Imperial Valley press., 1936-09-13

Until the Age OF Six Years, the Brain OF the Ch
Is Invaluable for Experimental Purposes AT
Age They Forget Most of Their Educati
utterly divorced from experiences which went
before. The past will be a blank, and only the
future will concern you What awaits you will
be new friends, new interests. probably an en-
trely new line OF business.
This Is what happened to c. j. Poulting, whose
strange case is described by the late DR.. Shep
herd Ivory Franz. Professor of Psychology Uni.
versity of California at Los Angeles. in his
book Persons One and Three"-an example of
loss OF memory where the mans weird expert
ence reads more like fiction than fact. Poulting
went Robert Louis Stevenson's DR.. Jekyll-and
MIR Hyde one better-he was person of triple
identities.
When taken in charge by the police, Poulting
had already forgotten two previous lives" and
living in his third. 1t was the most re-
markable case of its kind ever studied by psy
biologists and played an important part in re-
veaIing unexplored qualities of the human BRAIN
After being carefully questioned by Professor
Franz. Poulting gradually recalled that he had
been British veteran, and that he had
later managed small automobile laundry in
Los Angeles. His memory of this life his Sec
ond returned to him after a short period Of
rest.
Franz continued to question him, hoping pri-
marily to bring back his past more fully.
70 EVERYONES amazement, including the
startled amnesia victim. a previous life came
slowly to light. Poulting had first lost his orig
inal and real identity in the early months Of the
war in 1914. Out of the wreckage of past he
had forgotten he began a new life under new
name and later lost this second life to under
take q third!
The task of DR.. Franz was the most peculiar
ever attempted by psychologist - to intro
duce the first Poulting to the third, and then
both of them to the second Poulting!
1t was the work of several months to unlock
: the recesses of Poultings mind and return him
ITO his original identity, and then to the
more elusive second identity
At last the victim remembered his true name.
where he born. and - to his surprise. he
remembered wife and two children whom he
had not or thought of for Is years.
Then. suddenly - it If nothing had
happened to him since that fatal day in Septem-
ber, 1914. when he was waiting to be shipped
overseas with his regiment His last two
"ves were forgotten. He was shown news
paper with 1880 datelne. and refused to
believe it He convinced that he was still
o. young man ready to enter the trenches
One look in a mirror explained the error, and
showed the face of man of 43, who in one
sense, had been asleep for almost generation.
Poulting No / was successfully introduced to
Poulting No 3, spanning period of Is strange
years These two personalities became single
entity The last step of introducing these two
individuals to Poulting No. was never quite
accomplished and somewhere In the victims
brain today probably exists an obscure never
to be recovered memory of his second identity
I lE WAS eventually restored to his family,
man risen from the dead, told in DR..
Franz's own record of the case In Persons One
and Three:
\ Everything had been arranged Tickets were
bought Passports were obtained Jacks ward
robe had been looked over and some new clothing
purchased Again he was going through the
Panama canal; again he was to be in New
York; thence he was to go to London, and on
home to Dublin.
From Panama he wrote: I am feeling fine
and feel very happy on the thoughts of going
home. am avoiding all excitement on board
and hanging onto myself so far ] am not going
ashore at Panama | shall stick to the ship now
until the captain leaves postcard mailed
from Southampton England. shows he had re-
tanned his combined identity up to that point
He sent best wishes and million thanks. He
had passed at least some crises in which his
emotions might have been unduly aroused and,