Demency

2 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Demency \De"men*cy\, n. [L. dementia, fr. demens mad. See
     {Dement}.]
     Dementia; loss of mental powers. See {Insanity}.
     [1913 Webster]

From Bouvier's Law Dictionary, Revised 6th Ed (1856) [bouvier]:



  DEMENCY, dementia, med. jur. A defect, hebetude, or imbecility of the under 
  standing, general or partial, but confined to individual faculties of the 
  mind, particularly those concerned in associating and comparing ideas, 
  whence proceeds great, confusion and incapacity in arranging the thoughts. 1 
  Chit. Med. Jur. 351; Cyclop. Practical Med. tit. Insanity; Ray, Med. Jur. 
  ch. 9; 1 Beck's Med. Jur. 547. 
       2. Demency is attended with a general enfeeblement of the moral and 
  intellectual faculties, consequence of age or disease, which were originally 
  well developed and sound. It is characterised by forgetfulness of the past; 
  indifference to the present and future, and a childish disposition. It 
  differs from idiocy and imbecility. In these latter, the powers of the mind 
  were never possessed, while in demency, they have been lost. 
       3. Demency may also be distinguished from mania, with which it is 
  sometimes confounded. In the former, the mind has lost its strength, and 
  thereby the reasoning faculty is impaired; while in the latter, the madness 
  arises from an exaltation of vital power, or from a morbid excess of 
  activity. 
       4. Demency is divided into acute and chronic. The former is a 
  consequence of temporary errors of regimen, fevers, hemorrhages, &c., and is 
  susceptible of cure the latter, or chronic demency, may succeed mania, 
  apoplexy, epilepsy, masturbation, and drunkenness, but is generally that 
  incurable decay of the mind which occurs in old age. 
       5. When demency has been fully established in its last stages, the acts 
  of the individual of a civil nature will be void, because the party had no 
  consenting mind. Vide Contracts; Wills; 2 Phillim. R. 449. Having no legal 
  will or intention, he cannot of course commit a crime. Vide Insanity; Mania.