The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1896-01-26


she had lost her identity, having no recol-
lection of her name, family, home or
friends, was by no means singular, though
none the less remarkable. There have
been many other such cases, and the idea
has been employed to great advantage in
fiction. That calamity so terrible may
befall the strongest of US at any moments
the consideration that invests the subject
with peculiar interest and special
dread.
few years ago such catastrophe over
took an estimable resident of San Fran
cisco. The account OF it which l shall
here give was furnished by the physician
who had charge of the Casa man of ex-
cellent skill in his profession, whom, for OBJ
vious reasons, / shall call Dr. Blank and
his patient Mr.. Smith. do not think the
case ever found it's way into the newspa-
pers, and as 1t has been some time since
| the account was given to me 1 may be at
fault in the minor details; but am sure
of the main points.
One forenoon DR.. Blank, whose Office
was in downtown building, was hastily
summoned to a neighboring drugstore
In the back room he found a man strug-
Cling in CONFUSION. The attack
had all the indications of ordinary
epilepsy. The physician was informed
that the man had fallen in a fit
on the sidewalk and had been brought
into the shop. DR.. Blank applied the
usual means of amelioration, and soon the
man was conscious again. He had the
violent headache, cold feet and other ordi-
nary sequele of an epileptic attack. He
was well-dressed and prosperous-lo looking
man of about A. and had the manners of
gentleman.
The extraordinary complexities of his
| case were very soon developed, and had
| it not been for the tact and quickness
of perception of DR.. Blank (who was al
ways on the alert for surprising develop
ments in epileptic cases), the complica-
| tions in which the unfortunate sufferer was
at once plunged might have had disas-
| trous effect.
| AS the patient was too weak and was
| suffering too much to make lis own way
| home at once, DR.. Blank asked him where
he lived, that he might send him home in
a hack. The man promptly gave street
and number that the doctor had meyer
| heard Of in San Francisco, but he knew
| that the name OF the street was that of
| famous thoroughfare in an Eastern city.
| Without saying anything he consulted
| directory and found that there was no
| such street here. Suspecting something
wrong, he next asked the man for his
| name. i was given freely and was easily
| found in the directory. Further questions
| adroiLly put developed the fact that the
| stranger, who was down in the directory
| a an accountant for a certain large whole
| sale establishment, was lawyer and not
| an accountant, and that he knew nothing
! OF the house with which his name was
| connected.
DR.. Blank, holding the patient under the
| pretext of his being too i'll to leave, sent
! messenger hastily to the wholesale house
| i 4
| The physician explained to him when he
arrived that he thought possibly hiatus
| had occurred in Smith S memory, and that
| he desired the merchant should not ella i'm
| an acquaintance, but merely give Smith
an opportunity to recognize him. Smith
! failed utterly to do so. From the mer-
chant DIR. Blank learned that Smith was
married and had two children, and that he
| lived at a certain street and number in
| San Francisco. DR.. Blank Immediately
summoned the wife, and directed her to
| bring the children.
At the same time he telegraphed to the
| address given by Smith as being likely
that of place in an Eastern city, and in
! the course of a few hours received an
answer which will be set forth in this
narration.
Pending the arrival of the patients
family and news from the East DR.. Blank
| ingeniously piled Smith with more ques-
tions. The substance of the answers was
| this:
Smith said that he was 40, when he was
| evidently older; that he was lawyer and
| had very good practice; that he was a
| bachelor and lived in certain we'll known
club in q large Eastern city. He was
gently led to discuss politics, whereupon
| DR.. Blank discovered that the sufferer
| thought that President who had been
out of Office three years was still the in
cum bent. Then, when the physician
turned the talk another way he found that
Smith supposed himself to be still in the
Eastern city, that he had heard OF San
Francisco and had often wanted to live
there, and intended to move thither before
long, and that he believed the day of his
lying there in the back room of the chem
lists was day four years past.
In short it was evident that the man
had been wholly another individual dur
ing four years, had lived an entirely dis
tinct life during that time, had lost his old
profession and acquired new one, had
married and become the father of two
children, and now had suddenly emerged
from that individuality and had returned
to the one which he had held for forty
years, retaining not the slightest recollec-
ton of anything that had happened in the
four years interval.
DR.. Blank had hoped that a visit from
the wife and children might recall the man
to his recent life, but as there was some
|
East preceded them. 1t was corroborative
of all that Smith had said concerning his life
there, and added this: zone day about
four years ago he had an epileptic fit. That
night he disappeared, and nothing has
| been heard of him since"
In recounting the affair afterward DR..
Blank said:
The situation was exceedingly complex
| and pitiful. In the higher and proper
sense Mrs. Smiths husband was dead-as
completely removed from the earth as
though he had undergone the ordinary
process of dying. l had learned from his
| employer that he was most tenderIy de-
| voted to his wife and babies, and that they
were equally attached to him. How could
it be possible for this poor woman and
these children to understand, when they
saw him again in the fesh speaking with
his old familiar voice, that ne was not the
husband and father of their hearthstone? A
particularly distressing feature of the case
was my inference, from his long sustained
condition of bachelorhood, that IN his
original state, to which he had now re-
turned, he was not marrying man.
though | had received no definite informa-