The Cambria freeman. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1867-1938, 1878-11-08
STRANGE HALLUCINATTON.
TWO SOMEWHAT REMARKABLE CASES OF
SELF -DELUsION.

There are great many persons in the
world who, suffering under some form or
other of nervous disorder, habitually see /
figure or face hear threatening or insult 1
ing voices, even feel blows and taste poi I
sons, which have no existence outside of /
their own minds and neither argument I
nor demonstration of the impossibility of /
what they allege they perceive will shake
their convictions in the least, You assure
me- they will say, that l am mistaken ;
that there are no such persons as | see, no
such voices as l hear but 1 protest % you
that l see and hear them as distinctly as |
hear and see you at this moment. and that
they are just real to me- What are we
to reply ? | have replied sometimes,
that as you are alone on one side in your
opinion, and all the world is on the other
side, | must needs think either that you
are an extraordinary genius, far in advance
of the rest of the world, or that you are
madman long way behind it, and as l
don't think you to be a genius, l am
! bound to conclude that your senses are dis
! ordered But the argument does not pro-
! duee the least effect. Letme give an eX-
ample or two of the character of those hal
fluctuations, and of their persistence in
minds that might be thought sane enough
to correct them. The first shall be that of
an old gentleman who was much distress
ed because 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 scIupulOusly clean in person, ex-
tTemely courteous in manner, thoroughly
rational on every other subject, shTewd
and clever man of business; no one talking
with him would for moment have sus-
|, pected him of entertaining such eXtraOrdl-
nary fancies. Nevertheless, his life was
made miserable by them lie would not &C
into society, but took solitary Tambles in
the country, where he might meet as few
: persons as possible in his own house be
slept for the first part of the night on the
, ground floor; mounting up higher at a la
ter period of the uight ; and this he did tC
I prevent the bad OdoTs from becoming too
l. | concentrated IN one room. lie believed
\ that the people in the next house were il
ritated and offended by the emanatiOns
j. for he often heard them moving about ant
: coughing aud when he passed a ca6stan'
n / in the street he noticed that even tn
2 horses became restless and hdgeted. II
: used to hang his clothes out of the windOv
;. at night, that they might get pure, unit
j, ! his houSekeepeT put stop to the practIc
;, by telling him that the exhibition of then
would excite the notice and comment o
,, his neigbbOTs. All the while he was cor
% ducting his business with prOpriety an
success his own partners bad no suspiciO
=. bin how it was that no one of the man
,r persons whom he met daily in business ha
ii never complained of any bad smell, an
the answer he made was that they wei
:, all too polite to do so, but he could sc
,e they were affected nevertheless, as the
u, sometimes put their handkerchiefs to the
of noses-no doubt for a quite innocent pu
an pose. Another gentleman was the victi
no of very common hallucination be WI
much afflicted by voices, which were CO
ne tinually speaking to him at all times an
,s all places-in the quietude of his room al
r. liz the crowded streets, by night and
n day. He had come to thee onClusIOn tn
% they must be the voices of evil spirits
the air which tormented him. They kne
nj his thoughts and replied to them befo
of he had himself conceived them the !
at marks which they made were always a
en- noying, often threatening and abusive, a.
sometimes most offensive and distressing
,er and hey disturbed him SD much at mig
&C. that he got very little sleep. He had be
i'll driven to the expedient of buying a mu
So box, which he placed under his pill,
no. when he went to bed. The noise of I
ed music drowned The noise of the tormenti
NIL voices, and enabled him to get sleep; b
led as he said, the measure was not entir
ce- satisfactory, because when the box j
nlx played out its tunes it stopped, and he y
iv- obliged to wind it mp again. 1t was i
fbe possible to persuade this gentleman, sci
md BILE as he seemed in other respects, Il
the voices had,any real existence, aud Il
an. they were due to the dIsoTdered state
,al- his nervous system F0rtBighHy ReCjel
est -