Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1896-08-19
HOW H FEELS 70 DE-.
By a Man Dead Forty Nine
Days.
Moritz Prout, the Extraordinary
Trance Sleeper. Writes Of the
Horror Of Being Dead While
Alive.


City tailor, nineteen years of age, who
on April q Of this year passed into an
apparently cataleptic trance, from which
he did not awaken ,or forty-nine days,
has attracted mucl attention in the
scientific world, While at a hospital
in this city the most heroic methods
were adopted to awaken him, but in
vain. Doctors nave diagnosed the case
as an unusually prolonged instance Of
hys;erical caJalepsy. Tle young man,
While fully restored in health and mind,
writes the following story OF mis- terrible
experience Tor the Sunday Journal:
1, MOriJZ PrOut, who was IS che dead
for seven weeks, YET alive and conscious
Of all that went on around me, write The
story OF my wonderful experience.
There is nothing more wonderful than
that / am able 10 tell OF IL to-day.
feel as if were one wlo mad passed out
Of this life and had been called back.
There is a terrible warning in my case
against hdsty burlals. In my case the
watchers could notice that l breathed,
but there were times when my heart
could not be felt nor heard to beat Were
it no. for the mOv5ment-yeTy slight IL
was-that showed l still breaJned, l
would have been put away into the
grave.
All the TEXTURES that they subjected
me to-Jhe needless the electric shocks,
the ice water ;le flashes in my eyes
all o. these cruel things CT which | Will
write failed to make me show signs OF
life
The horror Of il ali! knew what they
were doing. l could feel them as they
moved about; / could hsar them talk
and discuss what next to GO. Yet | lay
there unable to move. unable to cry out,
with my brain active ana my senses all
alert fearful at any moment that they
would declare that was dead and bury
me.
recall now how 1 struggled to
scream. | felt like any one does who
is suffering ia a nightmare, that II l
could only find my voice or make even
! ths slightest muscular movement the
spell that bound me would be broken;
The strange nUmDing sensation, that was
something like the shock Of weak
magnetic battery, would be interrupted.
AS ONE IN A DREAM.
When l say that 1 felt and heard
everything that was going on, | do not
mean, OF course. that 1 had any such in
| telligence as ! have now. l was more
| liks man in dream. Yea know that
10 matter how absurd q situation You
/ find yourself in in a dream, you are
never surprised Everything seems
natural. The only emotion that you
can have distinctly dream is fear
Sometimes my individuality seemed
to be separated from the figure that lay
in the bed, bur not altogether so, for
recall how l seemed 10 stand by the side
CT the bed and watched the doctors dash
ice water on my body as it lay there,
| and | felt the shock when tAe water
| struck. II did not seem strange that l
| should thus lock at myself. My nery-
! ous system must have b5en ali but par
alyzed during my trance. or / would
never have been able to stand the tor
| lures they inflicted. Yet l was barely
conscious CT pain.
| The electric needle was a mere pm
prick. TIE voices I heard seemed low
and far away Il was that way with
! the pains. They were Slight, and c0ulu
not always realize that they were being
| inflicted upon me-
A very strange thing is chat while to
! the watchers / was at all times asleep, !,
as matter CT fact, had my waking and
sleeping hours When l went 10 sleep
! Il waste lose consciousness Of my plight.
! | have no rec0.l lection of feeling hungry
! al any time. but do recall the times that
they fed me brandy, milk and egg
! through a tube l thought they would
| choke me.
HAS BEEN IN A TRANCE OFTEN.
1 have been subject TO these spells CT
Inconsistencies the last and longest be-
| ing my fourth in the nineteen years that
! | have been on earth. When L was
eleven years OF age, in the Old Country,
! | had an attack Ii lasted but twenty
four hours. Three years later, here In
! New York. ! went of the earth again,
and slept in Bellevue Tor five days. On
that occasion everything was blank from
! the moment ! toppled over until l woke
No in the hospital Get. Two years later
/ another ft came on, and was al Mount
| Sinai Hospital for nine days. / am told
tbat on that occasion they tried every
| known form OF shock 10 awaken me.
NV mother tells me that up to the time
of NV third attack | was OF very slow
mind. The only thing that ! remember
with much cleaTness about my early
! bcvbood is that / used 10 suffer greatly
from headaches. have not suffered IN
that way since the nine-day sleep III
Mount Sinai.
I cannot admit that / am nervous
At least. l do not show It in my WoIk
as O tailor. As 10 my being a victim ci
involuntary hys,eria,' as they say a,
the hospital. an free to ADMIT that
do not know what they mean; nor &c
thew either. am inclined TO think.
can only tell what happened 20 me, ana
what 1 can recall, and let me 50! Ilsu'
| here that the recollection OF me eApeI''
ments they had on NJ. as now under
stand them. is more terrifying tnln wa
| nv experience at the time.
Il was on the morning OF April q
when l was on my way TO work as
tailor On the East Side that my mead
began 10 ache. lat once returned HON
told my mother that was feeling badly
and. throwing myself on bed, passed
| into what appeared to be healthy sleep
! The next morning mother tried TO awak
en- me. When she realized that l was
in another trance she concluded to le
| It take its course, not believing that tnt
| treatment at the hospital did any good
| After ten days had passed she con
eented IN nv removal to Beth Israel.