Note 492 — OF IDIOTS AND LUNATICS.

This term is recognised by the 4th Geo. 2, c. 10. Carew v. Johnson, 2 Sch. and Lef. 304, and Sir Ed. Coke says it is the most legal name, 1 Inst. 246: “Here Littleton explaineth a man of no sound memory to be non compos mentis. Many times (as it here appeareth) the Latin word explaineth the true sense; and calleth him not amens, demens, furiosus, lunaticus, fatuus, stultus, or the like, for non compos mentis is most sure and legal.” Lord Coke says, “Non compos mentis is of four sorts: first Idiota, which from his nativity, by a perpetual infirmity, is non compos mentis; secondly, he that by sickness, grief, or other accident, wholly loses his memory and understanding; thirdly, a lunatic that has sometimes his understanding and sometimes not, “aliquando gaudet lucis intervallis;” and therefore he is called non compos mentis, so long as he hath not understanding.”