On certain conditions of nervous derangement : somnambulism--hypnotism--hysteria--hysteriod affections, etc.

Front matter

jj.Jf *

Open Knowledge Commons and Harvard Medical School

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

Preface

A book,* published in 1876, having for the last two years been out of print, I have taken the opportunity afforded by the demand for a new edition — which would long ago have been complied with but for the stress of other engagements — to thoroughly revise the work, and while adding largely to the subjects now considered, to make it more homogeneous by omitting everything specially relating to spiritualism.

The interesting conditions of which the present volume treats are being very attentively studied both in this country and in Europe, and ought to be brought to the knowledge of the general reader. They are the fields upon which the miracle-worker expends his most energetic labor, for he knows something of the forms under which they are manifested, and he also knows that by making adroit use of them he can deceive thousands of innocent but ignorant people to his own advantage, and that of any system which requires miracles for its establishment or aggrandizement.

As a knowledge of the conditions in question becomes more diffused, the ability to work miracles will be correspondingly diminished, and in the hope of contributing to these ends this little book is written.

New York, yan. 1, 1881.

* " Spiritualism and Other Causes and Conditions of Nervous Derangement." New York, G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1876.

Contents

I. Certain Conditions of Nervous Derangement ...... i

II. Some Phases of Hysteria . . .38

III. Another Phase of Hysteria — Fasting Girls. 83

Chapter I. Somnambulism Natural And Artificial

IN the condition known as somnambulism there appears to be a more or less perfect state of automatism, which is the governing power of the individual. Certain faculties and senses are intensely exalted, while others are as completely suspended in action. If the attention can be concentrated upon any particular idea, circumstance or object, great lucidity is manifested. On the other hand, there may be, and generally is, the most profound abstraction of mind in regard to all other ideas and things.

The most thorough work on natural somnambulism is that of Bertrand,* published over fifty years ago, but which is still admirable for the truthful account of the various phenomena attendant upon the condition in question. Bertrand assigns somnambulism to four causes : —

i. A particular nervous temperament, which predisposes individuals otherwise in good health to paroxysms of somnambulism during their ordinary sleep.

2. It is sometimes produced in the course of certain diseases, of which it may be considered a symptom or a crisis.

3. It is often seen in the course of the proceeding necessary to bring on the condition known as animal magnetism.

4. It may result as a consequence of a high degree of mental exaltation. It is in this state contagious by imitation to such persons as are submitted to the same influence.

From these four categories of causes, Bertrand distinguishes four kinds of somnambulism — the natural, the symptomatic, the artificial, and the ecstatic. Under the artificial variety we must include Mr. Braid's hypnotism. In general terms, therefore, there are two kinds of somnambulism, the natural and the artificial. As an instance of the former condition, the following case is adduced from a recent monograph of the writer : *

" A young lady of great personal attractions had the misfortune to lose her mother by death from cholera. Several other members of the family suffered from the disease, she alone escaping, though almost worn out with fatigue, excitement, and grief. A year after these events her father removed from the West to New York, bringing her with him and putting her at the head of his household. She had not been long in New York before she became affected with symptoms resembling those met with in chorea. The muscles of the face were in almost constant action ; and though she had not altogether lost the power to control them by her will, it was difficult at times for her to do so. She soon began to talk in her sleep, and finally was found one night by her father, as he came home, endeavoring to open the street door. She was then, as he said, sound asleep, and had to be violently shaken to be aroused. After this she made the attempt every night to get * " Sleep and its Derangements," p. 205. Philadelphia, 1869.

NATURAL SOMNAMBULISM. 3

out of bed, but was generally prevented by a nurse who slept in the same room with her, and who was awakened by the noise she made. Her father now consulted me in regard to the case, and invited me to the house in order to witness the somnambulic acts for myself. One night, therefore, I went to his residence, and waited for the expected manifestations. The nurse had received orders not to interfere with her charge on this occasion, unless it was evident that injury would result, and to notify us of the beginning of the performance.

" About twelve o'clock she came down stairs and informed us that the young lady had risen from her bed and was about to dress herself. I went up-stairs, accompanied by her father, and met her in the upper hall partly dressed. She was walking very slowly and deliberately, her head elevated, her eyes open, and her hands hanging loosely by her side. We stood aside to let her pass. Without noticing us, she descended the stairs to the parlor, we following her. Taking a match which she had brought with her from her own room, she rubbed it several times on the under side of the mantel-piece until it caught fire, and then, turning on the gas, lit it. She next threw herself into an arm-chair and looked fixedly at a portrait of her mother which hung over the mantel-piece. While she was in this position I carefully examined her countenance, and performed several experiments, with the view of ascertaining the condition of the senses as to activity.

" She was very pale, more so than was natural to her ; her eyes were wide open, and did not wink when the hand was brought suddenly in close proximity to them ; the muscles of the face, which, when she was awake, were almost constantly in action, were now perfectly still; her pulse was regular in rhythm and force, and beat eighty-two per minute, and the respiiation was uniform and slow.

* I held a large book between her eyes and the picture she was apparently looking at, so that she could not see it. She nevertheless continued to gaze in the same direction as if no obstacle were interposed. I then made several motions as if about to strike her in the face. She made no attempt to ward off the blows, nor did she give the slightest sign that she saw my actions. I touched the corner of each eye with a leadpencil I had in my hand, but even this did not make her close her eyelids. I was entirely satisfied that she did not see, at least with her eyes.

"I held a lighted sulphur-match under her nose, so that she could not avoid inhaling the sulphurous acid gas which escaped. She gave no evidence of feeling any irritation. Cologne-water and other perfumes and smelling-salts likewise failed to make any obvious impression on her olfactory nerves.

" Through her partially-opened mouth I introduced a piece of bread soaked in lemon-juice. She evidently failed to perceive the sour taste. Another piece of bread saturated with a solution of quinine was equally ineffectual. The two pieces remained in her mouth a full minute and were then chewed and swallowed.

" She now arose from her chair and began to pace the room in an agitated manner ; she wrung her hands, sobbed, and wept violently. While she was acting in this way, I struck two books together several times so as to make loud noises close to her ears. This failed to interrupt her.

" I then took her by the hand and led her back to the chair in which she had previously been sitting. She made no

NATURAL SOMNAMBULISM. 5

resistance, but sat down quietly and soon became perfectly calm.

u Scratching the back of her hand with a pin, pulling her hair, and pinching her face, appeared to excite no sensation.

" I then took off her slippers and tickled the soles of her feet. She at once drew them away, but no laughter was produced. As often as this experiment was repeated, the feet were drawn up. The spinal cord was therefore awake.

" She had now been down-stairs about twenty minutes. Desiring to awake her, I shook her by the shoulders quite violently for several seconds without success.

I then took her head between my hands and shook it. This proved effectual in a little while. She awoke suddenly, looked around her for an instant, as if endeavoring to comprehend her situation, and then burst into a fit of hysterical sobbing. When she recovered her equanimity she had no recollection of any thing that had passed, or of having had a dream of any kind."

This case illustrates very well some of the principal phenomena of natural somnambulism. Many others are on record which, in many respects, are more remarkable, but it is scarcely necessary to refer to them here at greater length, though a word or two in regard to Jane Rider, the Springfield somnambulist, will be both instructive and interesting.

When she began her manifestations Jane Rider was in her seventeenth year. She was intelligent, of mild and obliging disposition, and had the confidence and esteem of those who knew her. Her education was superior to that of persons occupying her class in society, and she was particularly fond of poetry and of reading generally. She was of full habit and of prepossessing appearance, but was subject to headaches, and about three years previously was affected for several months with chorea. A small spot on the left side of her head had been tender from her earliest recollection, and the sensibility was much increased when she suffered from headache.

Dr. Belden,* from whose account I derive the foregoing and the following particulars, states that the first attack began on the night of June 24, 1832. When he saw her she was struggling to get out of bed, and complained at the same time of pain in the left side of the head. Her head was hot, the face flushed and her pulse much excited. An emetic was given her, and she vomited a large quantity of green currants ; after which she became quiet.

Nearly a month elapsed before she had another paroxysm. Then, after several attempts on the part of her friends to keep her in bed, it was determined to allow her to take her own course and to watch her movements. Having dressed herself she went down stairs and proceeded to make preparations for breakfast. She set the table, arranged the various articles with the utmost precision, went into a dark room and into a closet at the most remote corner, from which she took the coffee cups, placed them on a waiter, turned it sideways to pass through the doors, avoided all intervening obstacles, and deposited the whole safely on the table.

She then went into the pantry, the blinds of which were shut, and the door closed after her. She then skimmed the milk, poured the cream into one cup and the milk into another without spilling a drop. She then cut the bread, placed it reg-

* An account of Jane C. Rider, the Springfield Somnambulist. Springfield, 1834.

ARTIFICIAL SOMNAMBULISM. 7

ularly on the plate, and divided the slices in the middle. In fine, she went through the whole operation with as much precision as the cook in open day ; and this with her eyes closed and without any light except that from one lamp which was standing in the breakfast room to enable the family to observe her operations. During the whole time, she seemed to take no notice of those around her, unless they purposely stood in her way, or placed chairs or other obstacles before her, when she avoided them, with an expression of impatience at being thus disturbed.

She finally returned voluntarily to bed, and on finding the table arranged for breakfast when she made her appearance in the morning, inquired why she had been allowed to sleep while another performed her work. None of the transactions of the preceding night had left the slightest impression on her mind.

Then she had many more paroxysms similar in general character to that just described, and during which she was submitted by Dr. Belden and others to many experiments. Though it was found that her sense of sight was greatly increased in acuteness, she had no clairvoyance, properly so-called. It was ascertained, too, that though she had no recollection, when awake, of what she had done during a paroxysm, she remembered in one paroxysm the events of the preceding one. Finally she was sent to the hospital at Worcester, and there, under suitable treatment, her seizures became less frequent and finally disappeared altogether.

Now, it has long been known that somnambulism can be artificially induced. Even before the time of Mesmer there were occasional illustrations of this fact ; but Puysegur is entitled to the credit of being the first to systematize them and to practise the art of producing factitious somnambulism. He caused it by passes, and finally, it is claimed, by simple acts of the will. The Abbe Faria induced it by shouting, and Barberin by praying ! Other methods were also employed ; and, as its identity with mesmerism became generally recognized, it had ascribed to it the name of mesmeric or magnetic sleep.

No one has more thoroughly investigated the nature of artificial somnambulism than Mr. Braid,* who gives the following as his ordinary method of procedure :

" Take any bright object (I generally use my lancet-case) between the thumb and fore and middle fingers of the left hand, hold it from eight to fifteen inches from the eyes at such position above the forehead as may be necessary to produce the greatest possible strain upon the eyes and eyelids, and enable the patient to maintain a steady, fixed stare at the object. It will generally be found that the eyelids close with a vibratory motion, or become spasmodically closed. After ten or fifteen seconds have elapsed, by gently elevating the arms and legs, it will be found that the patient has a disposition to retain them in the situation in which they have been placed, if he is intensely affected. If this is not the case, desire him to retain the limbs in the extended position, and thus the pulse will speedily become greatly accelerated, and the limbs, in process of time, become quite rigid and involuntarily fixed. It will also be found that all the organs of special sense, excepting sight, including heat, and cold, and muscular motion or resistance, are at first prodigiously exalted, such as happens with regard to the primary effects of opium,

* " Neurypnology, or the Rationale of Nervous Sleep, considered in Relation with Animal Magnetism," etc. London, 1843.

HYPNOTISM. 9

wine, and spirits. After a certain point, however, this exaltation of function is followed by a state of depression far greater than the torpor of natural sleep. From the state of the most profound torpor of the organs of special sense and tonic rigidity of the muscles, they may at this stage instantly be restored to the opposite condition of extreme mobility and exalted sensibility, by directing a current of air against the organ or organs we wish to excite to action, or the muscles we wish to render limber, and which had been in this cataleptiform state. By mere repose the senses will speedily merge into the original condition again."

Mr. Braid gives examples of this artificial somnambulism or hypnotism, as he designates it, which show that its phenomena are identical with those of natural somnambulism, and that it covers much that is alleged to be due to animal magnetism and modern spiritualism. He found the same condition to be produced, though he left the room, if the subject followed his directions, so that there could be no suspicion that he acted through the medium of any force emanating from his body.

The persons who most readily come into the hypnotic condition are of the same class as those who were such favorable subjects for the odic force of Von Reichenbach, and who now make the best mediums. The writer has very carefully investigated this division of the subject, and has made many experiments in regard to it, which leave no doubt in his mind that the relation really exists. As an illustration of the character of the phenomena, the following case is adduced. He does not doubt that the thoughtful reader will at once see, that if such a person, as the one whose actions while in the i o SOMNAMB ULISM.

hypnotic state are described, should be disposed to deceive, or should be under the control of designing or ignorant individuals, she would not fail to be received by many as a medium of the first order.

A short time after writing the account of the young lady

■ whose case has just been quoted as an example of natural somnambulism, I was informed by her father that her affection, which had been cured by suitable medical treatment, had returned, owing, as he supposed, to excessive mental exertion, she having contracted a taste for philosophy, in the study of which she had indulged to a great extent.

Upon examination, I found that she not only had par-

i oxysms of natural somnambulism, but that she had acquired

\ the power of inducing the hypnotic state at will. Her process was to take up some one of the philosophical works she was in the habit of studying, select a paragraph which required

. intense thought or excited powerful emotion, read it, close the book, fix her eyes steadily, but not directing the foci so as to see any particular object, and then reflect deeply upon what she had read. From the revery thus occasioned, she graduually passed into the somnambulic condition. During this state it was said she answered questions correctly, read books held behind her, described scenes passing in distant places, and communicated messages from the dead. She therefore possessed, in every essential respect, the qualifications of either a clairvoyant or a spiritualistic medium, according to the peculiar tenets of belief held by the faithful.

In accordance with my request, she proceeded to put herself into the hypnotic state. With a volume of Plato in her hand, she read thus from the Apology of Socrates. Her

ARTIFICIAL SOMNAMBULISM. n

voice was calm and impressive, as though she felt every word she uttered :

" Moreover, we may hence conclude that there is great hope that death is a blessing. For to die is one of two things : for either the dead may be annihilated and have no sensation of any thing whatever, or, as it is said, there is a certain change and passage of the soul from one place to another. And if it is a privation of all sensation, as it were a sleep in which the sleeper has no dream, death would be a wonderful gain. For I think that if any one having selected a night in which he slept so soundly as not to have had a dream, and having compared this night with all the other nights and days of his life, should be required on consideration to say how many days and nights he had passed better and more pleasantly than this night throughout his life, I think that not only a private person, but even the great king himself, would find them easy to number in comparison with other days and nights. If, therefore, death is a thing of this kind, I say it is a gain ; for thus all futurity appears to be nothing more than one night."

As she reached the. close, her voice became inexpressibly sad, the book dropped from her hand, her eyes were fixed on vacancy, her hands lay quietly in her lap, her breath came irregularly, and tears were flowing down her cheeks. Her pulse, which before she began to read was eighty-four per minute, was now one hundred and eight. As her abstraction became more profound, it fell, till, when she was unconscious, three minutes after she ceased reading, it was only seventytwo.

To satisfy myself that she was completely hypnotized, I i2 SOMNAMBULISM.

held a bottle of strong aqua ammonia to her nostrils. She did not evirce the slightest degree of sensibility. Touching the eye with the finger — a test that a person practising deception could not have borne — equally failed to afford the least response indicative of sensation. I was, therefore, satisfied that she was in the condition of artificial somnambulism.

To describe in detail all that took place would lengthen unduly this account ; such parts, therefore, as are material, and which illustrate essential points, will alone be given.

The writer asked her if there were any spirits in the room.

" Yes."

" Whose spirits are they ? "

"The spirit of Socrates is here, the spirit of Plato, the spirit of Schleiermacher." (She had been reading before my arrival " Schleiermacher's Introductions to the Dialogues of Plato.")

" Do you not also see the spirit of Schenkelfiirst ? "

This was a ruse, there being no such person.

"Schenkelfiirst?" she asked.

"Yes; he was Schleiermacher's constant companion and friend."

" Schenkelfiirst," she repeated ; " what a singular name ! "

She was silent for a moment, and then her face was lit up with a smile, and she exclaimed :

" I see him ; he is a small, dark man, with sharp, piercing eyes ; he wears a coat trimmed with fur ; he approaches Schleiermacher; they embrace; they are talking to each other."

"Will not Schleiermacher send some message through you?"

ARTIFICIAL SOMNAMBULISM. 13

" No ; he has gone away with his friend."

" Will no other spirit communicate ? "

" Yes, there is one coming now ; a man with a mournful face ; his name is Bruno — Giordano Bruno. He speaks ; he says, 'O my friends, be of good cheer ; there is no end, even as there has been no beginning ; the weak-hearted fall from the ranks, and, for a time, are lost ; but, as there is a portion of the divinity in all God's creatures, even they are regenerated.' "

She stopped, and then in a low voice said, while tears streamed down her cheeks :

" Majori forsitan cum timore sententiam in mefertis quam ego accipiam " — the words used by Bruno when sentence of death was pronounced upon him. She had finished reading his life a few weeks before.

Desiring to change the current of her thoughts, and also to test her powers of prevision, she was asked who would be the first patient to enter the office of the writer that day week, and with what disease would he or she be affected ?

She answered promptly :

" A gentleman from Albany, I see him now ; he is thin, and pale, and very weak ; he is lame, I think he is paralyzed."

The first person in reality who entered the office on the day in question was a lady of New York, suffering from nervous headache.

She was then asked where her father was at that moment (4.10 p. m.). Her answer was : "At the corner of Wall Street and Broadway ; he is looking at the clock on Trinity Church ; he is waiting for a stage." During the hour between four o'clock and five her father was in Brooklyn.

A table with paper was now placed before her, a pencil put into her hand, and she was requested again to place herself en rapport with some spirit. She immediately began to write as follows : " Let all the world hear my voice and follow the precepts I inculcate. There are many fools and but few wise. I write for the former, and am probably a fool myself, for I constantly see a chasm yawning at my side ; and though my intellect tells me there is no chasm near me, I place a screen so that I cannot see it. Pascal." She had that very day been reading a memoir of Pascal, in which the hallucination referred to was mentioned.

The following conversation then took place : " Where are you now ? "

" In New York."

" No, you are in a vessel at sea ; there is a terrible storm j are you not afraid ? "

" Yes, I am very much frightened ; what shall I do ? Oh, save me, save me ! "

She wrung her hands, screamed with terror, rose from her chair and paced the room, apparently suffering intensely from fear. In the midst of her agitation she awoke, and it was not without difficulty that the impression she had received could be removed.

On a subsequent occasion her somnambulic powers of vision were tested by asking her to read the writing on a slip of paper ; to tell the time marked by a watch held to the back of her head ; to read a particular line from a closed book, etc. ; but, though she always made some answer, she was never once right. The senses of touch and of hearing were the only ones she appeared to be capable of exercising, and

ARTIFICIAL SOMNAMBULISM. 15

these were not in any degree exalted in their action. Conjoined with integrity of touch there was well-marked analgesia, or inability to feel pain. Thus, though able to tell the shape, texture, and consistence of objects placed in her hands, she experienced no sensation when a pin was thrust into the calf of her leg, or when a coal of fire was held in close proximity to any part of her body.

It will readily be preceived, therefore, that certain parts of her nervous system were in a state of inaction, -were in fact dormant, while others remained capable of receiving sensations and originating nervous influence. Her sleep was therefore incomplete. Images were formed, hallucinations entertained, and she was accordingly in these respects in a condition similar to that of a dreaming person ; for the images and hallucinations were either directly connected with thoughts she had previously had, or were immediately suggested to her through her sense of hearing. Some mental faculties were exercised, while others were quiescent. There was no correct judgment and no volition. Imagination, memory, the emotions, and the ability to be impressed by suggestions, were present in a high degree.

Now, the writer is satisfied, from a careful study of this lady's case, and of others similar to it in general character which have come under his observation, that the phenomena of hypnotism are not those of pure somnambulism, but that three other conditions are present in greater or less degree. These are hysteria, catalepsy, and ecstasy. To a brief consideration of some of the more important features of these abnormal states of the nervous system the attention of the reader will presently be invited.

That many of the phenomena exhibited by honest mediums are referable to the condition now under notice is not a matter for doubt ; and this view is rendered still stronger by a consideration of the fact that the hypnotic state can be readily induced in many species of animals. This has been known, with different interpretations of the cause and nature of the condition, for very many years, but for a revival of the knowledge, and for giving incentives to new lines of inquiry, we owe a debt to the students of animal magnetism or mesmerism.

In 1646, Kircher, a Jesuit priest, and like many others of his fraternity, fond of scientific investigations, published an account of an experiment performed by him and which he called " experimentum mirabile de imaginatione gallincz — a wonderful experiment showing the imagination of the hen.

He tied the hen's feet together with a cord, and then laid the animal on the ground, where, after struggling for a while, it lay perfectly quiet, as if despairing of escape, it had yielded to the superior will and power of its conqueror. Then with a piece of chalk Kircher drew two lines on the ground, one from each eye, and uniting at an acute angle a little in front of the head. He then loosened the band which fastened the legs together ; but the hen, though physically free to escape, remained still, and could scarcely be forced out of its posi tion.

So far, the facts ; now for the theory. Kircher attributes this very remarkable result to the strong imaginative powers, with which, in his opinion, hens are gifted ; for the animal seeing the chalk line, takes it for the string with which it had been fastened, and havinj acquired experience of the futility of all efforts to escape, and thinking itself still bound, remains perfectly quiet on the ground.

The late Prof. Czermak, a short time before his death, placed Kirch er's and similar experiments before the world in their true light ; and I therefore do not hesitate to cite his observations at some length.*

While on a visit to Bohemia, Czermak was informed, by a gentleman whose acquaintance he made, that he had not only seen crawfish magnetized, but had himself put these animals into the magnetic state, and that the matter was exceedingly simple.