The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1888-07-19

suddenly be seized with the direst kind
OF panic and try to hide itself in the
visitors pocket Another thinks he is
teapot and that his proper place is
on the stove. The man who thinks
every woman he meets is in love with
him is OF course represented, but his
vagaries are of mild order and
rarely call for his keepers interference.
Not SO Mr.. Adam, who, if he had his
way, would neither be '.clothcd'' nor
''in his right mind.h
One patient imagines that his ra-
tional soul has gradually perished
under the displeasure of God, and that
an animal life merely is left to him, in
common with the brutes. Another
fancies that his head has grown larger
than his body, that his legs are made
OF glass, or that he has a wolf In his
stomach. One man who thought that
Charles l. was hiding in his stomach
was temporarily cured by putting a
large blister ON his abdomen; at the
instant it was dressed and the vcsicated
skin shipped, a dressed-up figure was
thrown from behind him, as if just ex-
tracted from his body. The patient
believed in the performance, and was
filled with joy at first, but an attack
OF indigestion returning, which he had
associated with the delusion, he thought
the wretched Charles had reached his
old hiding-place again, and suffered
relapse.
Whenever 1t Is possible, doctors
always humor the delusions of insane
people, and so when a woman who was
suffering with delirium tremens de-
clared that the boys were fishing for
her through the window. and implored
the doctor to clear the fish-hooks out
OF her bed. he readily complied. But
the lunatic who insists that there is
plot to poison her is not so easily
satisfied, and she is a common charac-
ter in all insane communities. A pro-
pensity to theft is often feature of
moral insanity, and sometimes it is the
sole characteristic. In an English
asylum some years ago there was
lunatic who would not eat unless he
had stolen his food, and his keeper
used to put his meals into corner, SO
that the lunatic could discover and
take them furtively.
A curious case is related of man
who had mania of putting things in
order. If articles of ladies' work or
books were left on a table. he would
surreptitiously put them all in order,
spreading the work smooth and put
ting the other articles in rows. He
stole into other peoples bedrooms to
arrange them, and was kept so busy
running from one room to another that
| he hadn't time to dress for meals, and
sat down to dinner in his dressing gown.
Frequently he took walk in the even
ings with lantern. because he had
not been able to get ready earlier in
the day. If it happened to be star
light night, the disorder of the heavens
would drive him wild.
Another eccentric character made it
practice to open his window at GER
tain hour every night and cry out
murder exactly twelve times; also to
60 every day after dinner into the mid
die of the quadrangle of the asylum and
throw his hat into the air twelve times,
vociferating at each throw. His motive
was a notion that by this consistency
and uniformity of conduct he afforded
proof of his sanity. When his
physician approached him. he recoiled
with horror, exclaiming, IF you were
to feel my pulse, you would be lord
paramount over me the rest of my
life''
Some lunatics never have any one
permanent delusion. One man who
fairly revelled in the art of lying
always had false report ready about
his keepers-they ate his food, were
! his clothes. and stole his tobacco. Once
week the lining of his clothes was
unpicked, the bed ticking opened, and
the head of the bedstead removed in
search for the knives and forks, the
handkerchiefs, and brushes and combs
which he had stolen from his fellow
patients, and the half-picked bones
and pieces of bread which he had fur
lively distracted from their plates. His
madness mainly consisted, however, in
q morbid love of being noticed.
A story is told of an eccentric gen.
tleman who went around with knife
grinders outfit, and exulted in the
havoc he made in the cutting instru-
ments intrusted to him. firing of this,
he started as an old-clothes, dealer
and this getting irksome, he returned
home, butinstead of going in at the door,
he made hole in the roof and entered
that way. He amused himself at night
by driving a pig tied to a cord through
the village, upon whose nose some
thing had been fastened to make him
squeak. He varied this performance
by exchanging the farmers cattle and
removing their gates. etc.
1t commonly surprises visitors to a
lunatic asylum to find that insane peo-
pie are not for a moment deceived by
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