Year: 1878

uALLUClNAI1ONS.


Two Somewhat Remarkable Cases W


Self-delusion.


From the Fortnightly sview.


Inere are great many persons in the
world who, suffering under some form or
other OF nervous disorder, habitual,y see
figures or facts hear threatening OF in
sulting voices, even feel blows and taste
poIsons, which have no existence outside
their own minds; and neither argument
or demonstration of the imposibility of
what they allege they perceive will shake
their convictions in the least. s.You as
sure me-" they Will say, ''that am mis-
taken, that there are no such persons as
see, no such voices as l hear; but I
protest to you that see and hear them
as distinctly as | see and hear you at this
moment, and that they are Just as real to
me-" What are we to reply2 1 have re-
piled sometimes, "that as you are alone
on one side in our opinion, and all the
world is on the other side, I must needs
think either that you are an extraordi-
nary genius, far in advance of the rest of
the world, or that you are madman a
long way behind it; and as don't think
you to be genius, am bound to con-
clude tnat your senses are disordered." But
the argument does not produce the least
effect. Let me give ali example or two
OF the character Of those hallucinations,
| and OF their persistence in minds that
might be thought sane enough to correct
| them. The first shall be that uf an old
gentleman who was much distressed be-
| cause of an extremely offensive smell
which he imagined to proceed from all
parts of his body. There was not the least
ground, in fact, for this imagination. He
was scrupulously clean in person, ex-
tremely courteous in manner, thoroughly
rational IN his conversation on every 9TH
er subject, a shrewd and clever man of
business; no one talking with him would
tor moment have suspected him of en-
| tertalning such extraordinary fancies.
Nevertheless, his life was made miserable
by them, be would not go into society,
but took solitary rambles in the country,
where he might meet as few persons as
possible; in his own house he slept for
the first part of the night on the ground
floor, mounting up higher at later period
OF the night, and this he did to prevent
the bad odors from becoming toe con-
centrated in one room. He believed that
the people in the next house were irrita-
ted and offended by the emanations, for
he often heard them moving about and
coughing; and when he passed cab
stand in the street he noticed that even
the horses became restless and fidgeted.
he used to hang his clothes out of the
window at night that they might get
pure, unit his housekeeper put stop to
the practice by telling him that the ex-
hibition of them would excite the notice
and comment of his neighbors.
All the while he was conducting
his business with propriety and success;
his own partners had no suspicion of his
condition. Knowing this, | asked him
how it was that no one of the many per
sons who he met daily in business had
ever complained of any bad smell, and
the answer he made was that they were
all too polite to do 80, but he could see
they were affected nevertheless, as they
sometimes put their handkerchief to their
nose-no doubt for quite innocent pur-
pose. Another gentleman was the victim
of very common hallucinstion; he was
much afflicted by voices, which were con-
tinually speaking to him at all times and
all places-in the quietude of his room
and in the crowded streets, by night and
by day. He had come to the conclusion
that they must be the voice Of evil spirits
IN the air which termented him. They
knew his thoughts and replied to them
before he had himshelf conceived them;
the eremarks which they make were always
annoying, often threatening and abusive,
and sometimes most offensive and dis
tressing; and they disturbed him so
much at night that he got very little
sleep. he had been driven to the expe-
dient of buying musical box, which he
placed under his pillow when he went to
bed. The noise of the music drowned
the noise of the tormenting voices, and
enabled him to go to sleep; but as he
said, the measures was not entirely salts
factory, because when the box had played
out its tunes it stopped, and he was
obliged to wind it up again. It was i'm
possible to persuade this gentleman, SEN
sible as he seemed in other respects, that
the voices had no real existence, and that
they we're due to the disordered state of
his nervous system.