Jasper County Democrat, Volume 1, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 September 1898 — SHE POSSESSES TWO MINDS. [ARTICLE]

SHE POSSESSES TWO MINDS.

Their Coexistence in • Girl Shown by a Physician's Experiment*. Among the patients of the Binghamton state hospital is a pretty girl, 13 years old, who, when brought there several months ago, was suffering from acute hysteria. Dr. William A. White, of the hospital staff, has been performing some reiparkable experiments with the girl, demonstrating the dual condition of her mind and the existence of a sub-conscious mental state. When the girl first arrived at the hospital she could not see out of the left eye. Dr. White has proved that this eye does not. see, although the girl is unconscious of the fact. The patient while in one mental state knows nothing of what happens while in the other. The doctor experimented with her before a meeting of the Broome County Medical society. The first experiment was to prove that the conscious mental state acts upon the sub-conscious state. A second experiment proved the reverse. A third showed the two divisions of the brain acting simultaneously yet independently of each other. Dr. White had the girl close her right eye. He held two fingers at an angle from her left eye. “Do you see my hand?” he asked. “No,” was the reply. “How many fingers am I holding up?” “Two, but I can’t see them,” was the correct answer. Under the doctor’s treatment the left retina, which has heen closed, is rapidly enlarging, and the child will soon be able to use the defective eye fully. Next the patient was blindfolded and asked to think intently on some names. Dr. White slipped a pencil and paper into her hand, which was resting on the table. After a moment the pencil began to write. The pencil and paper were removed and the bandages were taken from the girl’s eyes. She was asked what she had written, but said she had written nothing. She did not know that a pencil had been In her hand nor that her hand was moved. She admitted that the name on the paper was the one she had been thinking of. No hypnotism was used in the experiment. The other physicians engaged the girl in conversation, and she readily answered their questions. While she was thus talking with the others Dr. White, questioning the sub-conscious side, asked her to write something, and instantly a sentence learned a few minutes before was written with the senseless hand, but all the while she was talking with the others. She was questioned, but had no knowledge of what she had written. Dr. White says the girl is rapidly improving from her mental disorder for which she is confined in the hospital.— Baltimore Sun.