The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1903-09-27
MEMORIES THAT VANISH
STRANGE CASE OF MENTAL FACUL-
TIES THAT SUDDENLY LAPsED.
A New Jersey Physician Who Lost the
Run of Events-A SchOOIteacher's
Strange Wanderings.

Boston Herald.
Harry P. Gates. n physician of Lake
! wood, y. j., disappeared from his home
April q, with several thousand dollars
in his pocket All trace of him was lost
until last week. when he was found in
Poughkeepsie, y. Y, in good physical
condition, but with no recollection OF
events in his life prior to the day of his
| disappearance. The name OF his home sug-
gested nothing to his mind, but he was
able to give a perfectly rational account
of his wanderings, which had included
trips to st. Louis, Chicago, Kansas City,
and other places. According to the news
paper dispatches, DR.. Gates has not yet
recovered his memory.
Such cases as this are not infrequent,
but they are among the most curious and
perplexing with which physicians and
psychologists have TO deal, for here they
stand face to face with the great mystery
of the relation between matter and mind,
and the fascinating problem of how and
where memory registers and stores its
impressions and experiences. With the
past a blank, and with a new memory
being built upon the apparent ruin or the
old St0rehouSe, what has become or that
vast accumulation of former recollections!
And if, indeed, IL still exists, what Is the
| nature of that blank wall which inter-
| poses its mysterious presence and cuts
| off all communication with the past?
Deep themes are these, for physiolo-
gists and psychologists, as hundreds or
volumes upon our back shelves TESTIFY.
The writer, however designs here only
| TO cite two instances of deprivation or
| memory which happened TO come, within
his own observation.
The first case was that of a school prin-
fhnT o.
sofa village. He had recently been mar
ried to one of his teachers, and few
days after the event he left her TO attend
a pedagogical institute at neighboring
county seat. At his place of entertain
ment he shared his room with another
teacher.
About midnight on the second day of the
convention Stout arose from bed, put on
his shirt, trousers, and shoes, remarked
to his roommate that he was going out
for a moment, and left, hatless, coatless,
morning, but Stout did not return. "A
hunting party thoroughly searched the VII
lage and its vicinity, but discovered no
trace of the missing man. The news or
his disappearance was sent TO his nome.
Parties from that place and from the
county seat started out In rigs for sys-
tematic search.
HE WANDERED ON.
Ten miles away, near the Iowa State
line, they found a farmhouse at which
drink of water in the early morning of
his disappearance. Twenty miles farther
OH, in the State of Iowa, they arrived at
another farmhouse, where the wanderer
had eaten supper. He had told his hosts
that he was a piano tuner, but offered no
explanation for his appearance en- dis
habille. In a neighboring straw stack the
searching party found evidence of Stout
a
pelting rain.
Fifteen miles farther on, at a cross
roads store, the searchers discovered that
Stout had discarded his now frayed and
bedraggled trousers, and had purchased
new pair, as well as hat and coat. The
roads nearly to the indiana line, where,
at a small railway station, 1t was learned
that a man answering Stout's description
had bought a ticket to near by village.
There all trace of him was lost.
The searching party returned to their
homes. A day later Stout's distracted
wife received a letter from her husbands
Stout was at his boyhood home in Indiana.
Inasmuch as the principal was under con-
tract to teach his old school for another
year, a committee from his wife's home
went 10 Indiana to ascertain the man
mental condition and to receive from hum
an explanation of his wanderings: To
their incredulity at first, but finally to
their establishment, Stout utterly failed to
recognize them, nor did he have any re-
membrance of the place from which they
came or OF the wife whom he had so re-
Gently married. The memory of all that
had transpired during his manhood prior
TO the moment when he arose from his
bed at the county seat and informed his
roommate that he was going out was q
blank to him. The only recollections he
possessed were those of his boyhood days
and of the old home toward which he was
travelling. Stout slowly but ultimately
fully recovered.
A MINISTER'S CASE.
The other case concerned the Rev. Or.
David r. Breed, a noted Presbyterian d.
vine and author, now a professor in Allie
ghany Theological Seminary
Some time prior to 1890 DR.. Breed was
pastor of the House of Hope in ST. Paul,
MINI. He was an amateur electrician,
and one day, while endeavoring to remedy
some defect in the lights of his church,
he fell from a stepladder and struck his
head violently against the corner Of a
pew. He was picked up unconscious, and
when finally restored TO reason all men,
DRY of the past had departed. His wife
and children were strangers TO him;
Members Of the session of his church and
old friends with whom he had been on
terms of daily intimacy for years had to
be introduced to him.
The Doctors efforts at conversation
with these intimate companions were not
without their touch OF humor. though
pathetic. Conscious of his mental depri-
walton, he trod gingerly the paths of inter-
tiveness of sick man. to confess how
utterly ignorant he was of things connected
with his friends personality which he
should have known, and loath TO presume
too freely upon his former intimacy lest
such freedom might lead him into awkward
and embarrassing situations
This condition of affairs continued for
weeks DR.. Breeds physical convalescence