Rensselaer Union and Jasper Republican, Volume 8, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 June 1876 — HALLUCINATIONS. [ARTICLE]

HALLUCINATIONS.

It has been commonly supposed that hallucinations or illusions were necessarily, symptoms of mental or physical disease, or the results thereof. People talk and read of the illusions, or delusions, or hallucination, pr chimeras of the fever patient, x>r the monomaniac, of the lunatic, of the morbid ly-bloody criminal, or of the dying. But the fact is, strange almost and incredible as it may appear at first glance, that the well and the sane are subject to hallucinations. The worst and best men have their delu. sions. Men and women, who are neither invalids nor criminals, neither monomaniacs nor lunatics, men and woman who go about their everyday work, attending to their every-day affairs, are, and have been, subject to hallucinations, as wild, as grotesque, or as terrible as any patient in a fever ward or any inmate of a lunatic asylum. This truth, which has hitherto been comparatively unnoticed, was brought to the attention of the Mercury by a forcible illustration, which is herein recorded. A gentleman residing in West Twentieth street, near Sixth avenue, a professional man, doing a fair business, bearing a good character, and enjoying, according to his own doctor and his life insurance company’s physicians, excellent health and a sound constitution, confessed, under peculiar circumstances, recently, to the writer and in the presence Of his physician, Dr. Lockwood, that for years he had every spring, summer and fall, during warm weather, imagined himseltavictim to hydrophobia. He is perfectly aware that this is but an hallucination; but, nevertheless, he suffers terribly from it. Day after day for weeks together he will come home, "after business hours, fancying that lie is suffer ing all sorts of pains and horrors, such as he has heard of in cases of hydrophobia, though he has for years carefully avoided reading anything on this subject. When he reaches home he will dread to look at a glass of water; he will fear to draw water from the hydrant or from any of the closets in the house, lest he should be seized with that dfead of water characteristic of hydrophobia. He will suffer for hours before he will dare to attempt to quench his thirst by swallowing a liquid. Of course ultimately, by a strong effort of the will, this imaginary hydrophobiac will wash his hands and experience no real difficulty; he will'drink water or wine at last without any evil results. But the amount of suffering this perfectly sane and perfectly healthy gentleman under, goes from this hallucination has been something fearful to contemplate. Another case of hallucination existing in a state of comparative health and sanity has been discovered in the person of \ young lady of this city, of a lively tem-

pergment, and passionately fond of dancing and balls. Tins lady is unable to sleep more than about four hours a night, and when awake she says that all the people she meets, including the members of her family, appear to wear masks. In fact, she lives in a state of chronic-masked ball in every respect. Notwithsuuuiing her loss of one-third the normal quantity of sleep, the lady enjoys tine health, is not considered at all nervous, and her intellect is more than ordinarily clear and bright. It may be suggested that in this case the hallucination is associated with and arises from the habits of the individual. But this is merely a fact, not an explanation. The wonder lies in the hallucination lasting for many hours a day, and day after day, the lady knowing it to be an illusion all the while. There is no madness here, no disease, no nervousness. The lady will talk, or eat, or write, or walk or dress in a perfectly natural manner, though her mother, her servant, the people she meets in the streets, will all seem to be wearing masks. Another case is recorded in which a person perfectly sane would always sneak in a whisper, convinced that when so doing he was speaking in an ordinary tone, if any one bent down or came near him to catch‘what he had to say he would look in wonder, or construe it as an impertinence. This hallucination lasted for several months. A gentleman of high attainments in literature is, according to Dr. Robert T. Hulme*, constantly haunted by a specter, which, whenever he lies down, seems to attempt his life. The moment he assumes a -fitting posture the specter vanishes. It has nothing to do with night or soiuude, for he sees the specter at noon as at midnight—when with friends as when alone. All he has to do when he wants to summon the goblid is to lie down—and whenever he wants to get rid of the apparition all he has to do is to sit up. He is not a drinking man, nor nervous, nor dyspeptic ; on the contrary, he believes in “ muscular Christianity." This getting up a ghost to order seems to be solely caused by the position of the gentleman's head in’relation to the rest of the body. It frequently happens that, after having held the head down for some time, on raising it we feel giddy and bewHdered; we see bright lights before our eyes, experience a disagreeable sing-, ing in our ears. Id some Cases this position Iras given rise to hallucinations; A Case is recorded of a* servant girl who, whenever she washed the stairs, would see on lifting her bead a gigantic woman standing before her. Another case has been noted where, after having stooped two or.xliriie_timeS, a-gentleman would behold all.sorts of serpents and demons,, ■"foritl! the world," hesaid, "as if I fiad a fit of delirium tremens," though be did not drink a drop, borne hallucinations are under the control of the will, unaided

by any physical condition or act, and can be excited or dispelled at pleasure. A fearful fact in this connection is that an hallucination, though knowntobesuch by the person subject to it, may yet by iti power and its persistency produce so depressing an influence on the mind as to lead to suicide. A case is instanced by a writer on the subject—Dr. Wigan. I knew,” said Wigan, a very intelligent and amiable man who had the power of placing before his own eyes himself, and who often laughed at his double, "Who In turn would laugh at him. For some time this was a subject of amusement —a the ultimate result was terrible. He became gradually convinced that he was haunted by himself. The othersfclf would argue with hjm pertinaciously—and often, so he thought, get the best of him in an argument. At length, worn out by the annoyance, he deliberately resolved on the last night of the year not to enter in another He paid all his debts, or arranged for their payment, made his will, and then at the stroke of twelve at midnight blew his, brains out to escape from himself. Yet the man lived and died sane and in good bodily health.” A somewhat similar case is narrated in a physician’s diary. One of his acquaintances, a lawyer in good standing, became very melancholy and eccentric, and the doctor was sent for. After carefully examining the mental and physical condition of this gentleman, tbe physician was compelled to pronounce him perfectly healthy and sane, yet he was perfectly miserable. For a while the mystery remainea unsolved, till finally the lawyer confided to the doctor that hie was the victim of an hallucination. lie was a haunted man —had been a haunted man for years. At first his visiUnts had been pleasant people; then they subsided into a fop, who haunted him for six months; he was followed by a sort of usher, who always insisted on preceding him everywhere, and at last the usher gave place to a persistent skeleton—a huge skeleton whose presence never left him day or night, at his office, at his house, in the street, in the stages, at parties, or when alone the skeleton was ever with him. The haunted lawyer knew well enough that it was all a fancy—his mind was active and he had a large practice all this time and attended to it—yet he died of his hallucinations—fell into a decline, and died of being haunted. Many celebrated personages have been the voluntary or involuntary victims of hallucinations. In the full prime of their faculties they have cherished illusions cr delusions which have sometimes materially influenced their career and conduct; yet their perfect sanity has never been doubted. The classes denominated nervous people are generally regarded as more prone to become the victims of hallucinations or illusions than persons of a phlegmatic temperament. Yet, as has been shown, the latter class is subjeetto hallucinations. The illusions to which the nervous are prone are, however, more intense or more enduring, it would seem. A perfectly sane woman, a French lady <<' education, but very nervous, imagined herself for years to be possessed by devils. She exhibited no sign of madness, wrote and talked elegantly, attended to her household duties, ana never obtruded her hallucination upon those around her. Yet she as firmly believed herself for ten years to be possessed by devils who would ultimately lead her to destruction as she believed" that she was married or had children. It speaks well for her strength of mind, in tact, that, with such a horrible, belief, she did not go mad outright. She was finally cured by change of scene. She removed with her family to Scotland, and was never afterward haunted, her explanation being that the devils hate mountains, probably because they are so near the heavens, -

A young lady of high intelligence, in this city, confessed" to her mother that she was, sleeping or waking, attended by a handsome young man, who was all the time kissing her. “ Generally,” she said, “ I resist him, but sometimes he is so tender and looks so handsome tiiat I just suffer mvselt to be kissed.” The young lady described minutely the appearance anil d’ess of her ideal cavalier, and stated that .sometimes the illusion was so perfect that she had on several occcasions rushed from her room, determined to alarm her family and have 4he intruder expelled, but the consciousness that it was all but an illusion restrained her from so doing. A lady whose case is reported by Mr. Falret, said that her overskin always looked to her as if it was covered with scales. Another lady always felt that a snake was crawliyg along her person. Another female fancied that all the pieat she saw was fish. A fourth person, a man, was persuaded that he lost his stomach, yet he was eating all the time, fully expecting after each meal that some terrible intestinal difficulty or disease would arise within him. Hosts of similar illusions could be cited, in ordinarily intelligent and healthy persons. Sometimes hallucination seems to come from the over-sensitive sympathies of the individual. There is a lady in this city, delicate, yet not sickly, and very intelligent, who is so sympathetic that if a story is told her of an accident she will, to all intents and purposes, suffer all the agonies incident to that accident in her own person. If she is told of a limb being amputated it will be as though some one had amputated her limb. A pain described will cause her the hallucination of precisely the same pain. A most distressing case of illusion, truly. Not unfrequently some extraordinary hallucination will seize a person sufienng temporarily under some ordinary complaint. A cold in the head, simple as it.-is; hfiS'beemknown to" cause strange hallucinations. A case is recorded by M. Descuret, in point: An English clergyman was attacked with simple influenzaz He at once, and throughout the progress of his cold, imagined that he was tripled—that he was three in one.

He saw himself three times over, and sometimes he must have seen his three selves in very uncomfortable positions. When he was in bed, for instance, if he changed his side, then the other two clergymen would change their sides. They would turn with him at the same time, and finally place themselves over him, giving the poor clergyman the very uncomfortable idea that he was being smothered by himself. There is a remarkable species of hallucination which deserves more attention at the hands of scientific inquirers than it has yet received. These illusions are connected with a peculiar state of the individual, which may, for lack of a belter term, be named walking-som nambulism or a condition which occurs in the day time, when the individual is not sleeping, and yet in which the insensibility to external objects is almost as great and-as thorough as J.n spmnambulism. In this peculiar condition vision <>r hallucinations rise before the individual—he or she sees, hears, or fipels persons or |hings which have no real existence, whue at the same time he or she takes no heed of the things or persons which really do exist around them. Sometimes this strange condition or state will come suddenly. Sometimes it will ( be preceded by symptoms more or less connected with the nerves and head. + In this species of temporary trance or day-delirium a gentleman, who, in his ordinary state, was not at alb remarkable either for romance or for memory, has been heard to repeat correctly passages from Lalla Rpbkh. Another gentleman has been known to recollect the most mi hute details of incidents of his childhood; not one circumstance could he recollect in his normal Condition. *• A lady who could not sing in her completely conscious state has been heard in this semi-con-.

scious condition to sing divinely. Another Ims played the piano much better in this state than when fully herself; while a third lady who could not talk French in her ordinary condition Baa spoken the language fluently and correctly when under the extraordinary influence. Another woman, when' in this stale, has been known to be totally oblivious of the room in which she was, and the persons in it, but at the same time to be under tbe illusion that she was in a favorite field play-ing-wttli hCFpet-deg; and r -aUhough the field was fifty miles away, and the dog has been dead several veaip, her illusion to both were so vivid and so correct that she, as it were, absolutely brought both before tire eyes of her astonished auditors. And at this date there is connected with a Brooklyn evening paper a businessman, middle-aged, and the father of a large family, who, in his rare but regularly-occur-ring spells of day-delirium, forgets all real objects and fancies himself talking to an intimate friend, long dead, to whom he narrates everything and confides everything, even matters which he coftceals from his wife and business assoc infes. On recovering from these trances, he is perfectly unaware that he has said or done anything at ail extraordinary. Dr. Sayre, of Fifth avenue, was very free in enunciating two dicta which "he held to be indisputable; first, that the cases of absolute hallucination in persons really sane and sound are very, very rare, indeed—so much so, that in all his practice he only remembers three or four cases; second, that every physician of standing and experience does know at at least a few such ipstances. Dr. Sayre related two interesting cases. One example occurred in a very wealthy and influential family in this city a few years since. The wife and tnothei, a lady of more than ordinary intelligence, and perfectly sensible, who was a model parent and housekeeper, conceived the idea that she had a crocodile in her stomach. ( The idea became a fixed fact with her. She was certain that it was not an eel, not a snake, not a toad, but a crocodile. And she was also thoroughly assured that 4f she did not give it just what a crocodile needed to eat, the reptile would feed upon her intestines and destroy her. In other words, the unfortunate lady was forced to eat for two, for herself and for theerocodile, and, as luck would have it, the latter was much the more troublesome of the two, for the confounded thing would want nutriment at the most unreasonable hours, so that often the members of the family would be forced to get up in the middle of the night to feed the crocodile. This state of affairs went on till the lady’s life became a curse to herself and a nuisance to all about her. All this time she was well, had a good appetite and digestion, and was not nervous. Doctor after doctor was sent for and prescribed for the crocodile in vain. At last one of her physician# cured her of her hallucination by removing it. He sent for a young crocodile to Florida, and when it ar~ rived he gave the lady an emetic, and then assured her that she had vomited the crocodile. “There,” said the lady, looking at the little reptile who was’ floundering aroundthere, doctor, you see I was right. The other doctors did not understand my case; 1 knew it all the time; I feci al 1 right now.” And she did. The crocodile idea never haunted her again. Another case of hallucination, narrated by Dr. Sayre, was that a prominent Jewish lady of this city, who took it into her head that she could not swallow. “ Something was tbe matter with her throat,” she said. This imaginary something grew worse and worse, till finally the lauy was really unable, so great is the force of the imagination, to take anything into her system but milk. At last even the milk proved too strong for her, and it had to be “watered,” although one would have thought that the milkman would have spared her that trouble. Meanwhile, although the lady was sound and sane and well.vshe bad become a ikeleton by sheer imagination.

“She was wasted literally to skin and bone. She was really at death’s door. But her doctor was a match even for her hallucination. He ordered the lady to take a “powerful, very powerful medicine in liquid form,” so he called it, and three times a day. After each taking of this diquid she would feel certain twitches, etc., in various parts of the body, and directly after these twitches, etc., she must try to eat, at all hazards, and each day she would be. able to eat a little more. She took the medicine, felt all the twitches, tried to eat. and found that she was enabled to eat a little more each day, till finally she recovered her normal condition of throat. Now this “ powerful, very powerful medicine in liquid form" was water, real water, nothing but water, and all the twitches, aye, and all the cure, were just as imaginary yet just as genuine as the original hallucination. Prof. Rappoel, of the University,residing in West Ninth street, was called upon by the writer. The Professor stated that he had met with many cases of hallucination in his practice. One gentleman, who had no disease of the kidneys whatever, insisted that he was dying with it, and insisted also that tiie disease had been caused by eating peaches. Another gentleman, a wellknown broker, had an hallucination every j night that he was buying and selling stocks at the Exchange, although he was wide awake and ir. hist, own house. Another sound and sane gentleman believed that he had glass legs. The Professor holds that sane men are more liable so b<illw»in<»tjnnq than women, because their brain is more constantly i‘Y,-_ ercised. Dr. Hammond believes that sane men are liable to hallucinations, just as a machine is liable to be misdirected or to work imperfectly, even when it is not broken. In fact, all our leading medical men seem to be agreed that hallucination is not an unfailing sign of mental disorder, but that it may and does exist occasionally in the sane and sound.—AT. I’. Mercury.

The Maharajah of Puttiala died recently. He had suffered from liver complaint, and while shooting had an epileptic fit. He was taken home insensible, and soon died. The Maharajah was among the most-important Sikh chiefs, and the same chief whose splendid jewels attracted such attention during the Prince of Wales’ visit. His eldest son, aged five, succeeds him. During his minority the administration will probably be a Council of Regency, with the present Prime Minister as Presiaent. Some Englisn hounds recently killed a fox which was found to have two separate and distinct feet growing from the knee. Oh one foot there were as usual four toes or claws, while on the other foot there were five. While running, he neither exhibited any Signs of lamtiness nor less speed than foxe*ordinarily. The discovery of the mutilated remains' of the body of a little girl named Emily Holland, who was murdered recently in Blackburn. England, by one William Fish, a barber, was made through the aurcncy of bloodhounds, who directed the police to the chimney of a bedroom, wherein they were concealed. A new industry lias been brought to TigliLin Newark, X. J. A roan was arrested there recently for stealing the step-ping-stones from in front of houses and selling them to persons with whom I lie had previously made contracts. ; The first peaches of the season were sold in New York the other dgy ffer sev-irnty-five cents apiece. r? /