Mania

4 definitions found

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

  Mania \Ma"ni*a\, n. [L. mania, Gr. ?, fr. ? to rage; cf. OE.
     manie, F. manie. Cf. {Mind}, n., Necromancy.]
     1. Violent derangement of mind; madness; insanity. Cf.
        {Delirium}.
        [1913 Webster]
  


     2. Excessive or unreasonable desire; insane passion affecting
        one or many people; as, the tulip mania.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     {Mania a potu} [L.], madness from drinking; delirium tremens.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     Syn: Insanity; derangement; madness; lunacy; alienation;
          aberration; delirium; frenzy. See {Insanity}.
          [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  mania
       n 1: an irrational but irresistible motive for a belief or action
            [syn: {passion}, {cacoethes}]
       2: a mood disorder; an affective disorder in which the victim
          tends to respond excessively and sometimes violently [syn:
           {manic disorder}]

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  129 Moby Thesaurus words for "mania":
     aberration, abnormality, abstraction, abulia, alienation,
     an universal wolf, anxiety, anxiety equivalent, anxiety state,
     apathy, appetence, appetency, appetite, appetition, brain damage,
     brainsickness, bug, catatonic stupor, clouded mind, compulsion,
     coveting, craving, craze, craziness, crazy fancy, daftness,
     dejection, dementedness, dementia, depression, derangement, desire,
     detachment, disorientation, distraction, elation, emotionalism,
     enthusiasm, euphoria, fad, fanaticism, fancy, fascination,
     fixation, fixed idea, folie, folie du doute, frenzy, furor, furore,
     fury, hangup, hunger, hypochondria, hysteria, hysterics, idee fixe,
     indifference, infatuation, insaneness, insanity, insensibility,
     irrationality, itch, itching, lethargy, loss of mind,
     loss of reason, lunacy, madness, manic-depressive psychosis,
     melancholia, mental deficiency, mental derangement, mental disease,
     mental disorder, mental distress, mental disturbance,
     mental illness, mental instability, mental sickness,
     mind overthrown, mindsickness, obsession, oddness,
     overambitiousness, overanxiety, overanxiousness, overeagerness,
     overenthusiasm, overzealousness, passion,
     pathological indecisiveness, pixilation, possession, preoccupation,
     prurience, pruriency, psychalgia, psychomotor disturbance,
     queerness, rabidness, rage, reasonlessness, senselessness,
     sexual desire, shattered mind, sick mind, sickness, strangeness,
     stupor, thing, thirst, tic, twitching, unbalance, unbalanced mind,
     unresponsiveness, unsaneness, unsound mind, unsoundness,
     unsoundness of mind, urge, withdrawal, witlessness, yearning, yen,
     zealotism, zealotry
  
  

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

  MANIA, med. jur. This subject will be considered by examining it, first, in 
  a medical point of view; and, secondly, as to its legal consequences. 
       2.-Sec. 1. Mania may be divided into intellectual and moral. 
       1. Intellectual mania is that state of mind which is characterised by 
  certain hallucinations, in which the patient is impressed with the reality 
  of facts or events which have never occurred, and acts in accordance with 
  such belief; or, having some notion not altogether unfounded, carries it to 
  an extravagant and absurd length. It may be considered as involving all or 
  most of the operations of the understanding, when it is said to be general; 
  or as being confined to a particular idea, or train of ideas, when it is 
  called partial. 
       3. These will be separately examined. 1st. General intellectual mania 
  is a disease which presents the most chaotic confusion into which the human 
  mind, can be involved, and is attended by greater disturbance of the 
  functions of the body than any other. According to Pinel, Traite 
  d'Alienation Mentale, p. 63, "The patient sometimes keeps his head elevated 
  and his looks fixed on. high; he speaks in a low voice, or utters cries and 
  vociferations without any apparent motive; he walks to and fro, and 
  sometimes arrests his steps as if fixed by the sentiment of admiration, or 
  wrapt up in profound reverie. Some insane persons display wild excesses of 
  merriment, with immoderate bursts of laughter. Sometimes also, as if nature 
  delighted in contrasts, gloom and taciturnity prevail, with involuntary 
  showers of tears, or the anguish of deep sorrow, with all the external signs 
  of acute mental suffering. In certain cases a sudden reddening of the eyes 
  and excessive loquacity give presage of a speedy explosion of violent 
  madness and the urgent necessity of a strict confinement. One lunatic, after 
  long intervals of calmness, spoke at first with volubility, uttered frequent 
  shouts of laughter, and then shed a torrent of tears; experience had taught 
  the necessity of shutting him up immediately, for his paroxysms were at such 
  times of the greatest violence. "Sometimes, however, the patient is not 
  altogether devoid of intelligence; answers some questions very 
  appropriately, and is not destitute of acuteness and ingenuity. The 
  derangement in this form of mania is not confined to the intellectual 
  faculties, but not unfrequently extends to the moral powers of the mind. 
       4.-2d. Partial intellectual mania is generally known by the name of 
  monomania. (q.v.) In its most usual and simplest form, the patient has 
  conceived some single notion contrary to common sense and to common 
  experience, generally dependent on errors of sensation; as, for example, 
  when a person believes that he is made of glass, that animals or men have 
  taken their abode in his stomach or bowels. In these cases the understanding 
  is frequently found to be sound on all subjects, except those connected with 
  the hallucination. Sometimes, instead of being limited to a single point, 
  this disease takes a wider range, and there is a class of cases, where it 
  involves a train of morbid ideas. The patient then imbibes some notions 
  connected with the various relations of persons, events, time, space, &c., 
  of the most absurd and unfounded nature, and endeavors, in some measure, to 
  regulate his conduct accordingly; though, in most respects, it is grossly 
  inconsistent with his delusion. 
       5. Moral mania or moral insanity, (q.v.) is divided into, first, 
  general, where all the moral faculties are subject to a general disturbance 
  and secondly, partial, where one or two only of the moral powers are 
  perverted. 
       6. These will be briefly and separately examined. 1st. It is certain 
  that many individuals are living at large who are affected, in a degree at 
  least, by general moral mania. They are generally of singular habits, 
  wayward temper, and eccentric character; and circumstances are frequently 
  attending them which induce a belief that they are not altogether sane. 
  Frequently there is a hereditary tendency to madness in the family; and, not 
  seldom, the individual himself has at a previous period of life sustained an 
  attack of a decided character: his temper has undergone a change, he has 
  become an altered man, probably from the  time of the occurrence of 
  something which deeply affected him, or which deeply affected his bodily 
  constitution. Sometimes these alterations are imperceptible, at others, they 
  are sudden and immediate. Individuals afflicted with this disease not 
  unfrequently "perform most of the common duties of life with propriety, and 
  some of them, indeed, with scrupulous exactness, who exhibit no strongly 
  marked features of either temperament, no traits of superior or defective 
  mental endowment, but yet take violent antipathies, harbor unjust 
  suspicions, indulge strong propensities, affect singularity in dress, gait, 
  and phraseology; are proud, conceited, and ostentatious; easily excited and 
  with difficulty appeased; dead to sensibility, delicacy, and refinement; 
  obstinately riveted to the most absurd opinions; prone to controversy, and 
  yet incapable of reasoning; always the hero of their own tale, using 
  hyperbolic, high flown language to express the most simple ideas, 
  accompanied by unnatural gesticulation, inordinate action, and frequently by 
  the most alarming expression of countenance. On some occasions they suspect 
  sinister intentions on the most trivial grounds; on others are a prey to 
  fear and dread from the most ridiculous and imaginary sources; now embracing 
  every opportunity of exhibiting romantic courage and feats and hardihood, 
  then indulging themselves in all manner of excesses. Persons of this 
  description, to the casual observer, might appear actuated by a bad heart, 
  but the experienced physician knows it is the head which is defective. They 
  seem as if constantly affected by a greater or less degree of stimulation 
  from intoxicating liquors, while the expression of countenance furnishes an 
  infallible proof of mental disease. If subjected to moral restraint, or a 
  medical regimen, they yield with reluctance to the means proposed, and 
  generally refuse and resist, on the ground that such means are unnecessary 
  where no disease exists; and when, by the system adopted, they are so far 
  recovered, as to be enabled to suppress the exhibition of their former 
  peculiarities, and are again fit to be restored to society, the physician, 
  and those friends who put them under the physician's care, are generally 
  ever after objects of enmity, and frequently of revenge." Cox, see cases of 
  this Pract. Obs. on Insanity, kind of madness cited in Ray, Med. Jur. Sec. 
  112 to 119; Combe's Moral Philos. lect. 12. 
       7.-2d. Partial moral mania consists in the derangement of one or a 
  few of the affective faculties, the moral and intellectual constitution in 
  other respects remaining in a sound state. With a mind apparently in full 
  possession of his reason, the patient commits a crime, without any 
  extraordinary temptation, and with every inducement to refrain from it, he 
  appears to act without a motive, or in opposition to one, with the most 
  perfect consciousness of the impropriety, of his conduct, and yet he pursues 
  perseveringly his mad course. This disease of the mind manifests itself in a 
  variety of ways, among which may be mentioned the following: 1. An 
  irresistible propensity to steal. 2. An inordinate propensity to lying. 3. A 
  morbid activity of the sexual propensity. Vide Erotic Mania. 4. A morbid 
  propensity to commit arson. 5. A morbid activity of the propensity to 
  destroy. Ray, Med. Jur. ch. 7. 
       8.-Sec. 2. In general, persons laboring under mania are not 
  responsible nor bound for their acts like other persons, either in their 
  contracts or for their crimes, and their wills or testaments are voidable. 
  Vide Insanity; Moral Insanity. 2 Phillim. Eccl. R. 69; 1 Hagg. Cons: R. 414; 
  4 Pick. R. 32; 3 Addams, R. 79; 1 Litt. R. 371.