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Jacques M. Quen, MD
The New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center New York

JAMA. 1980;243(1):30.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor.—

I want to comment on the MEDICAL NEWS article "Forensic psychiatry—friend of the court" (242:125, 1979). The author reports that "In 1843, M'Naghten tried to shoot the prime minister and instead killed the man's secretary." She also characterizes the M'Naghten Rule as the "oldest insanity test." Both of these are popular misconceptions that tend to further complicate the understanding of the insanity defense and the problems that have developed during its use.

Legal tests for insanity go back, at least, to the 13th-century English jurist Henri de Bracton, who defined a madman as one who has no more reason than an "infant, a brute, or a wild beast."¹ Legal commentators since Bracton (including Coke, Lambarde, Hale, and Blackstone) have added other definitions. In 1724, Bracton's test was used and later labeled the "wild beast test."¹ In 1800, in the trial of James Hadfield, delusion was . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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