insanity (in-san'it-e)

In medicine an obsolete term, belonging to the period of psychiatric science when all mental diseases were considered as one. Now preferably replaced by the word psychoses, and by the concept of definite and separable mental diseases. In law a loose and badly defined word meaning either lack of responsibility in the commitment of antisocial acts, inability to make contracts, inability to manage one's person or property, or inability to make a will, all by reason of some definite mental disease or psychosis. These several states of social adaptation are defined differently in different states and countries and are very ununiform. All the various forms of insanity have been discarded from psychiatry. See psychosis. The various terms affective, acquired, arthritic, compound, compulsive, confusional, consecutive, degenerative, doubting, hereditary, homicidal, etc., etc., are survivals of old usage and relics of a non-analytical stage of psychiatry. They are all abandoned in modern usage, alcoholic i. Chronic i. due to an alcoholic neurosis; especially characterized by hallucinations, delusions, and delirious exacerbations, traumatic i. I. referable to traumatism or analogous causes; characterized by perversity of character, with violent impulses, and a tendency to alcoholism. It finally results in dementia. inscription (in-scrip's hun). That part of a prescription which directs the drugs or preparations, together with the quantity or weight of each, to be used by the pharmacist in filling the prescription. [Lat., upon.] inscriptio, from inscribere, to write in's ect. The common name for any of the cla Insect a, of the phylum Arthropod a, such as flies, mosquitoes, and ticks. insectum.] [Lat., insecticide (in-sek'tis-id). Destructive to insects; as a n., a substance having that quality. [Lat., insectum, insect, -fcaedere, to kill.] insectifuge (in-sek'ti-fuj). A substance having the property of repelling insects. [Lat., insectum, insect, + fugare, to put to flight.] in's ect pow'der. The flowers of different species of Pyrethrum, often adulterated with the leaves and stem of the plant; used to destroy insects. Caucasian i. p. The flowers of Pyrethrum carneum and Pyrethrum roseum. Dalmatian i. p. The flowers of Pyrethrum cine rariae folium.