_Originality._--Disease often develops (as we have already seen in the case of insane authors) an originality of invention which may also be observed in mattoids, because their imagination, freed from all restraint, allows of creations from which a more calculating mind would shrink, for fear of absurdity, and because intensity of conviction supports and perfects the work. At Pesaro there was a woman who drew, or embroidered, by a method peculiar to herself, unravelling cloth, and fastening the threads on paper by means of saliva. Another embroideress, formerly given to drink, executed butterflies which seemed to be alive. She had applied to white embroidery the methods of coloured work, and was able to produce marvellous effects of light and shade. At Macerata a patient, with a number of pipe-stems, constructed a model of the front of the asylum; another had the idea of representing a song in sculpture. At Genoa, a dementia patient carved pipes out of coal. One Zanini, at Reggio, constructed a boot which was unique of its kind, so that, as he said, no one else should be able to put it on. This exceptional foot-gear was open on one side, and tied up with string, its edges were ornamental, and worked with hieroglyphics. M. L---- of Pesaro was constantly making requests to leave the asylum. When told that there was no means of transporting him to his home, he set about constructing one for himself. This was a four-wheeled cart, with an upright pole, at the top of which was a pulley with a rope running through it. One end of the rope was fastened to the axle of the fore-wheels, the other to that of the hind-wheels. An elastic cord was attached to the rope for a distance of four or five centimetres, and by pulling this, first at one end and then at the other, a person standing on the cart was able to make the wheels go round.[318] In many arabesques drawn by a megalomaniac, one can trace, carefully hidden among the curves, sometimes a ship, sometimes an animal, a human head, or a railway train, or even landscapes and towns; though the essential character of arabesques is the absence of the human figure. The best asylums of Italy have sent to the exhibitions of Siena and Voghera, models in relief of their respective buildings, admirably executed by some of the patients. That of the asylum at Reggio could be taken to pieces, and showed the inside arrangements, staircases, rooms, with their furniture, &c., all carefully finished. Even the trees, I am told, were copied accurately from nature. A canon, who had no technical knowledge of architecture, began, after an attack of melancholia, to construct with cardboard and papier-mâché, models of temples and amphitheatres, which excited great admiration.