be dependent on the state of the intellectual organs and, the latter, on that of those of sense. Ray, Med. Jur. 99; 1 Beck, med. Jur. 538, note. An instance is given of a temporary hallucination in the celebrated Ben Johnson, the poet. He told a friend of his that he had spent many a night in looking at his great toe, about which he had seen Turks and Tartars, Romans and Carthagenians, fight, in his imagination. 1 Coll. on Lun. 34. If, instead of being temporary, this affection of his mind had been permanent, he would doubtless have been considered insane. See, on the subject of spectral illusions, Hibbert, Alderson and Farrars Essays; Scott on Demonology, &c.; Bostocks Physiology, vol. 3, p. 91, 161; 1 Esquirol, Maladies Mentales, 159.

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