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they compel her to go where they choose: they told her some months back to come to Paris in order to obtain the best advice. She resisted for some time, because she thought the journey useless; at length she came to M. Fouquier, who recommended blistering, &c.-remedies, she said, which could only do her harm, for what she required were warm and cold baths, and particularly pure Bordeaux wine. Yesterday the voices told her to go to Bercy to get it, and when she reached this locality, the voices immediately declared the wine was good for nothing.

The voices had persuaded her to take a bath, promising to be quiet; but she had scarcely entered when they made such a horrible disturbance that she could not remain in it. The voices are unwilling she should talk, they have therefore confused her ideas, and she cannot express herself clearly. In fact, she splutters, repeats the same words, and has to think of what she wishes to say; at the same time she is conscious of her condition. In order to counteract the influence of the voices, she looks directly at the persons she is addressing, that they may understand from her eyes what she cannot express clearly.

She perceives that the voices make her do most unreasonable things; she wishes to oppose them, but is unable, and is compelled to obey them, for they possess an irresistible influence.

This lady, who was recommended to us by M. Fouquier, wishes to enter our establishment that she may be watched, and her body examined after her death. She says she knows it contains air; her brain also is filled with it. For fifteen years her spinal cord has been dried up and destroyed. After speaking like this, she will add, "I know this is a real monomania, but the voices are stronger than my will. I am convinced it will all end badly. I am truly desirous of submitting to treatment, but it is impossible for me to remain in one place."

What curious reflections arise from the consideration of this extraordinary case. First, there is the derangement of all the

senses, and then there is the derangement of the individual herself; the struggle of the intellect against the revolted senses; a momentary consciousness of the illusion, followed immediately by their triumph over the reason; and, lastly, the entire subjection of the will, struggling in vain against the power which governs it. It is a subject worthy of the deepest consideration of the philosopher. The woman knows she is the dupe of her senses, the sport of chimeras, yet she cannot escape from their influence. She has been deceived a hundred times, and feels it always will be so; yet, in spite of this, she does whatever the voices command her. There is one psychological fact, which will not escape the notice of the observer, and that is, the fresh manifestation of a double principle-a duality, by means of which this invalid, overwhelmed by jibes and jokes, by menaces and horrible suggestions, and ready to give way to despair, suddenly finds herself supported by words of kindness and encouragement. One might say there were two spirits one evil, one good, each drawing her towards itself. For ten years, during which this pathological condition has lasted, the invalid still continued to direct her own affairs, attend to the management of her property, and fulfill all her duties to society; yet for six years these false sensations have never left her a moment's repose. There is no change in her habits, only she feels intuitively that her reason will ultimately desert her, and she seeks, in advice which she cannot follow, some mitigation of her sufferings.

The case of this lady is equally interesting in a medico-legal point of view. Thus the hallucination which possessed her, and whose unreal nature she generally recognized, but which, nevertheless, she was compelled to obey, led her to undertake long journeys, and to perform other useless actions. It frequently suggested the idea of suicide, and might easily have filled her mind with other ideas, which she must equally have obeyed in spite of herself. This is an entirely new feature in the psychological history of man, and is the key to a number of singular and unac

countable acts, which cannot be explained, either by the character, the manners, or the habits of the individual. The longer one has been in practice, the more one feels convinced that there are in the world a number of insane persons, who, from various causes, have never sought the assistance of a medical man, and whose insanity has not been noticed by those with whom he associates. Such persons are quarrelsome, engage in duels, injure, beat, and assassinate their fellow-men, or destroy themselves in obedience to voices, commands, and impulses which they find it impossible to resist.

Amongst many cases of this kind that I have collected, the following presents several points of interest:

Example 32. A man, who was supposed to be rich, resided by himself in his own house; but his style of living was not in accordance with his circumstances: he neglected his person; he was parsimonious in his food; and no one was permitted to enter his house. Rumors arose that his resources were exhausted, and that his house was heavily mortgaged. Ultimately, the latter was sold. The cause of his ruin remained a mystery.

The circumstance had been forgotten, when one morning the unhappy man, pale and haggard, presented himself before the owner of the house. "Sir," he said, "the gold I possessed, the fortune I have lost, I know where they are; a voice forewarned me that a calamity would happen which would deprive me of everything, and reduce me to want, and that to avoid this misfortune I must hide my riches I followed this advice: property, furniture, house, all were converted into gold, and this gold I hid in a place unknown to any one. After this the voice ceased to make itself heard. My head became bewildered, and my ideas were confused, only from time to time I had an imperfect glimmering of the truth, until this morning, when the voice again became audible, and said to me, 'You have forgotten where your gold is, and no one knows. I am about to tell you. According to

my advice, you threw it into the well.' Sir, I entreat you, let it be searched-all my wealth is there." The gentleman endeavored to console the man, and promised him that his wishes should be attended to, but that such an investigation would necessarily occupy some time. He left, and after some days returned to know the result of the search. They told him they had found nothing! He groaned, and uttered some incoherent words. In a few days madness set in, and banished his vain regrets.

The question naturally arises, ought such a person to be allowed his liberty, and permitted to make a will? The answer cannot be quite conclusive; but, provided his conduct is correct, that he does not hate his friends without any just cause, and that he is prudent in managing his affairs, we see no valid reason for taking away his civil rights.

CHAPTER IV.

HALLUCINATIONS IN RELATION TO ILLUSIONS.

NOTHING is more common amongst the insane, and especially amongst maniacs, than to mistake one person for another, or an object for something different to what it is. Such mistakes are perpetually occurring; and thus the transformation of the windmills into giants, in the history of Don Quixotte, is an idea which will belong to all ages. These errors of the senses occur in persons of the soundest intellect as well as in the insane; but, in the former, the false ideas are corrected by the experience and the judgment. It was the existence of illusions which, in the eighteenth century, established in the different schools of philosophy the doctrine that the senses deceived us, and could give us no reliable information.

Yet a little reflection will satisfy us that the senses do report correctly concerning the objects which affect them. Their duty is to inform us if there exists in such a body, or in such an agent, a property or properties which produce in us such and such a sensation; but it is not their province to make us acquainted with the nature of this cause or quality. Thus, the special objects of the sense of sight are space and color. When we judge of the distance and form of an object, we simply make a conjecture, which no more depends upon the evidence afforded by the sense of sight, than the opinion which we form of the nature and the distance of a sonorous body does upon the evidence of the ear from the vibrations which reach it. So that, correctly speaking, the senses never deceive us, but we deceive ourselves by the judgments which we form upon the true evidence of the senses.

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