The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1888-08-18
STRANGE DELUSIONS.
Instances of Monomanias in Persons who
Are Otherwise Perfectly Sane.


Among the instances of singular monomania
which have discovered is that of an impor-
tant officer of the State Government of New
England writes the New York correspondent
of the Pittsburg Post. His special delusion is
that the other members of the family are in
sane and are plotting to injure him, and that
they ought to be put in an asylum. He IS an
able and celebrated lawyer, and conducts cases
with marked effectiveness and success his
briefs and arguments show an unusual vigor
and continuity of thought. Nobody knows of
his mental condition outside of his own family
and few intimate friends, to whom they
have said, confdentially: 'Ifany ofus should
disappear suddenly look for us in an asylum"
Another most curious case is that of wealthy
banker in New York city who fancies that he
is a ripe cherry that the birds are eager to pick.
He has terror of all fruit-eating birds, and
seldom walks or appears anywhere IN the open
air. He makes his trips to and from his bank
in a carriage and keeps the doors and windows
always shut tight, lest sparrow should get in
and swallow him. He knows very well that
the preposterous belief would damage him and
probably ruin him if it were generally known
that he harbored it, so he conceals the con-
sciousness of his fearful peril from his business
associates and contents himself with keeping
carefully out of the way of birds
An interesting society lady of Troy imagines
that big Newfoundland dog always accom-
panies her, walks when she walks, stops when
she stops. 81 know perfactly well that it is
not there" she says, 'but alway see it, and
that is what troubles me. When go to bed
it always lies upon my feet"
There is a lady who has been teacher the past
twelve years in the schools of New York city,
and is still so employed, who imagines herself
a wheelbaTow. II know | am not a wheel
barrow, of course" she says to her physician,
DIR. Hammond, 'but that certainly makes no
difference with the appearance and my sensa-
tons When in school / am always a wheel
barrow and my feet are the handles and my
head is the wheel and l seem to be trundling
myself down the aisle and through the halls
1t is ridiculous and painful and mortifying,
but, though know it is the result of a nerv-
Gus disease, | can not shake off the hallucina-
ton"
w. A. Croffut, journalist and successful
mesmerist, gives me the following opinion =
"Hallucinations are evidently closely akin to
dreams. can fill any one of my sensatives
full delusions in minute, can make him think
he is Washington, Grant or Victoria, peddler,
an opera singer, teacher oflanguages, arooster
or telegraph pole, and can Danish the delu-
this hallucination is exactly of the same kind
as hallucinatiOn of lunatics or the dreams Of
those who sleep, the only difference being that
the sleeper holds the key of dreamland and
the operator holds the key of the similar trance
called mesmerism, while to the permanent
trance called monomania the key is lost. l
have wondered if it might not be possible to
recover the lost key-to often waken the in
sane from their dreams as somnambuliSts and
the mesmerized are wakened."