Medical Aspects of Violence

Physicians see violence in beaten wives, battered children, rage reactions, murder, and suicide. They should recognize that it may be a symptom of disease if it is unprovoked or bizarre, or is associated with impaired consciousness, confusion or irrationality. Violence in episodic trance-like states suggests limbic disease (temporal lobe lesions, psychomotor epilepsy, or “dyscontrol syndrome”); in association with personality change, dementia, or psychosis, it indicates cortical disease (structural, toxic, or idiopathic).