Little Falls transcript. [volume] (Little Falls, Morrison County, Minn.) 1876-1894, 1878-11-28
AUTHORIZATIONS.
Two Somewhat Remarkable Cases Of
= ! III Selfdelusion. Is E7ST
From the Fortnightly Review.

From the Fortnightly Review.
There are great many persons in the
world who, suffering under some form or
other of nervous disorder, habitual:y see
figures or face s, hear threatening: or in
sulting voices, even feel blows and taste
poisons, which have no existence outside
their own minds; and neither argument
or demonstration of the imposibilitv of
what they allege. they perceive will shake
their convictions in the least. s'You as.
sure me-" they will say, ''thatI am mis-
taken, that there are no such persons as
I see, no such voices as ] hear; but I
protest to you that I see and hear them
rs distinctly as see and hear you at this
moment, and that they are just as real to
me-" What are we to reply7 I have re-
piled sometimes, "that as you are alone
on one side in our opinion, and all the
world is on the other side, I must needs
think either that you are an extraordi-
nary genius, far in advance Of the rest of
the world, or that you are, q mailman a
long way behind it; and as I don't think
you to be genius, am bound; to- con-
clude that your senses are disordered." But
the argument does not produce the least
effect. Let me give an example or two
of the character Of those hallucinations
and Of their persistence in minds that
might be thought sane enough to correct
them. The first shall be that IF an old
gentleman who was much distressed be-
cause of an extremely offensive smell
which he imagined to proceed from all
parts of his body. There was not the least
ground, in fact, for: this imagination: He
was scrupulously clean in person, ex.
| tremely courteous in manner, thoroughly
rational in his conversation on every 9th
er subject, shrewd and clever man oil
business; no one talking with him would
tor moment have suspected him of en-
PERTAINING such extraordinary fancies.
Nevertheless, his life was made miserable
by them, he would not go into society,
but took solitary rambles in the country,
| where he might meet as few persons as
possible; in his own house he slept for
the first part of the night on the ground
floor. mounting up higher at later period
of the night, and this he did to prevent
the bad odors from becoming too con
centrated in one room. He believed that
the people in the next house were irrita-
ted and offended by the carnations, for
he often heard them moving about and
coughing; and when he passed cab
stand in the street he noticed that even
the horses became restless and fidgeted
He used to hang his clothes out of the
window at night that they mi ght get
pure, unit his housekeeper put stop 'tc
the practice by telling. him that the ex.
hibition of them would excite the notice
and comment of his neighbors
All the while he was conducting
his business with propriety and success
his own partners had no suspicion of his
condition. Knowing this, 1 asked him
how it was that no one Of the many per.
sons who he met daily in business had
ever complained of any bad smell, and
the answer he made was that they were
all too polite to do so, but he could. see
they were affected nevertheless, as they
sometimes put their handkerchief to iheil
nose-no doubt for quite innocent pur.
pose. Another gentleman was the victim
of very common hallucinsticn; he was
much afflicted by voices, which were con
tinually speaking to him at all times and
all places-in the quietude of his room
and in the crowded streets, by night and
by day. He had come to the conclusion
that they must be the voice Of evil spirits
in the air which tormented him, They
knew his thoughts and replied to them
before he had himshelf conceived them
the remarks which they make were always
annoying, often threatening and abusive
and sometimes most offensive and dis
tressing; and they disturbed him SC
much at night that he got very little
sleep. He had been driven to the expe:
dient Of buying musical box, which he
placed under his pillow when he went tc
bed. The noise Of the music drowned
the noise of the tormenting voices, and
enabled him to 60 to sleep; but as he
said, the measures was not entirely salts
factory, because when the box had played
out its tunes it stopped, and he wal
obliged to wind it up again: It wss i'm
possible to persuade this gentleman, SEN
sible as he seemed in other respects, that
the voices had no real existence, and tina
they were due to the disordered state O.
his nervous susIem