Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-01-09
AN AGE OF DELUS|0NS
Famous AIienist Tells How
Some People Are Afflicted.
HAS MANY QUEER PATIENTS
Nerves Unstrung by Twentieth Cen
fury strenuosity.
THINK THEY ARE BEWITCHED
DR.. John D. Quackenbos Talks to New
York Club Of Suggestion and the
Mental Ills It Can Cure.
HAS MANY QUEER PATIENTS
THINK THEY ARE BEWITCHED

NEW YORK. January I'LL 'o' -
Quakenbos told the Entertainment CluD at
the Waldorf-Astoria last night how easy II
is for perfectly sane people to get insane
at times and how wheels in the head may
be removed by mental suggestion. Inc
doctor. who mixes psychical research WIN
his medicines, paid for his entertainment
by the club by handing out choice cohec-
ton of thrills and creepy stories. all OF
notebook.
Delusons of the sane are matter OF
nerves and twentieth century strenuosity,
said the doctor. If you play bridge or
poker too much play the races, speed an
automobile dabble in Wall street, work
or play too much by electric light. live in
a fiat. eat adulterated food or breath bad
air you are liable to imagine that microbes
are playing tag on your coat sleeve: or. If
you happen to keep bees in your cellar. you
may be afraid to go into that cellar Tor
fear of eating bee. These are merely
mild FRANKS of the delusional bug; but If
to death of lemons or want to throw your
self into the arms of the first fat lady you
may chance to meet on Broadway
Ready for the Call.
Among my patients" said the doctor,
.have been persons who dared not cross
the threshold of their homes and had not
been out of their houses for months who
could not force themselves on a car, or
wash and dress themselves, or shake hands
or sleep under a bed quilt. Some have dis
eases that no one ever had before. Wheels
go around in their ears. they see birds and
the fiuttering of wings. footsteps follow
them. strange things crawl through the
keyilole, faces stand out on the wall, files
whisper secrets to them. Many have a
baseless fear of insa nifty, and one lady
sought a position IN an asylum so as to be
on hand when the day Of alteration should
arrive. Lots of people come to me saying
they are bewitched-an exceedingly common
deluson today.
"A well-known author believes she is
comes into her room disguised as cloud
and flaps his astral wings underneath her
bodice. There was a lady who was on
her way to Alaska to found a moral town
cluded. She met on a train a gambler. who
fixed his piercing black eyes upon her and
put her under a spell From that hour
bad luck pursued her and she abandoned
the scheme of the moral town"
Wanted to Shoot.
DIR. Quackenbos told stories about a
woman who could not sit in theater for
wanting to fire pistol at the person in
front of her; of a woman who saw a coarse
word scribbled on a fence and couldn't help
saying 1t herself; OF man who developed A
mania for going to law and In one in
stance pursued an executor with persistent
malignity during five years OF controversy
only to be defeated in court twenty times
in succession. One subject complained Of
a spirit that came to him and offered to
give the Odd Fellow grip Another de-
clared that God had dictated q letter to
her.
Others imagined that neighbors were
stepping on their feet. putting weights on
their shoulders. affecting them with cleo
trio currents: that they are abused by play
wrights: that people read their thoughts.
Some are in deadly fear Of being poisoned.
and one man the doctor told about kept an
electric fan constantly whirling over his
pillow to blow away a noxious powder that
a member OF his family had sprinkied there.
be insisted
A common delusion of the sane. said DR..
Quackenbos. Is morbid horror Of dust
and disorder (mysophobfa}. One patient
feared that II the cups and Saucers were
displaced they could never be put back and
spent the greater part Of q night keeping
them on the shelves. The sight of q goblet
upside down threw him into a frenzy.
Cases like these are promptly cured by
suggestion. said the doctor.
Decisions Of Doubt.
What has been wrongly called the in
sanity of indecision manifests itself In de-
lusions of doubt. The subject will go back
several times to see If the gas has been
turned off properly the stock certificates
returned to the safe. A neurasthenic Yale
graduate of my acquaintance L have known
to stand on the front steps undecided as
to whether to mail a letter In the lamp
post box on 9Th avenue or the next corner
in Madison avenue until the mental conflict
precipitated an attack Of historical weep
ing.
characteristic of neurasthenia. often takes
concrete shape in specialized phases of
anxiety fear like horror of matrimony
or bridal tour, fear of proposing. fear Of
making people cough or sneeZe, of being
locked up in a steam car OF cabin. fear of
church buildings. the service itself-On
the part of several cergymen-fear of going
to bed for fear of waking up and know
ing nothing the next morning. fear of
crossing the North river and of ferry boats
of looking down hill. going up in an eleva-
tor, fear of going into the cellar on the part
of man who kept his bees there In win
ter and who afraid he might pick up
a bee and eat it-fear of simply being
afraid.
There Is humorous as we'll as pathetic
side to some of these abnormal thought
forms. physician recently under my care
imagined that his clothing was covered
with microbes. He was constantly brush
ing them off. He soiled fifty napkins a day
in desperate efforts to brush them off the
tableware. His wife was unable to keep a
servant in her employ and his practice went
by the board.
STILLMAN OFF TO EUROPE.