The Vancouver independent. (Vancouver, W.T. [Wash.]) 1875-1910, 1876-12-23
Two Personalities in ono per.ou

tients living double lives: eases in
which there Is Il periodical loss of one
phase of mental life and the assumption
or resumption of another very differ
cnt one For example. an hNstorical
subject will have fit. and on coming
out of it will be found to have lost all
memory of the past The mental fac
ultics remain unmpaired. hut as far as
knowledge goes the patients mind Is
/ that of an infant With more or less
delay she will learn to talk. and to
read and work. practically beginning
life again at the beginning. and some
/ times develop ing character quite I'M
like her first one. The physical basis
appears to he the Same. but the person
ality is entirely different. with differ
cnt temperament. different tastes and
So on.
Matters will continue after this fash
ion for an indefinite period, and then
the patient will 90 into another fit. and
emerging Just as she was originally.
All the life she has lived since the first
lit is suddenly wiped ont. She can romcm
her none of 1t: for the time her second
/ life. and II may have lasted for wears
is annihilatcd. and the current of her
original life flows on as sercnclv rs II IT
| had never been hrokcn-until another
fit sets her back to the end of her see
on1 life, which she takes up again i'll
utter unconsciousness of u break IN it
And So hercNistcncc altcrnatcs between
two lives entirely distinct and indercn-
dent of each other save that the same
body serves for both.
I',,nn,l,- uu,h o1tnrnntiopo ni .,n-
seriousness were explained by spiritual or
dcmoniac possession. The body was sup
posed to be tenanted by two indepcn-
dent spirits: or the patients soul was
from time To time oustcd 10y some other
maligant or benevolent soul. rs the
temper might indicate. In our more
scientific and materalistic days. tn"
spiritual hypothesis has few retainors:
/ the phenomena in question beng much
more satisfactorily cXplanahle by sup
posing that the patients mental life has
been carried ON wholly or chiefly 10y
one side of her double brain. and that
when the action of that side is arrested
/ hv disease, the unused side takes up
| the intellectual function and continues
until another paroXysm shifts the re-
sponsbility to the first used side. So
the two lives alternate with the alternat
ing functional activity of the two brains:
the reason that such lives are always
double and never triple or manifold ly
7 ing in the fact that we have only two
independent brain lobcs and no more
The latest case reported of this sort
is exceedingly interesting. and peculiar
in that there is u loss of continuity III
the life only when the state recurs i'll
which the patients life began. The
case is reported at length in the Rcr"e
.ScieuhfYue. bv Professor Azam. Of Bor-
dcaux, where the patient lives. The
patient is married woman, now about
thirty four years old. and has been liv-
ing Il double life since she was fourteen
years old. For brevity. we will call
her first state of consciousness and its
rcpctitions. A. and the second state and
rcpctitions, b.
At first u came on at interval" of
days. and lasted for n few hours only.
Twice it was absent for three years Mt II
time. from the age of IL to 2Ol :. and
again from ~ to y. Lattcrly she lived
the life of i most of the time. "A rccur-
ring at intervals of two or three months,
and remaining but for few hours
Formerly the transition occurred dur
ing some minutes of unconscious sleep
following violent pain in the temples;
now il is almost instantaneous. In a,
the patient has always been quicsccnt
and somewhat morosc in disposition; in
Il, she has always been bright, gay and
aflectionate. In a she has no memory
of events which happen in i; but in u
she has n full recollection of her life in
both statcs-a remarkable popularity
in her case, as already observed. In u.
her distress. on discovering that there
have been blanks in her conscious cX-
pcricncc. is extreme; but the practical
Inconvenience of such loss of memory,
formercly great, has become less with
the prcdominancc of i. On rare occl-
sions of passing out of y, the patient
suffers brief period of agitation and
extreme terror, during which her knowl-
edge is somewhat disordcrcd; at other
times there is no apparent dcrangmcnt
except such as commonly appears III by
stcrical patients.
In her passage from i to 4 PRO
lessor Azam remarks). she does not
emerge from u dream for Il dream, how
ever incohercnt is always something.
She energies from nothing. The time
elapsed may he an hour, or 1t may he
months, it is all the same to her; an on
tire section of her conscious lie has
dropped ont. TO compare her exis-
tence to u book from which some pages
have been torn is not enough. An IN
telligcnt reader might fill the blank,
but she can have absolutely no notion