may be very seriously ill mentally and
urgently require hospital treatment, without, however, showing those
gross disorders of conduct which go to make up the legal evidence and
diagnosis of insanity. Neither do they seem to recognize the possibility
of a seriously unbalanced individual making quite a normal impression,
at any rate before a jury of laymen at the time of his appearance in
Court. Nowhere in psychiatry is this so apt to be the case as in that
form of mental disease known as paranoia, where we are dealing with a
diseased personality which in many respects still approaches and
resembles normal man.

The paranoiac, while he may harbor the most intricate and well-organized
system of delusions, still remains approachable to us, and
intellectually may be not only on a par with the average normal
individual, but not infrequently gives the impression of being his
superior. Nevertheless, this usually well-endowed human being at a
certain point in his career goes off at a tangent and spends the rest of
his life in the pursuit of a phantom. The paranoiac, starting out with
vague, ill-defined ideas, succeeds in elaborating, step by step, a
well-organized system of thought, of ideas which finally assume an all
importance in the conduct of his life and remain unshakable.

Kraepelin[2] defines this condition as a mental disorder which is
essentially characterized by a gradual and systematic evolution of a
well-organized and intricate system of persecutory and grandiose
delusions. It is chronic and incurable in its course and does not lead
to any appreciable deterioration in the intellectual sphere. The
litigious form of this disorder is particularly characterized by a
persistent and unyielding tendency toward litigious pursuits. It is for
this reason that this form of paranoia is of particular interest
forensically. The law is the tool with which these individuals work, and
the Courts their battle-grounds. The least provocation suffices to start
the stone rolling, launching the unfortunate upon a career of endless
litigation. As a rule the disorder originates in connection with some
adverse decision or order of the authorities, which the patient
considers an unjust one. Whether injustice has actually been suffered by
the patient matters not and remains absolutely of no consequence as far
as the course of the disease is concerned. The paranoiac litigant is
unable to see the law as others see it, and in this respect he do