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Hey, history lovers.

I'm Mike Rosenwald with Retropod, a show about the past, Rediscovered.

I'm going to start this episode about insanity by talking about pregnancy.

So there's this old line, right, about pregnancy.

You know, you're either pregnant or you aren't.

Not a little pregnant, not a lot pregnant, pregnant.

Okay, so what about insanity? Can you be a little pregnant, not a lot pregnant, pregnant. Okay, so what about insanity?

Can you be a little insane?

Or what about this?

Could you be temporarily insane?

Like, insane for a little bit, then back to normal.

Here's what I'm getting at.

If you pay attention to criminal trials, you're probably familiar with the notion of insanity.

It's the defense that the defendant can't be held responsible for his or her actions because

he or she is mentally ill.

But you might be less familiar with the notion of temporary insanity.

That's when a lawyer argues that a defendant was insane at the time of the crime,

but regained sanity afterwards. Strange, right? But just how such a thing as temporary insanity came

about might be even stranger than the concept itself. It all started in Washington, D.C., when a congressman's wife cheated on him.

...