VITAL RESOURCES ; HOW TO BECOME PHYSIOLOGICALLY Younger and Stronger. BEING A SCRUTINY INTO THE DOMAIN OF THE LAWS TO WHICH NATURE SOMETIMES MARVELLOUSLY RESORTS FOR AID IN ITS RESTO- RATIVE POWERS. BY JEROME KIDDER, M.D. NEW YORK: PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR 544 BROADWAY. $+ Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 18(50. by JEROME KIDDER, M. D., in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern District of New York. /67S- /4f- CONTENTS. Page. Introductory Remarks, 7 Plurality of Personality — Mental Phenomenon, 11 Plurality of Personality — Anatomical Phenomenon,. . 35 Lateral Halves of the Brain and Body, 48 Plurality of Personality, 64 Metamorphosis, 72 Hereditary Influences, 75 Underground, or Latent Peculiarities, 80 3|i* riages of Consanguinity, 84 * .ia^rnal Impressions,. . .' 88 Appetency — Body and Mind Reciprocate, 96 Power of the Mind oyer the Body, 99 Recipiency and Influence of Mind, 103 Transforming Powers of the Mind 104 Has the Mind Contour? 105 Why Marriages of Consanguinity Restrict Vital Re- sources, 106 Latent Qualities may be Aroused to Action, 115 Plural Personality, .- 133 Appendix, 145 ILLUSTRATIONS. Page. United Twins, 38 Common Liver of United Twins, 39 Four-legged Child, 46 Lateral Halves of the Brain, 49 Tracts of the Optic Nerves, 58 Commissnra of the Optic Nerves, 59 External and Internal Optic-Nerve Fibres, 60 Commissnra of the Optic Nerves, 61 Objects United in the Vision, 63 The Nervous System, 65 Egg of Butterfly, 72 Caterpillar, 72 Chrysalis, 73 Butterfly, 75 Resources by Parentage, 107 Portrait, 138 Portrait, 140 Portrait 141 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. The phenomena of life is maryelons ; and what we know of it is only of its phenomena. What is proposed in this volume, is to open a farther yiew into this phenomena, which view contemplates the setting forth, that man is endowed with the pos- session of a plurality of personality, through which, by the aid of favoring circumstances, surround- ings and habits, and also by his inherent mental power, his active mental and physical constitution may be changed to a degree so as to secure a new lease of life with its blessings of health and happi- ness. The author does not think it very bold in him- self to make these apparently strange asseverations, because, if true, there is nothing in them more marvelous than is everywhere presented in the phenomena of nature, nor more unreasonable, when we consider certain facts already known ; and also because truth, in contradistinction to error, is not determined by the amount of marvelousness which it inspires, but rather by the evidences brought to its support. And the author proposes, in order to show that they are true, to present such facts in the phenomena of life for the support of them, as are accepted in history; and also, make allusion to. such as are universally recognized by the observations of mankind. 8 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. The important conclusions presented in this vol- ume, which have been alluded to, will receive support from known physical laws, to which at first brief reference will be given, and then will be shown more fully in delineation those especially that are not so well known to general observa- tion. Chiefly of importance in the first regard, it may be stated, that by the law of hereditary descent, the child usually resembles one or both of its parents in its mental, moral and physical peculiarities. Also, occasionally, the resemblance is more of a grand-parent, or great grand-parent, or of another person in the same line of ancestry ; or the resem- blance may be one far back in the line of ancestry. Thus, .the hereditary influence often runs "un- derground " for one or more generations, and may, while in this condition, be considered as latent. The physiological constitutions of mankind dif- fer, so that the same kind of occupation and asso- ciations, the same quality of food, air, etc., is not equally beneficial to all, but rather, that which is good for one is not so good for another. The mind has great power over the body : the body is affected by the voluntary and involuntary conditions of the mind, favorably or unfavorably, according to what that condition may be : and the will has great power to determine the condition of the mind, and through it that of the body. And by the reader observing the relation which these facts bear to each other, no matter in what order they be considered, it will be found, as the INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 9 author believes, that they are of themselves suffi- cient to lead us to look for the conclusions previ- ously stated, and which, he thinks, will be sus- tained by the evidence presented in this volume. Theories that have no other evidence for their foundation than that their authors desire them to be true, have always been abundant enough. It is believed the reader will be convinced that the theories proposed in this volume are founded en- tirely on a different kind of evidence. One of the principal observations which caused the author to give thought and study to the feature of this work was as follows : A child about five or six years of age, which especially resembled its father, in the expression of its eyes and general physiognomy, was taken to the same school where its mother had received her early education — there where the same scenes were presented to its view, and the same influences in every way surrounded it. After a few weeks the child had lost the especial resemblance to its father, and now the expression of its features had become unmistakably changed to the resemblance of its mother. In reflecting on this fact, and bearing in mind the several laws of inheritance, of the power of mind upon the body, the law of latency, etc., to which the author has referred on the preceding page, very naturally the following inquiries would be presented for consideration : • If the child, at first seeming to resemble more its father, were to have such surroundings, associa- tions, qualities of food, etc., as were more habitual 1* 10 IKTKODUCTOKY EEMAEKS. with its father, would the resemblance of the child to its father more likely be continued and even increased ? And was it the change in the associa- tions, thoughts, studies, manner of living, etc., to that of the early days of its mother which caused the child to take on a physiological condition more allied to her ? If scrutiny into physiological laws should show that these questions merit an affirmative answer, then, furthermore, suppose the mother to be strong and healthy, and the father feeble in health, would the child, if continuing to resemble its father in physiognomy, from continuing the influences that so determine, — would the child also then take on the feeble condition of the father and be weakly, and in consequence, perhaps die prematurely ? And if by changing to the resemblance of its mother, in physiognomy, from a change of influ- ences, would the child take on the strong, healthy diathesis of its mother also, thus favoring the probability of health 'and long life ? These seem to be very important considerations, and worthy the careful consideration of all people. This subject seems to open directly to that of the plurality of the personality of the individual man : therefore, the important facts, which have regard to such mental and physical phenomena, will receive immediate consideration in the fol- lowing pages ; and the conclusions which they seem to reveal, if true, may be available for human wel- fare. PLURALITY OF PERSONALITY. MENTAL PHENOMENON. (1.) Plurality of personality presents occasionally extraordinary and impressive mental phenomenon. In January, 1816, Dr. Mitchell reported to " The Medical Repository " the following case : "When I was employed," says he, " early in December, 1815, with several other gentlemen, in doing the duty of a visitor to the United States Military Academy, at West Point, a very extraordinary case of double consciousness in a woman was related to me by one of the professors. Major Ellicott, who so worthily occupies the mathematical chair in that seminary, vouched for the correctness of the following narra- tive, the subject of which is related to him by blood, and an inhabitant of one of the western counties of Pennsylvania : — Miss E possessed, naturally, a very good constitution, and arrived at adult age without having it impaired by disease. She possessed an excellent capacity, and enjoyed fair opportunities to acquire knowledge. Besides the domestic arts and social attainments, she had improved her mind by reading and conversation, and was well versed in penmanship. Her memory was capacious, and stored with a copious stock of ideas. Unexpectedly, and without any forewarn- ing, she fell into a profound sleep, which continued several hours beyond the ordinary term. On waking, she was discovered to have lost every trait of acquired knowledge. Her memory was tabula 12 PLUEALTTY OF PERSONALITY. rasa — all vestiges, both of -words and things, were obliterated and gone. It was found necessary for her to learn everything again. She even acquired", by new efforts, the art of si3elling, reading, writing, and calculating, and gradually became acquainted with the persons and objects around, like a being for the first time brought into the world. In these exercises she made considerable proficiency. But, after a few months, another fit of somnolency in- vaded her. On rousing from it, she found herself restored to the state she was in before the first paroxysm ; but was wholly ignorant of every event and occurrence that had befallen her afterward. The former condition of her existence she now calls the Old State, and the latter the ISTew State ; and she is as unconscious of her double character as two distinct persons are of their respective na- tures. For example, in her old state she possesses all her original knowledge ; in her new state only what she acquired since. If a gentleman or lady be introduced to her in the old state, and vice versa, (and so of all other matters,) to know them satis- factorily she must learn them in both states. In the old state she possesses fine powers of penman- ship, while in the new, she writes a poor awkward hand, having not had time or means to become ex- pert. During four years and upward, she has un- dergone periodical transitions from one of these states, to the other. The alterations are always consequent upon a long and sound sleep. Both the lady and her family are now capable of con- ducting the affair without embarrassment. By sim- MENTAL PHE^OMEKO^. 13 ply knowing whether she is in the old or new state, they regulate the intercourse, and goyern them- selves accordingly. A history of her curious case is drawing up by the Bey. Timothy Aldin, of Mead- ville." (2.) "Tiedenian," says Dr. Spurzheim, "relates the case of one Moser, who was insane on one side, and observed his insanity with the other. Dr. Gall attended a minister similarly afflicted : for three years he heard himself reproached and abused on his left side ; with his right he commonly appreci- ated the madness of his left side — sometimes, how- ever, when feverish and unwell, he did not judge properly. Long after getting rid of this singular disorder, anger, or a greater indulgence in wine than usual, induced a tendency to relapse."* Dr. Caldwell states, in allusion to these instances, that " another case perfectly analogous, produced by a fall from a horse, exists in Kentucky, not far from Lexington ."f I have received a communication of a case of a similar nature from a gentleman who was the subject of it. In a letter, dated 25th June, 1836, the Eeverend E B writes to me thus : " You have heard, no doubt, of persons being de- ranged with one hemisphere of the brain, and set- ting themselves right with the other. Gall and Tissot, I think, both mention such cases. A cir- cumstance, however, of this kind occurred to myself a few months ago, which may perhaps strike you as singular. I was reading in my bedroom one night, * Phrenology, p. 37. t Elements of Phrenology, 2d edition, p. 82. 14 PLURALITY OF PERSONALITY. after a day of unusually hard labor and excitement. All at once I seemed to read my author with two minds. To speak more intelligibly,, I read at the same time a sentence in my ordinary way, i. e., I understood the sense of what I was reading in a plain, matter-of-fact way, and I read it likewise in a more than usually imaginatiye way. There ap- peared to be two distinct minds, in fact, at work at the same page, at the same time, which continued after I closed my book and went to bed. The next morning the sensation was gone, and I have not distinctly experienced anything of the kind since. Do you not think that a different state of activity in the two hemispheres of the brain — perhaps in the region of Ideality and Marvellousness — may ac- count for this ? It is certainly different from what is called double vision, for I felt conscious of reading only one page." (3.) In Tupper's Inquiry into Gall's System, it is related that some years ago " a man was brought in who had received a considerable injury of the head, but from which he ultimately recovered. When he became convalescent, he spoke a language which no one about him could comprehend. How- ever, a Welsh milk-woman came one day into the ward, and immediately understood what he said. It appeared that this poor fellow was a Welshman, and had been from his native country about thirty years. In the course of that period he had entire- ly forgotton his native tongue, and acquired the English Language. But when he recovered from his accident, he forgot the language he had been MEXTAL PHE2S"OMEK"02S". 15 so recently in the habit of speaking, and acquired the knowledge of that which he had originally ac- quired and lost ! " (4.) In February, 1822, Dr. Dyce read to the Eoyal Society the following incident : i% A patient, a girl of sixteen, became affected with an uncommon pro- pensity to fall asleep in the evenings. This was followed by the habit of talking in her sleep on these occasions. One evening she fell asleep in this manner, imagined herself an Episcopal clergyman, went through the ceremony of baptizing three chil- dren, and gave an appropriate extempore prayer. Her mistress took her by the shoulders, on which she awoke, and appeared unconscious of everything except that she had fallen asleep, of which she showed herself ashamed. She sometimes dressed herself and the children while in this state, or, as Mrs. L. called it, ' dead sleep ;' answered questions put to her, in such a manner as to show that she understood the question; but the answers were often, though not always, incongruous/' One day, in this state, she " set the breakfast with perfect correctness, with her eyes shut. She afterward awoke with the child on her knee, and wondered how she got on her clothes." Sometimes the cold air awakened her, at other times she was seized with the affection while walking out with the chil- dren. "■ She sang a hymn delightfully in this state, and, from a comparison which Dr. Dyce had an opportunity of making, it appeared incomparably better done than she could accomplish when well." " In the meantime a still more singular and in- 16 PLURALITY OF PERSONALITY. teresting symptom began to make its appearance. The circumstances ivhich occurred during the par- oxysm ivere completely forgotten ~by her when the paroxysm was over, tut iv ere perfectly remembered during subsequent paroxysms" Dr. Dewar, referring to the above, calls it " an instance of a phenomenon which is sometimes called double consciousness, but is more properly a divided consciousness, or double personality, exhi- biting, in some measure, two separate and inde- pendent trains of thought, and two independent mental capabilities in the same individual; each train of thought, and each capability being wholly dissevered from the other, and the two states in which they respectively predominate subject to fre- quent interchanges and alternations." Dr. Comb is informed by Dr. Abel, of an Irish porter to a warehouse, who " forgot, when sober, what he had done when drunk ; but, being drunk, again recollected the transactions of his former state of intoxication. On one occasion, being drunk, he had lost a parcel of some value, and in his sober moments could give no account of it. Next time he was intoxicated he recollected that he had left the parcel at a certain house, and there being no address on it, it had remained there safe, and was obtained on his calling for it." (5.) The case of George Mckern of New Orleans, was noticed in the news journals last winter, and is further referred to in Frank Leslie's Illustrated Neivspaper, of March 6th, 1869, as follows : " The curious, though by no means unexampled MENTAL PHENOMENON. 17 case of George Mckern, a German, of New Orleans, who, after being all but killed by a fall from a plat- form some months ago, and for many weeks en- tirely deprived of eyery sense as well as of con- sciousness, has recovered his health completely and his powers of mind — his memory excepted, which at present dates entirely from the beginning of his recovery, and is a complete blank as to all and every one — persons, words, things — his knowledge of which had been acquired before the fall, cannot but suggest the question, what relation memory really has to the personal identity of man ? The youth seems to have been, for a month at least, in a condition of complete detachment from the outer world, without any power of sight, or hearing, or speech ; at the end of seven weeks he had recovered these senses and could use his tongue freely, but he retained no glimmer of recollection of any word, either of his native German, or of English, which he had known before the accident, and his own mother and other friends were to him entirely new acquaintances, whom he had to learn to know afresh. He had to begin acquiring the language of those around him as if he had been an infant, and his progress was almost as slow. Still, all his faculties seemed acute and bright, and, dating from the origin of his new memory, he seemed to retain impressions well. His case is not a unique one. It is not impossible, if we may judge by some similar cases, that he should suddenly recover some day the whole of his suddenly extinguished stock of knowledge. 18 PLURALITY OF PERSONALITY. " There is an old case of a student of Philadel- phia whose memory was suddenly annihilated by a fever. He began painfully learning everything afresh, and had got as far as Latin, and had just mastered the Latin grammar, when his whole stock of previous knowledge returned as suddenly as it left him. It is quite possible that this JSTew Orleans lad might, if he had a fever or a fresh fall, or any new disturbance of the brain, recover his old memory and lose his new one, i. e., recover the re- collection of all that he knew before the accident, and lose the memory of all that he has acquired since. Cases are on record of this sort of alternat- ing memory, due to some fever, the first attack of which modified seriously, we suppose, the condi- tion of the nervous system, and the second attack of which reinduced the old condition of the brain, obliterating completely the latter phase. It is quite conceivable, then, that George Mckern may som« day suddenly recover the memory of the first twenty years of his life, and at the same moment lose that of the interval between the end of his twentieth year and the date at which this second solution of continuity might take place. George Mckern is a living example of a man who has pre- existed for twenty years on this earth before his own memory can authenticate for him any one act of his life. In his case we happen to have plenty of witnesses of what he was and what he did before his new term of life began ; and we only wish, by- the-way, that the New Orleans physicians would publish an accurate and authentic account of all MENTAL PHE^OME^OK. 19 the discontinuities and continuities between his "pre-existent life and character and his present life and character. It is not enough to know that he has to begin learning everything afresh. We want to know whether his character is materially changed, and in what direction — whether haying been, for instance, cautious or rash, he is now the same, or of an opposite disposition — whether haying been kind or inconsiderate, he has altered or not in that respect — whether his moral and religious nature shows any sort of close analogy to what it was be- fore, or any yery marked contrast — whether, hay- ing been selfish, for instance, he has become disin- terested, or haying been disinterested, he has be- come selfish — whether his tastes are materially altered or not by the great severance of the thread of his recollection — in a word, in what respects he reminds those who knew him of what he was before the accident, and in what respects, besides his memory, he is changed. The New Orleans physi- cians ought to carefully investigate and record these things, as it will be obvious to every one that they are of the highest psychological in- terest." (6.) Several interesting cases that seem to be best explained by the recognition of plurality of personality, are_ mentioned by Prof. Forbes Wins- low, in his work on the " Obscure Diseases of the Brain and Mind," which will be presented here, and explanatory reference will be given to them in another part of this work. "A lady, who died of obscure visceral disease, became delirious three 20 PLUKALITY OF PERSONALITY. hours before death. She then began to talk in what appeared to those about her to be the i un- known tongue/ No one understood a word she uttered. It was eventually surmised that she was conversing in German, a language she had acquired in early life, but which she had apparently for- gotten. A native of that country, who was at the time on a visit at a friend's house, was sent for, and conversed with the patient in German. The relations of the lady assured the medical gentlemen in attendance, who were much struck by the sin- gular phenomenon, that she had not spoken the foreign language since she was ten years of age! Five years previously to her fatal illness, she ac- companied some friends to Frankfort, but whilst there never attempted, -although frequently urged, to converse in the language of the country. It was then supposed that all the knowledge she had ac- quired of German when a child had been effaced from her mind." (7.) "Dr. Bush alludes to a patient subject to at- tacks of recurrent insanity, whose paroxysms were always indicated by her conversing in a kind of Italian patois. As the disease advanced, and had reached its culminating point, the lady could only talk in French; at the decline of her illness she spoke only German; and during the stage of con- valescence she addressed those about her in her native tongue. This lady, when quite well, rarely spoke any but her own language ; and if she at- tempted to do otherwise, always did so with ex- treme diffidence and difficulty. During her attack MENTAL PHEKOMEKOIS". 21 of insanity she spoke with great fluency, never, ap- parently, being at a loss for words to convey her ideas. It is said that, with the exception of the Italian, the other languages, German and French, were singularly accurate." (8.) " The Oomtesse de Laval had been observed by servants, who sat up with her on account of some indisposition, to talk in her sleep a language that none of them understood ; nor were they sure, or, indeed, herself able to guess, upon the sounds being repeated to her, whether it was or was not gib- berish. Upon her lying-in of one of her children, she was attended by a nurse who was of the province of Brittany, and who immediately knew the mean- ing of what she said, it being in the idiom of the natives of that country; but she herself, when awake, did not understand a single syllable of what she had uttered in her sleep upon its being retold to her. She was born in that province, and had been nursed in a family where nothing but that lan- guage was spoken, so that, in her first infancy, she had known it and no other; but, when she returned to her parents, she had no opportu- nity of keeping up the use of it; and, as I have before said, she did not understand a word of Breton when awake, though she spoke it in her sleep. I need not say that the Oomtesse de Laval never said or imagined that she used any words of the Breton idiom more than were necessary to express those ideas that are within the compass of a child's knowledge of objects, &c." * * "Ancient Metaphysics," by Lord Monboddo. 22 PLURALITY OF PERSONALITY.. (9.) "A gentleman was attacked by hemiplegia at an advanced age. He passed, a few days before death, into a state of low, rambling delirium. He then spoke only in French, a language he had not been known to speak for thirty years before. i This continued/ says Sir H. Holland, i until utterance ceased altogether to be intelligible/ " f (10.) " The following circumstance occurred in a Eoman Catholic town in Germany, a year or two before Mr. Coleridge arrived at G-ottingen. It was at the time a frequent subject of conversation. e A young woman of four or five and twenty, who could neither read nor write, was seized with a ner- vous fever, during which, according to the assever- ations of all the priests and monks of the neighbor- hood, she became possessed, as it appeared, by a very learned devil. She continued incessantly talking Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, in very pom- pous terms, and with the most distinct enunciation. This possession was rendered more probable by the known fact that she was or had been a heretic. Voltaire humorously advises the devil to decline all acquaintance with medical men, and it would have been more to his reputation if he had taken this advice in the present instance. The case had at- tracted the particular attention of a young physi- cian, and by his statement many eminent physi- ologists and psychologists visited the town, and cross-examined the case on the spot. Sheets full of her ravings were taken down from her own mouth, and were found to consist of sentences coherent + " Mental Pathology." MEKTAL PHE^OMEKOK. 23 and intelligible each for itself, but with little or no connection with each other. Of the Hebrew, a small portion of the whole conld be traced to the Bible; the remainder seemed to be the rabbinical dialect. All trick or conspiracy was ont of the question. Not only had the yonng woman ever been a harmless, simple creature, but she evidently was laboring under a nervous fever. In the town in which she had been resident for many years as a servant in different families, no solution presented itself. The young physician, however, determined to trace her past life from step to step, for the pa- tient herself was incapable of returning a rational answer. He at length succeeded in discovering the place where her parents had lived, travelled thither, found them dead; but, an uncle surviving, he learned from him that the patient had been char- itably taken by an old Protestant pastor at nine years of age, and had remained with him some years — even till the old man's death. Of this pastor the uncle knew nothing, but that he was a very good man. With great difficulty, and after much search, our young medical philosopher discovered a niece of the pastor's, who had lived with him as his housekeeper, and had inherited his effects. She remembered the girl; related that her venerable unclfe had been too indulgent, and could not bear to hear the girl scolded ; that she was willing to have kept her, but that after her patron's death the girl herself refused to stay. Anxious inquiries were made concerning the pastor's habits, and the solution of the phenomenon was soon obtained. It 24 PLUEALITT OF PEESOKALITY. appeared that it was tlie old man's custom for years to walk up and down a passage of his house into which the kitchen door opened, and to read to him- self with a loud voice out of his favorite books. A considerable number of these were still in the niece's possession. The pastor was a learned man, and a great Hebraic scholar. Among the books were found a collection of rabbinical writings, to- gether with several of the Greek and Latin authors, and the physician succeeded in identifying so many passages with those taken down at the young wo- man's bedside, that no doubt could remain in any rational mind concerning the true origin of the im- pressions made on her nervous system.' " (11.) "Analogous phenomena are observable in some forms of somnambulism as well as of cata- lepsy. Sir W. Hamilton quotes a singular illus- tration from a German book by Abel : ' A young- man had a cataleptic attack, in consequence of which a singular change ivas effected in Ms mental constitution. Some six minutes after falling asleep, he began to speak distinctly, and almost always of the same objects and concatenated events, so that he carried on from night to night the same history, or rather continued to play the same part. On awakening, he had no reminiscence whatever of his dreaming thoughts, a circumstance, by ttt? way, which distinguishes this as rather a case of som- nambulism than of common dreaming. Be this, however, as it may, he played a double part in Ms existence. By day he was the poor apprentice of a merchant; by night he was a married man, the MENTAL PHENOMENON. 25 father of a family, a senator, and in affluent cir- cumstances. If, during his vision, anything were said in regard to his waking state, he declared it unreal and a dream.' " "'A man loses all knowledge of a language ac- quired in early youth, in consequence of a severe blow upon the head, the effect of a serious derange- ment of the cerebral circulation, alteration in the molecular structure of the brain associated with an attack of fever, or the effect of paralysis, or apo- plexy. He recovers from illness, but with an entire forgetfulness of a language with which he was pre- viously familiar. He is advised, when restored to health, to re-learn it. He commences with the grammar, and makes an attempt to acquire the rudiments of the lost tongue. While so doing, he painfully realizes the mortifying fact that all recol- lection of what he had formerly so well known and highly valued is entirely obliterated from his mem- ory. He endeavors to translate some elementary classical work, and during a determined effort to resuscitate his dormant and, to all appearance, lost ideas, and revive former impressions by attempting to construe a difficult Latin sentence, he is con- scious of a physical change taking place in the brain : ' Quick as Ithuriel's spear,' all his critical knowledge of the apparently forgot- ten language rushes back to his mind ! This illus- tration is not a hypothetical one. The following is an analogous case : (12.) " Eev. J. E , a clergyman of rare talent 2 26 PLUKALITY OF PERSONALITY. and energy, of sound education, while riding through his mountainous parish, was thrown vio- lently from his carriage, and received a violent concussion of the brain. For several days he re- mained utterly unconscious, and at length, when restored, his intellect was observed to be in a state like that of a naturally intelligent child, or like that of Caspar Hauser, after his long sequestration. The good man again, but now in middle life, com- menced his English and classical studies under tutors, and was progressing very satisfactorily, when, after several months' successful study, the rich storehouses of memory were gradually un- locked, so that in a few weeks his mind resumed all its wonted vigor, and its former wealth and polish of culture. For several years he has con- tinued his labors as a pastor, and has suffered no symptom of cerebral disturbance. The first evi- dence of the restoration of this gentleman's mem- ory was experienced whilst attempting the mas- tery of an abstruse Greek author, an intellectual effort well adapted to test the penetrability of that veil that so long had excluded from the mind the light and riches of its former hard-earned posses- sions." "A gentleman, about thirty years of age, of learning and acquirements, at the termination of a severe illness, was found to have lost the recollec- tion of everything, even the names of the most common objects. His health being restored, he began to reacquire knowledge like a child. After learning the names of objects, he was taught to MENTAL PHEXOITEXOX. ~ 27 read, and after this, began to learn Latin. He had made considerable progress, when, one day in read- ing his lesson with his brother, who was his teach- er, he suddenly stopped, and put his hand to his head. Being asked why he did so, he replied, ' I feel a peculiar sensation in my head ; and now it appears to me that I knew all this before.' Erom that time he rapidly recovered his faculties. A state of mmd somewhat analogous occasionally occurs in diseases arising from simple exhaustion. Many years ago, Dr. Abercrombie attended a lady, who, from a severe and neglected diarrhoea, was reduced to a state of great weakness, followed by a remark- able failure of memory. She had lost the recol- lection of a particular epoch of her life, extending over the period of about ten or twelve years. She had formerly lived in another city, and the time of which she had lost the recollection was that dur- ing which she had lived in Edinburgh. Her ideas were consistent with each other, but they referred to things as they stood before her removal. She recovered her health after a considerable time, but remained in a state of imbecility resembling the dotage of old age." "It is a well-established fact that idiocy, appar- ently irremediable, connate imbecility, has been cured by a blow on the head ! ' Omnia exeunt in mysteriumj exclaims an old schoolman. Who can fathom the depths, unravel the intricate labyrinths, and penetrate into the arcana of the nervous sys- tem?" (13.) "A child up to the age of thirteen was 28 PLURALITY OF PERSONALITY. idiotic, evidencing either a total deficiency of in- telligence, or a stunted intellect of the lowest grade and order. He fell from a height upon his head and was stunned. He rallied from this state of un- consciousness, and was, i Cr eclat JudamsV found to be in full possession of his intellectual faculties ! " "A somewhat similar case is recorded by Louyer- Villermay. A man suffered from a paralysis of memory, following a severe blow upon the head. He was fortunate enough (as the result established) to have a repetition of the physical injury, and, as the effect of this accident, his memory was immedi- ately restored to its original strength.* Petrarch records that Pope Clement VI., found his memory wonderfully strengthened after receiving a slight concussion of the brain." " ' I have been informed/ says Dr. Pri chard, ' on good authority, that there was, some time since, a family consisting of three boys, who were all considered as idiots. One of them received a severe injury of the head : from that time his faculties began to brighten, and he is now a man of good talents, and practices as a barrister. His brothers are still idiotic or imbecile.' " f "Father Mabillon is said to have been in his younger days an idiot, continuing in this condition until the age of twenty-six. He then fell with his head against a stone staircase and fractured his skull. He was trepanned. After recovering from * " Dictionnaire des Sciences Medicales," vol. xxxii, p. 321. t " Treatise on Diseases of the Nervous System," by J. C. Prichard, M. D., 1S22. MENTAL PHEKOMEifO^. 29 tlie effects of the operation and injury, his intellect fully developed itself. He is said to have exhibited subsequently to the accident and operation, a mind endowed with a lively imagination, an amazing memory, and a zeal for study rarely equalled ! " The last several cases (pages 27 and 28), evi- dence, that one of the plural personalities had been in a passive condition, and that the power of the mind is restored by arousing it from that passive- ness so that the plural personalities act synchro- nously and in combination. Further reference to some of those cases will be given in a subsequent part of this work. The following cases show that a personality which is latent as far as mental expression is con- sidered, and though not aroused by disease or other impression to exhibit mental intelligence, as in the former cases, yet may be, or may become, sufficiently active to receive and take upon itself for awhile, by sympathy, the effects of the injuries or diseases of the personality that has manifested intellectual life, in order to so relieve the latter and aid its re- covery by allowing it absolute rest in passiveness. "Analogous singular inexplicable (as Dr. Wins- low says) psychical phenomena are observed in affec- tions of the brain associated with insanity. A man is seized with mental derangement whilst engaged in some manual employment, or when occupied in the contemplation of a particular idea or class of ideas. He recovers, and contemporaneously with his restoration to mental health, the mind recurs immediately to the train of thought or business in 30 MENTAL PHE^OMEKOST. wliicli it was engaged when seized with insanity, all notion of duration being annihilated, the in- terval between the first moment of seizure and the restoration of reason appearing like a blank, or analogous to a troubled and distressing dream." " Phenomena of a somewhat analogous kind are observed in connection with conditions of sleep and temporary states of morbid unconsciousness result- ing from injuries of the head." " A person of the name of Samuel Chilton, a la- borer, of Timsbury, near Bath, in the year 1696, is said to have slept for seventeen continuous weeks, from the 9th of April to the 7th of August. Life was sustained by the daily exhibition of small quan- tities of wine. When he awoke he dressed himself and walked about the room, being, as the narrator obverves, ' perfectly unconscious that he had slept more than one night. ^Nothing could make him believe that he had been asleep for so lengthened a period, until upon going into the fields he saw crops of barley and oats ready for the sickle, which he remembered were only sown when he last vis- ited them.'"* " It is recorded of a British captain at the battle of the Nile, that he was giving an order from the quarter-deck of his vessel, when a shot struck him on the head, depriving him immediately of speech. As he survived the injury he was taken home, and remained deprived of sense and speech in Green- wich Hospital for fifteen months. At the end of * "Fraser's Magazine." PLURALITY OF PERSONALITY. 31 that period, during which he is said to have mani- fested no sign of intelligence, an operation was per- formed on the head which almost instantaneously restored him to consciousness. He then immedi- ately rose from his bed, and not recognizing where he was, or what had occurred, expressed a desire to complete the order which had been so abruptly in- terrupted when he received his injury during the battle fifteen months previously." A farmer of good character, but whose mind was naturally of a melancholy cast, and who had suffered mental affliction, was engaged by a neighbor to enclose a piece of land with a post and rail fence, which he was to commence making the next day. At the time appointed he went into the field, and began with a beetle and wedges to split the timber out of which the posts and rails were to be prepared. On finishing this day's work, he put his beetle and wedges into a hollow tree, and went home. Two of his sons had been at work through the day in a distant part of the same field. On his return, he directed them to get up early the next morning to assist him in making the fence. In the course of the evening he became delirious, and continued in this situation several years, when his mental powers were suddenly re- stored. The first question he asked after the return of his reason, was whether his sons had brought in the beetle and wedges ? He appeared to be wholly unconscious of the time that had elapsed from the commencement of his delirium. His sons, appre- hensive that any explanation might induce a return 32 MENTAL PHENOMENON. of his disease, simply replied that they had hcen unable to find them. He then immediately arose from his bed, went into the field where he had been at work a number of years before, and found the wedges and the rings of the beetle where he had left them, the beetle itself having mouldered away. Dur- ing this delirium his mind had not been occupied with those subjects with which it was conversant in health."* " Mrs. S , an intelligent lady, belonging to a respectable family in the State of New York, some years back undertook a piece of fine needle-work. She devoted her time to it almost unceasingly for a number of days. Before she had completed it she became suddenly insane. In this state, without experiencing any material abatement of her disease, she continued for about seven years, when her rea- son was suddenly restored. One of the first ques- tions which she asked after her sanity was restored, related to her needle-work. It is a remarkable fact, that during the long continuance of her mental aberration she. said nothing, so far as was recollect- ed, about her needle-work, nor concerning any of the subjects that usually occupied her mind when in health." In the Transactions of the French Academy of Sciences for 1719, there is published a statement illustrative of the subject under consideration. It is as follows : * " A nobleman residing at Lausanne, whilst giv- ing orders to a servant, suddenly lost his speech * "Dr. Prichard on ' The Diseases of the Nervous System.'' " PLURALITY OF PERSONALITY. 33 and senses. Various modes of treatment were adopted to restore his intellect to a soimd state, but for a very considerable time without effect. For six months he appeared to be in a deep sleep, apparently unconscious of everything. At the end of that period a surgical operation was decided up- on and performed. The effect was to restore him to the use of consciousness and speech. When he recovered, the servant to whom he had been giving orders, upon entering the room, was asked by him if he had done what he was requested to do at the commencement of his illness, not being aware that any interval, except perhaps a very short one, had elapsed during his attack." * "A girl aged six years, while indulging in a game with her playmates, tossing and catching playthings on the pavement, failed to notice some- thing that was thrown to her, and- while hurriedly seeking for and inquiring about it, made a false step and fell upon the pavement. The cerebral concussion appeared to have been violent, and she was watched with much anxiety for about ten hours after the accident. She then, for the first time, opened her eyes and manifested signs of con- sciousness. She afterwards immediately jumped to the edge of her bed, exclaiming : ' Where is it ? where did you throw it ? ' and immediately com- menced throwing little articles from her dress, ex- claiming : ' Catch these/ By these acts she was manifestly continuing those physical operations * " The Academy received this statement from Crousaz, Mathemati- cal Professor at Lausanne, and author of a 'Treatise on Logic, 1 " &c. 34 ANATOMICAL PHENOMENON. and the train of thought which had been so sud- denly arrested by her fall. No marked yascular reaction occurred in this case; the pupil was yery much contracted during the first six hours of the period of concussion, the pulse soft and hurried ; she yomited much, but did not open her eyes at any time until the moment of her sudden restora- tion to consciousness. Her recovery was perfect from that moment" PLURALITY OF PERSONALITY. ANATOMICAL PHENOMENON. The plurality of the mental personalities of in- dividuals could scarcely, by possibility, have dis- tinctive proof, unless there should be occasionally such phenomena as has been presented in the pre- ceding chapter. And though such phenomena have no reasonable explanation outside the con- sideration of the plural personalities of individuals, this is not all the kinds of proof that can be brought to sustain such plurality, because, in- deed, there is presented for our study many well authenticated anatomical peculiarities that have great bearing upon this subject. In an essay on " Diplo-teratology," by Geo. I. Fisher, M.D., published in the Transactions of the New York State Medical Society, (Albany, 1868,) is presented strange phenomena of duplication in anatomy; and there are interesting specimens in the cabinet of the " Boston Society for Medical Improvement." In the British MedicalJournal of February 13 th, 1869, James Y. Simpson, Bart., M. D., D. 0. L., Professor of Medicine and Midwifery in the Uni- versity of Edinburgh, says : (14.) "United twins appear under a great va- riety of forms, and under very diverse degrees of duplicity. Sometimes the two individuals are com- plete in all respects, and are found united by the fronts of the chests and abdomen, or by the backs, 36 PLURALITY OF PERSONALITY. or by their heads and scalps, or by the pelvis, or by the arms and sides. More frequently the two united persons are more or less incomplete in con- sequence of their junction being more intimate and deep at the line of union. The degree of in- completeness which thus occurs, varies infinitely. In some cases they are altogether double above, and altogether single below; or, in other words, they possess two heads and four arms, but only two lower extremities. Others again, are single above, and double below ; or they have one head and four lower extremities. Every conceivable gradation is found in the intermediate part and organs, in these varying degrees of double union. But the junc- tions, however diverse between the united twin in- dividuals, are found to conform to the general teratological law, that in the two, the same parts only unite to the same parts ; and not only muscle only to muscle, bone only to bone ; but the same muscle in the one twin unites at the line of con- junction to the same muscle in the other twin ; the same bone to the same bone; and the same nerve to the same nerve. The same organ and part, as the liver, intestine, pericardium, nose, ears, etc., to the same organ and part in the opposite in- dividual whenever the conjunction extends to these and other organs and parts. This teratological law of the union of like to like — eadem ibidem — is, as I have said, a general law in the structure of united twins ; but it is not an universal law. For in some descriptions of double monstrosity, when one of the two attached beings has the form of a ANATOMICAL PHENOMENON. 37 dwarfed parasite^ the attached parasite does not necessarily conform in its mode and site of attach- ment to the principle of the union of the same parts to the same parts. The Siamese twins form the most remarkable instance of united twins in this respect — that, with the two bodies individually complete, they have lived to a more advanced age than any other instance in the records of science. Let me, there- fore, state some of the interesting (historical) ana- tomical and physiological facts regarding them. They were born in Siam in 1811, and are now 58 years old. In 1829, were brought to the States for exhibition. * * * A curious circumstance which was noticed at a very early period by the twins, is that the two inner eyes — the left one of Eng, and the right of Chang — possess a much clearer and more distinct vision than the two outer. In fact, when the two inner ones are closed they say they are quite unable to distinguish any object clearly. I have ascertained by experiment, that the right ear of Eng is more acute than his left, and the twins, themselves, know very well that Chang is much deafer than his brother. He does not hear a watch in contact with his right ear. (15.) Professor Allen Thompson of Glasgow, has shown it to be a general law in relation to united twins, that the heart, liver, etc., are inverted in po- sition, or on the reverse side, in one of the hvo indi- viduals forming the united twins. This does not seem to hold good in relation to Chang or Eng. 38 PLUKALITY OF PERSONALITY. (16.) The following case of united twins, is one of what Jeoffrey St. Hilaire calls autositaries; two in- dividuals equally developed, and having life in com- mon. They are shown in outline in the following cut: Reported in the Rich- mond and Louisville Medical Journal, by Prof. A. B. Cook, A. M., M. D., Professor of Surgery in the Ken- tucky School of Medi- cine ; presented to him by E. 0. Bright, M. D., of eminence, Kentucky. These twins were born March 29th, 1865. Their mother was a mu- latto, aged twenty-eight years at their birth. " The connecting band extends from the zyphoid cartilages downwards to a point where the natural umbilicus should be; the skin is continuous on each surface with the corresponding abdominal walls, natural in appearance and without any trace of a median line or raphe between them. The band measures in its vertical diameter 4 inches; transverse at the sternal border 1^ inches, at the umbilical border 2 inches; thickness through the lower half J of an inch, upper half 1 inch. There This cut shows the double liver of this interesting case. B, right ; L, left ; C C, centre of the upper surface ; H H, hepathic veins con- verging and coalescing toward either extremity ; T T, trunks of the hepathic veins ; V, right vena cava ascendens ; JV, the common venous trunk of the right ; A, left vena cava ascendens ; iV", the common venous trunk of the right; J., left vena cava ascendens uniting with the left hepathic veins to form the common trunk 0; P, small section of lever detached to show hepathic veins at I; IT, umbilical vein; Y Y, ductus venosus of each side ; M, common diaphragm, showing the openings for the cavas, iVand 0. 40 PLURALITY OF PERSONALITY. is but one common umbilical cord, which enters at the centre of the inferior border of the band, thus forming one single umbilicus for two beings ; it is natural in size and appearance, and is composed of one common umbilical vein and four hypogas- tric arteries with the usual envelopes." These infants died at birth, and a dissection re- vealed that the peritoneum (lining membrane of abdomen), formed one great continuous sac, which "accommodated itself to the separate abdominal walls and viscera of each, and a single liver com- mon to both. This viscus occupies an anomalous position: the greater part of the organ is sus- pended across the upper half of the cavity in the connecting band, the extremities terminating in the right hypo-chondrium of each. " The parenchymatous structure is analogous to other livers, with this difference : that in this com- mon organ we find no trace of any septum denot- ing an original development, in two parts, and we ■ have two sets of hepatic vessels having a promis- cuous distribution, from which common reservoir they distribute to two distinct individuals. In utero they were supplied with maternal blood through one common channel, the umbilical vein; and nour- ished and developed from one common source, the placental blood, which flowed through one common organ before general distribution. We have, in this abnormal development, an irregular sub- stance suspended in the septum, carrying the life- blood of two human beings. It is covered by per- itoneum ; • the vertical line of its under-surface is AKATOMICAL PHE^OMEKOtf. 41 occupied by the trunk of the umbilical vein ; on either side two gall bladders, two cystic ducts, two hepatic ducts ; further removed from the common mesian plane, and nearer the centre of the under- surface, two shallow fissures, each giving exit to biliary ducts and deep lymphatics distributed to two. separate alimentary canals and thoracic ducts, each transmitting a hepatic artery, vena portse and hepatic nerves to nourish, support and feed a chemical laboratory, which distributes alike its in- vigorating or baneful "fluids to two living beings. " The office of this liver might be compared to that of a filter, placed in a recess common to two households, and from either extremity pouring out to the occupants a constant stream of pure invigor- ating fluid, or distributing the germs of sickness and death. " The physiological questions may be very brief- ly considered in two relations : first, through the common liver, and second, through the connecting soft tissues. In the liver terminate the peripheral extremities of a portion of the two great nervous systems; the cerebro-spinal axes, connecting its animal sympathies with the cerebrums through some filaments derived from the pneumogastric and right phrenic nerves. The ganglionic systems connecting intimately and inseparably, the organic ' functions through the hepatic plexuses derived from the solar plexuses of two beings. We have in the neiwes, a union of sympathy and organic function. The complicated structure of the organ fits it for its great function, the distillation of the 42 PLURALITY OF PERSONALITY. bile, a constant secretion in greater or less quan- tities ; and constantly delivered from this common source to two digestive apparatuses. "This fluid, complex in its chemical compo- sition, is not a mere excretion as some maintain ; but it is a necessity to nutrition and life, as proved by experiments on dogs in which death soon fol- lowed the absence of bile in the intestinal canal. Two lymphatic systems also act their part in the hidden mysteries which govern the laws of health. In short, this single organ performs all the im- portant physiological functions connected with the liver for two individuals. " The physiological union through the soft tis- sues of the connecting band are of minor impor- tance, being limited to the capillary inosculations of the sanguineous and lymphatic systems, and the intermingling of the sensor and motor nerves for a short distance on either side of median line. The healthy relations of the two then are common, derived from the same fountain head and disturbed by the same causes. In their pathological relations any symptomatic disease of the liver, whether functional or organic, would necessarily affect both alike. Functional disorders of any of the duplicated organs, as the brain, lungs, heart, etc., of one would not disturb necessarily the health of the other twin. Local in- flammations in one, as pneumonia, nephritis, dys- entery, etc., would not be developed in the corres- ponding organs of the other, but he would only suffer from the symptomatic fever communicated ANATOMICAL PHENOMENON". 43 through the circulation. Idiopathic disease, as typhoid fever, and zymotic disease, as small-pox, rubeola, poison, etc., would affect both simulta- neously through the vascular and lymphatic con- nections. The administration of all remedies, ac- ting through the systemic circulation, would influ- ence both alike in consequence of the two capil- lary anastomoses — first, and most important, in the liver; and second, in the connecting band." T. H. Tanner," M. D.,* reports a case of united twins, female, still-born. The attachment ex- tended " from the top of the thorax down to where the natural umbilicus should be. The thoracic cav- ity was common, containing tivo lungs, one heart and one sternum (breast-bone.) The abdominal cavity was common, e having one liver, one spleen, two kidneys, and one set of intestines/ one single cord and placenta. Second case, reported by J. Gr. Swayne, M. D.f Sex, male. The union extended from the umbilicus to the top of the thorax. There was one sternum and four clavicles, one thoracic cavity ivith a pericardium, containing tivo separate perfect hearts, one venous connection through a large branch connecting the right vena innomi- nata of one, with the left vena innominata of the other. In the abdomen there was a single dia- phragm, one common liver, one umbilical cord hav- ing one vein and four arteries. All the other or- gans in both cavities were duplicated. Third ease, by W. Wills, Esq.J Sex, male : child- * See Obstetrical Transactions, Vol. n. t See Obstetrical Transactions, Vol. II. tSee Obstetrical Transactions, Vol. VT. 44 PLURALITY OF PERSONALITY. ren were well developed, and connected from the upper part of the thorax down to the umbilicus. Umbilical cord double and in one sheath entered the cavity between them at the band of union ; one large single liver, one gall bladder ivith two biliary ducts and one large spleen. TJie intestinal canals and all other abdominal and thoracic viscera id ere double and perfect." An article in the New York Times of April 4th, 1869, refers to several cases of united twins, one, a case described by Dr. Berry, of two girls who lived to be seven years old. "Food taken by the one nour- ished the other, but they were very different in character, and one sometimes woke while the other slept. " Of twins who have lived united back to back, the best known instance is that of the two Hunga- rian sisters, Helen and Judith, who were thus fixed ; they were born in 1701, and died at Presburg in 1723, aged 23. Some disorders they had separately ; others, as small-pox or measles, together. Judith, always feeble, sank under disease of the head and chest ; Helen, who preserved her health well to the last, felt her own strength suddenly fail, though her speech remained entire, and after a brief death struggle, she died with her. Sir J. Simpson saw, in 1856, two female children — Amelia and Christi- na — then about 5 years of age, united exactly as Helen and Judith. They are said to be now living in the Southern States of America. They were born in Columbo County, South Carolina. Al- though united back to back, and completely fused, ANATOMICAL PHENOMENON. 45 they were very different in dispositions and tem- peraments. When they quarrelled more bitterly than usual, they backed at each other with their elbows and knocked with their sinciputs. They ran and walked with facility, one backward and the other forward ; and notwithstanding their par- tial community of body, one was sometimes seen to eat while the other was oyerpowered with sleep. Sir James Simpson figures and describes in the Journal, other twins, partial and complete ; as Eita- Christina, who, between thirty and forty years ago, attracted the deep interest of the medical profession in Paris ; and Lazarus and John Coloredo, born at Genes in 1617, who were twenty-eight years of age when last seen at Basle by Bartholinus. The at- tached and imperfectly developed twin, John, hangs in the drawing, as in life, head downward from the lower part of the chest of Lazarus." (17.) In the Eichmond and Louisville Medical Journal is described the case of a child born on the 12th of May, 1868, in Lincoln County, Tenn. This child, Josephine Myrtle , is possessed of one head and one trunk, like those of a liying, well-developed, healthy, active infant of about 5 weeks, (June 16, 1868,) whilst the lower portion of her body is divided into the members of two distinct individuals. Professors Joseph Jones, M. D., and Paul F. Eve, M. D., (University of Nash- ville,) who examined this child, declare their belief, "that the lower portion of the spinal column is divided or cleft, and that there are two pelvic arches supporting the four limbs which are situated upon 46 PLURALITY OF PERSONALITY. the same plane," and from which point below, all the organs are double, there being two pelvic arches — four legs — and in every respect fully duplicated, as the more particular description by the above- named professors fully corroborates, but which it is not necessary here to give. The author has in his possession photographs of this interesting case, from which the following engraving has been produced : Josephine Myrtle C , born the 12th of May, 1868, in Lincoln County, Tennessee. From the commentaries of Sigibert we are told* of the child born at Emmaus in the reign of Emperor Theodosius, single below the chest (or chests), with four arms and two heads. The two heads were not better than one, for they were differently affected ; one might be crying while the other laughed, one feeding, the other sleeping; * Harpers' Weekly. AKATOMICAL PHEKOMEKOK. 47 sometimes they quarreled, and there was a fight of the two pairs of arms. This child is said to haye lived two years, one part dying four days before the other, which was killed by the decay of its inseparable neighbor. Cardan tells us of a Milanese girl with two heads, in all other respects single, except that she was found after death to have two stomachs. Among the two-headed women was one in Bavaria, aged twenty-six, of whose two faces one was pretty, the other ugly. In the time of Francis the First of France there was a man with two heads, whose second, head grew out of the trunk of his body, and was carried under his waistcoat. This head had a secret hunger of its own, that no food taken by the visible mouth would satisfy. " Cases somewhat similar to the above have oc- curred and been described. Kokitansky refers to two completely distinct bodies conjoined at their ossa sacraor coccyges, as in the well-known Hun- garian sisters, Helen and Judith, born in 1701, who survived their twenty-second year. " Geoffrey St. Hilaire, alludes to cases of a trunk with two heads, some even Janus-like, having four upper and four lower extremities. (18.) "The case, however, recalled most vividly by Josephine M. C— — , is that of Rita- Christina, well-known in Europe, and accurately described m this country years ago, by Prof. Meigs. In this wonderful instance, there were two heads, two necks, four arms, out only two legs ; and was thus the reverse of our case. From the umbilicus down, 48 LATERAL HALVES there was one well-formed child, out above this, all the organs ivere doubled ; in reality there existed two beings. The rectum and bladder were common to both, but all else in the trunk was double and dis- tinct. One would sleep while the other played, etc., for they had two spinal marrows, tiuo brains, two hearts, but the last two occupied a common pericar- dium. Unfortunately, after surviving a little over a year, one sickened and died, when the other, then in health, instantly expired. " Eita and Christina were born in Sardinia, 1829, and described by Dr. DeMichaelis, Professor of Sur- gery in the Eoyal University of Sassari, and lived eighteen months." LITERAL HALYES OF THE BRAIN AND BODY. (19.) " The body consists of two halves, so equal and alike, that it has often been said, that each person consists of two separate individuals." (Dra- per.) This seems plain from the evidence adduced in its support, and is accepted in the text books of physiological science. It is not this hemispherical doubleness that is proposed to be proved in this work, for that, the author believes, is already rec- ognized, but it is that the hemispheres may be doubled within themselves, tripled, etc., duality not being the definite limit of their plurality. And from the preceding facts presented in this work, it ought not to be supposed that the reader OF THE BRAIN AND BODY. 49 need be greatly startled at this assertion. But, before proceeding to show this more fully, let us first examine the already recognized principle of duality of man by the two like hemispheres ; and in referring to authority, Prof. Draper will be chiefly respected, because of the quite uniform precision of his observations and conclusions. Great Longitudinal Fissure. The above diagram shows the two lateral halves of the brain, which is the recognized organ of the mind, the great longitudinal fissure dividing it into two hemispheres. Also the body entire has its two symmetrical halves, the cranial and spinal nerves coming forth by pairs to their distribution on both sides of the body. Or, rather, we may with propriety 3 50 LATEEAL HALVES regard the spinal chord as the primary organ and seat of life, as evidenced by the order of its development and by many physiological facts ; and the brain is a development on the spinal chord. The great " longitudinal fissure " shows by its division the two lateral halves of the brain. Wigan has been referred to in " Human Physi- ology," who studied the duality of the mind and brain through its two hemispheres. " Examining those organs which, by reason of the elaborateness of their mechanism and principles of action, enable us to determine with satisfactory precision the function discharged by each one of the members of the pair, as in the case of the eye or the ear, we may come to the following conclusions : Each is a distinct organ in itself, capable of its meeting the requirements of the economy in a sufficiently satis- factory manner, and therefore forms a distinct whole; but the pair can likewise act simulta- neously, re-enforcing, to a certain degree, each other's power, though in this double action there by no means arises a double intensity of effect. The closure of one ear to a sound does not dimin- ish the loudness by one half, nor does the shutting of one eye reduce to one half the brightness of a light : but, though there is not such a doubling of effect when both eyes or both ears are employed, there is a degree of precision in the resulting in- dication which is not to be gained by the use of one of these organs alone. In such a double organ, then, the result is not so much a heightening of the OF THE BKAIK AND BODY. 51 final impression as the giving to it of a greater de- gree of precision. " Moreover, each organ seems to exert a compen- sating influence over its fellow in any deficiencies or imperfections it may possess. Thus, it is rare that both eyes are of an equal optical goodness, as most individuals will find on making a personal examination; but in vision with both eyes, the faults of the more imperfect one are merged in the indications of the better, and the same might be remarked of the ear ; from which it would appear that this doubleness of organs, is rather for the purpose of introducing a principle of compensation than one of conspiring action, the object intended to be gained being a justness of perception rather than an increase of effect. " These observations apply to double organs in their normal states, or, if not their normal, their habitual ones: but if to the eye, for example, a temporary disturbance is given, as by pressure, which renders its optical axis oblique, the fellow or- gan being permitted to retain its usual position, double sight is the result. It is true that, in the habitual divergence of strabismus, such is not the effect, one of the images disappearing, or perhaps the mind accommodating itself to the habitual con- dition, combines the two into one. These circum- stances indicate that each member of a double organ can, under conditions of disturbance, exer- cise an independent and even opposing action to its fellow. " It has by some been supposed that the mind pays 52 LATEEAL HALVES attention to the impressions of only one of the pair of organs at a time : thus, that we see the images furnished only by one eye, though we can with very great quickness direct attention to those fur- nished by the other, and therefore, deceived by the rapidity with which this alternation of attention can be accomplished, our belief in the synchronous use of both organs is an error. If two differently colored objects, such as differently tinted wafers, be so placed as to be separately and yet simulta- neously viewed by both eyes, the mind vainly at- tempts to combine the two images together. "We do not see the resulting form of green tint, but we see, according as our attention is given to the right or left, a blue or a yellow, if these have been the colors of the wafers, and these colors can quickly merge into one another, like dissolving views. There is a simple experiment which serves to sup- port this view, and which any one may readily make. If the open hand be placed along the nose, so as to divide the right eye from the left, and we look upon the surface of a uniformly-illuminated sheet of paper covered with writing, it will be found that we can only read with one eye at a time, but that the mind can with great rapidity deter- mine which eye it will use. In this little experi- ment, we have, moreover, the means of estimating the relative sensitiveness of the two eyes, and other of their optical peculiarities ; th as it will be com- monly remarked that, though the paper be, as we have said, uniformly illuminated, that part of it which is regarded by one eye is brighter than that OF THE BEAIK AND BODY. 53 seen by the other, this being due to a difference in their sensibility. It will also frequently occur that the two portions of the page will present different shades of tint, the one, perhaps, being a faint green- ish gray, while the other is of a yellowish white, the proper color given to it by the candle or lamp by which it is seen. " In this feature of double construction the brain itself participates, presenting a right and left half approaching one another in form, without being absolutely identical. Much, therefore, of what has been said respecting the mutual relations of the right and left eye, and the right and left ear, must apply to the right and left hemispheres of the brain. Nor can there he any doubt that each hemisphere is a distinct organ, having the power of carrying on its functions independently of its fellow ; that, though each can thus act separately, both can act simultaneously; and judging from the cases that have just been presented, it would seem that we are justified in inferring that the common action of the two hemispheres is not for the purpose of a heightening of effect, but only for greater precision, and that in the same manner, as it is a rare thing to find two eyes or two ears of equal goodness, so also it is unusual to have two hemispheres which are precisely alike. The defects of the one may be compensated by the superiorities of the other, and thus a mean result be attained ; and as one eye or one ear can, under the proper circumstances, over- power its fellow, so likewise can one hemisphere of the brain, except in certain cases, which have been 54 LATEKAL HALVES somewhat imaginatively described as insubordina- tion of one of the hemispheres, when insanity is the result, the healthy half being unable to control the diseased one ; and for this reason, we often ob- serve of the insane that they have synchronously, or, at all events, in a very rapid alternation, two distinct trains of thought, and consequently, two distinct utterances, each of which may, so to speak, be perfectly continuous and even sane by itself, but the incongruities that arise from the mingling of the two betray the condition of such persons. In this case doubleness of action is seen in its most exaggerated aspect, but in a less degree, it may be remarked, in the thinking operations of those whose minds are perfectly sound. Thus, there is no student but must have observed, when busily engaged in reading, that his mind will wander off to other things, though he may mechanically cast his eyes over page after page, and the same may occur in listening to a lecture or sermon. " The overcoming of this insubordination of one of the hemispheres may, to a very considerable de- gree, be accomplished by education, of which one of the chief results is that it exercises us in the habit of thinking of one thing at a time, of think- ing therefore without confusion, and of arriving at conclusions ivith precision and decision. And these considerations should also, in Dr. Wigan's view, be our chief guide in the cure of insanity, doing all in our power to invigorate the action of the healthy hemisphere, and enable it to subdue the insubordination of the diseased one. If both OF THE BEATN" AND BODY. 55 hemispheres are diseased, the case is almost hope- less. " Of the independent and yet complete action of each of the cerebral hemispheres, we have abund- ant and interesting proof. Mental operations can be carried on in a profoundly diseased state of one of these organs, as multitudes of well-authenticated cases attest — nay, eyen when the lesion has gone so far as to amount to an absolute and entire dis- organization of one of the hemispheres. Similar evidence is also furnished by these interesting cases in which, by accident, as by gunshot wound, de- struction of one side has occurred. " Even in a state of health we have numerous examples of this independent action of each hem- isphere. While engaged in ordinary pursuits which imply a continued mental occupation, we are oc- casionly troubled with suggestions of a different kind. A strain of music, or even a few notes, may be perpetually obtruding, and such an occurrence we could scarcely explain save upon the principle of the separate action of these organs, the one in- terfering with the other. That precision which we have remarked as arising from the conjoint use of two eyes and two ears, is doubtless also attained where the two hemispheres are acting in unison. We can, moreover, voluntarily permit one to rest while the other continues its duty, as we can vol- untarily make use of one eye, disregarding the in- dications of the other ; but where it is necessary to execute a critical comparison, or arrive at an accu- rate judgment of things, both hemispheres are 56 LATERAL HALYES brought into action, as are both eyes when we in- tently consider an object. "Among other phenomena, Dr. Wigan calls at- tention to the operation of castle -building, as it is designated, illustrating the voluntary manner in which we permit one hemisphere to act, presenting fanciful delusions ; the other, as it were, watching with satisfaction the operation, and in this respect lending itself to it. Not that for a moment we suppose there is any truth in the ideas suggested, and in this the phenomenon differs essentially from that of dreaming, in which it never occurs to us that the scenes and actions are unsubstantial. " Still more strikingly do those singular cases, which from time to time present themselves to the physician, of double or alternate consciousness, il- lustrate this isolated function of the hemispheres. In some of these, which have been carefully observ- ed and authentically recorded, each of these por- tions of the brain has continued its action for a period of days, or even weeks, and then, relapsing into a quiescent state, has been succeeded by the other, thus presenting, in some degree, an analogy of what is observed in ordinary cases of insanity, so far as the reciprocating action of the two organs is concerned, but differing in the period of dura- tion of their function; and thus, if one of them should have undergone deterioration, or have suf- fered lesion, so that it has been reduced to what might be termed an infantile state, the impressions formerly stored up in it having been for the most part lost, or there being an incapacity in it to make OP THE BEAIN AND BODY. 5? use of them, the patient will alternately exhibit what has been aptly termed child life and mature life. For a few days, or perhaps weeks, he will conduct himself in the ordinary manner of an adult, reading, reasoning, and acting, and then, for a similar period, will pass into a condition in which he does not even know his letters, and rea- sons and acts like a child. These phenomena of alternate or double intellection are interesting in the highest degree." But here the author would suggest some criti- cism on Dr. Wigan's views, which is, that these differences of phenomena result from differences in action merely of the two hemispheres of the brain. But will such a hypothesis, which institutes such limitation, be sustained by the office of these two hemispheres ? The usual action of these two hem- ispheres is in conjunction, or if not synchronously for precision, then in alternation to afford mutual rest, participating almost uniformly in develop- ment, from the mental actions and experiences that advance toward age. Then, as it appears to the author, we must look for the cause of the pheno- mena of alternate mature-life and child -life not in the two symmetrical hemispheres of the brain, but rather in the plurality of the entire brain doubled within itself, where one by its latency for the most of the time, would, whenever it should become ac- tive, not only exhibit more youthful thoughts and habits, but also, even a. change of emotional and moral character, appearing like a change of person- ality. — But this subject will be referred to again. 3* 58 LATEEAL HALVES The following diagram illustrates the exceeding- ly interesting relation of the optic nerves of the two eyes to the two hemispheres of the brain, by which it will be seen that either eye separately, or both conjointly, may conyey impressions to either one or both hemispheres. c c, Tract of outer nerve fibres ; d d, tract of central fibres ; e e, tract of inter-retinal fibres ; //, tract of inter-cerebral fibres. OF THE BKAItf A1TD BODY. 59 The optic nerves have their anterior fibres, their central or interior fibres, and their posterior fibres. The anterior fibres are commissuras between the two retinae, their tract being denoted in the pre- ceding diagram by the line e e. The interior fibres have their tracts denoted by the lines d d, each crossing to the opposite hemisphere of the brain. The posterior fibres have their tract denoted by the line//', crossing from one hemisphere of the brain to the other, being a commissure between the two optic thalami. This posterior region of the complex commissura is regarded by Prof. J. "W. Draper as being independent of the other parts. It exists* in animals which have no optic nerve, as the mole. According to Metz,* the optic nerves of the two sides partially cross ; it contains two kinds of fibres, the external, which proceed from the brain to the external part of the retina (on the same side), and which do not decussate. The direction of these lines are denoted by the lines c c in the dia- gram on the preceding page, and also by c c, in the diagram of the chiasma here given, which shows the direction of all the nerve fibres. The central fibres of these same nerves, or what is called the optic tracts, as before stated, cross in the chiasma, going to the hemispheres of the brain on the op- posite sides, as shown at d d. * Anatomy and Histology of the Human Eye. 60 LATEKAL HALVES The following cut, from Metz's work, shows the two kinds of fibres of the optic tracts, the external which proceed to the external part of the retina and which do not decussate, and the central which cross in the chiasm; but in this cut the inter- retinal and the inter-cerebral fibres are not shown. m a a, External fibres of the optic nerve and of the retina coming from the corresponding hemispheres ; b b, internal fibres of the same nerve which originate in the opposite hemispheres ; c c, chiasma, witb inter-crossing of the optic fibres ; d, e, optic tracts, &c. OE THE BRAIN AND BODY. 61 But Metz shows the chiasma complete, with tho directions of all its fibres, in another diagram, made so as to show them distinctly, as here pre- sented. COMMISSURA OP THE OPTIC NERVES. O, is the commissura arcuata anterior, the inter-retinal nerve fibres ; B B, the commissura arcuata posterior or inter-cerehral nerve fibres ; P P and Q Q, are the commissura cruciata, showing the crossing of the optic tracts from each eye to the opposite hemi- sphere of the brain ; M M and N A", show the course of the external optic nerve fibres which do not decussate but lead from each hemi- sphere of the brain to the external part of the retina of the eye on the corresponding side. Prof. J. W. Draper, in his Text Book of Physio- logy, presents a very concise statement, recognizing the result of the inter-retinal nerve fibres, which virtually make the two retinas as one encased ivith- in the other. He says, that " while the proper op- tic tubules of the right eye go to the left brain, and of the left eye to the right brain, the anterior band of commissural tubules brings the two eyes into a special relation with one another, the right side of one eye corresponding with the right of the other, and the left with the left ; or, to put the same state- ment under a more simple, yet a more instructive 62 LATERAL HALVES form, the outer side of one eye corresponds with, the inner of the other, and in this manner the two retinas become as if they were virtually encased, the one within the shell of the other. * * * * From this commissural arrangement it comes to pass that each retinas possesses regions of symmetry with the other, and on this singleness of vision de- pends. Each point of the outer portion of the re- tinas of the right eye has its points of symmetry in an inner portion of the left, and when from a dis- tant object rays fall on these symmetrical points, that object will be seen single." In looking at a single object each' eye sees a some- what different image, because as the eyes are separ- ate a certain distance, the left eye sees more of the left portion, and the right eye more of the right por- tion of the object; and these two different images, on the two retinas, being merged into one as the mind recognizes it, the idea of solidity is obtained, and also, in other respects, a more perfect compre- hension of the image. If two objects, nearly alike, be situated so that by turning the eyes inward in the position where they would be directed so that each object would be seen by the eye on the opposite side, and thus, the line of vision of each eye crossing so as to make a focus where both images would occupy the same place, a more vivid or expressive feature is given to the object from plurality, as two are now made one to the view; and yet, by keeping the eyes turned in that same direction, and obscuring the rays from entering one eye, the other eye sees OF THE BKAI2* AOT BODY. 63 then the less expressive form of the one image un- combined with the other; and by changing so as to obscure only the other eye, the other image is shown in its less expressive and less comprehended form. The accompanying dia- gram shows how two im- ages may be made to com- bine in the vision ; and by a little practice, keeping the eyes thus fixed, the experimenter can let his mind, (through the eye,) view either one or the other of the images exclu- sively, even without ob- scuring the eye not desired to recognize the image. The reader's attention is now respectfully called to renewed consideration of those cases where por- tions of the body are duplicated, such as the lower extremities from the pelvis downwards, as shown on page 46 ; and also, to the duplicatures of the upper extremities, such as one body having two heads and four arms, or such as two beings, twins, partially united, having various internal organs of the chest and abdomen in common, (page 38.) Eeferring to the case of Josephine Myrtle C , (page 46,) the duplication exists in reality not only 64 PLURALITY OF PERSONALITY. from the sacrum downwards, forming two pelvic arches and four legs, but also the nerves" of each limb have their extension through the spinal chord even to the brain. In truth, then, there are two entire bodies, but one of them is enclosed within the other, from the sacrum upwards ! The description on pages 39 and 40, shows two livers united into one. There was but one umbil- ical vein, u, to nourish the two beings with mater- nal blood ; yet, there were two hepatic veins, one belonging to one, and the other to the other per- sonality. Also, on page 43, there is reference to united twins, having thoracic and abdominal cavities common, with lungs, heart, liver, spleen, kidneys and intestines in common; and there was one single umbilical chord and placenta, these were duplicated within themselves; also, (page 43,) another case where the united twins had one thoracic cavity with a pericardium con- taining two separate perfect hearts ; and in the abdomen there was a single diaphragm, and one common liver, Now, if two livers can be encased within each other as one, and lungs, and kidneys, etc., why cannot brains be encased within brains, two entire hemispheres of the brain within two other entire hemispheres? And even as the upper portions of the body are thus sometimes encased while the low- er are separate, so are the lower thus sometimes encased together while the upper are separate, as shown page 47 (fig. 18) Rita Christina. Examining the following diagram of the nervous PLUEALITT OF PEKSOINALITY. 65 system, as all the neryes lead to the brain, it is plain that if the body could be double from a, downwards, it would not be impossible for it to be double from l, downwards, or c, or d, or even from the brain, e, downwards, making two distinct bodies, which would be twins, as is often the case, and all maryel at an end. 66 PLUKALITY OP PEESOKALITT. The mental phenomena presented in the case of Miss E , on page 12, show that there were two brains, one enclosed within the other, but one hav- ing been inactive or latent for many years till the paroxysm occurred which aroused ft to its first dawn of receiving impressions from the outer world. There are too many difficulties in the way for the mere duality of the hemispheres of the brain to afford explanation of the phenomena there pre- sented, for one hemisphere could not well remain infantile without also remaining undeveloped in size, for the experiences of thought come easy and natural to the developing brain, just as muscular exercise comes easy and natural to the developing body. Also, if one hemisphere of the brain had been mentally quiescent, and therefore, to a degree un- developed, the side of the body therewith con- nected by nerves would also to a degree remain undeveloped ; but no notice of such a condition is presented, which would have been noted if such a condition had existed. That the two hemispheres of the brain may act separately or together is quite well established, but not in such a manner as to account for the phe- nomena of alternate mature-life and child-life. Then we must look further for a cause, which is, as the author avers, in the plurality of the entire hemispheres of the brain. Now, if one brain be enclosed within another, and both be active, so as to give greater precision of thought, (intelligence), we ought to look for a PLUKALITY OF PERSONALITY. 67 greater number of convolutions of the brain to supply more surface of the gray cineritious sub- stance, which is the oxydizable material necessary to the construction of thoughts. Now, it is considered as established in the anat- omy and physiology of the brain in their relation to the power of the mind, that the greater the number of the convolutions of the brain, and hence its greater surface of cineritious matter, the greater the brain power. Now, what is train poiver ? It is not merely thought, for a brain may think very hard and long, and still think wrong. Merely thinking hard does not build the best ships, nor determine beforehand astronomical phenomena. Thinking with pre- cision, and long with precision, is drain power. ISTow, as regards the gray matter of the convo- lutions of the brain, Sir C. Bell, says: "I have never seen disease general on the surface of the hemispheres without derangement of the mind." In general paralysis, whose earliest symptom is some eccentricity or other mental aberration, Wilks re- cognizes "chronic change in the brain, especially the gray substance. — The wasted brain (convolu- tions) in delirium tremens, denotes a failure of brain power. "There can be no doubt that this portion of the brain, (cineritious substance,) is intimately con- nected with the intellectual operations/' — Wilks' Guy's Hospital Reports, 1856, {London.) " The observations of Prof. Wagner, who enjoyed several opportunities of examining the brains of 68 PLUEALITY OF PERSONALITY. men endowed with great powers of intellect, seem to point to the conclusion that the more richly convoluted brains coexist with great intelligence." — See Turner on Convolutions of the Brain. "Now, if it be true that the superficial gray- matter is intimately connected with mental activ- ity, then it follows that the multiplicity of the con- volutions is connected with the developments and increase of intellectual capacity, the substratum of which is the increased quantity of gray matter." — See Carl Vogt, Lectures on Man. The case of Kev. E B , related on pages 13 and 14, was of a nature to receive the following interpretations : First, If the two distinct minds reading the same page, " one in a plain matter-of- fact way, the other in a more than usually im- aginative way," were those merely of the two hem- ispheres of the brain, then we must conclude that the two hemispheres differed so much as to cause those differences in contemplating a subject; and we must also conclude that the inter-cerebral nerve-fibres, which unite the two brains through the optic commissura, had some temporary or- ganic lesion, so that the mental actions of the two hemispheres were not combined. But it is established that almost always the organs of one hemisphere have their counterpart in the other hemisphere, developed quite, or almost uni- formly, so that the matter-of-fact ivay of one hem- isphere would be more likely to be nearly the same matter-of-fact way of the other hemisphere. Therefore, would it not be more reasonable to con- PLUEALITY OF PEESOSTALITY. 69 elude that in this case too, there were two entire brains, one enclosed within the other, or existing mutually together with proximity of their nerve cells, from which proceed their parallel neryes ? And if this was the condition, then both brains must have been developed to mature life, from ac- ting together, or in alternation, because he views the page not in one case, as an infantile or non- comprehending mind, but in each case as a mature mind, but differing only as differs the quality of those minds ; and the cause of the temporary re- cognition of the two separate minds may have been from some temporary interruption of the condition, whatever it may be, that causes them to act in psy- chological unity. From the context, in his relation of it, it is plain that he supposed the phenomena resulted from the two hemispheres of the brain only, because such had been the customary manner of explaining it. Psychological unity of two minds is not a myth. If two persons, in the same room, have their thoughts involuntarily following together on va- rious subjects, which is often found to be the case ; or if, as is professionally recognized, two brains or separate hemispheres can act either separately in alternation, or together in absolute unity, why cannot the same result follow from brain within brain ? Different personalities in the same individual may predominate separately, one for a time, and another for a time, not always acting together. As the different emotions and feelings of the thus 70 PLUEAL1TY OF PERSONALITY. changed person are different, therewith the hand- writing also corresponds, and the effect is carried out, even throughout the entire organization. Some persons will notice that their handwriting is different at different times, not merely by a more steady hand at one time than another, but also by a changed handwriting, as though it were the expression of a different personality, for all the movements of the body express the mental qual- ities. (See page 105.) In the case of Miss R , on page 12, it is shown that in one state she pos- sessed fine powers of penmanship, while in the other she wrote a poor awkward hand. This cor- roborates what should be anticipated, that the ner- vous ramifications of the plural personalities run parallel to all parts of the body, where all the mus- cles and tissues are duplicated within themselves. The bible presents us, in the book of Nehemiah, some strange phenomena, which apparently resulted from no other cause than that of double person- ality, where there was not entire synchronous psy- chological unity of minds, or their nervous con- nections with muscles, of the tongue at least, causing confusion in their speech. Nehemiah says : " In those days saw I Jews that had married wives of Ashdod, of Amnion, and of Moab; and their children spake half in the speech of Ashdod, and could not speak in the Jew's language, but accord- ing to the language of each people. And I con- tended with them and cursed them, and smote certain of them, and plucked off their hair, and made them swear by God, saying, ye shall not PLURALITY OF PERSONALITY. 71 give your daughters unto their sons, nor take their daughters unto your sons, or for yourselves." — iVe- hemiah, chap. 13, ver. 23, 24 and 25. May not the above phenomena have been caused by some prominent and different peculiarities ex- isting, one kind in the Jews, and another kind in the Ashdodites, Ammonites and Moabites, and be- ing developed in the children in such a manner, that they would not synchronously harmonize in their action? And it would not be a strained conclusion, that possibly this want of lingual pre- cision, (stammering,) resulted from the knowledge by the parents that they had married in violation of governmental commands; and this knowledge assumed a mental force, causing this want of co- ordination in lingual expression in the offspring. See the case of the child who could not speak to its father, page 91. It is remarkable to consider, that those who have lost the memory- of portions of their experienced life by sickness or by severe accident, etc., are those whose history shows that they had removed from the place of their former experiences, and there- fore had become subjected to the changed influ- ences of different climate, customs, food, mental oc- cupations, thoughts, sometimes another language, and almost altogether another mode of life ; or, who, if not having removed, have certainly experienced all or many of these changes, excepting that of climate. (See case 3, page 14; case 6, page 20; case 7, page 20 ; case 8, page 21 ; case 9, page 22 ; case 10, page 22 ; case related by Dr. xibercrombie, page 27.) 72 METAMOKPHOSIS. METAMORPHOSIS. It is a fact worthy of attention, that certain in- sects change their form and mode of life, making apparently an entire metamorphosis from one kind to that of another, and it may he appropriate here to particularize hy brief reference to the caterpillar and butterfly. The egg is laid by the butterfly, and the cut here represents that of the " Meadow Brown " species. It is shown highly magnified ; for the egg itself is so small that it would easily fall through a pin-hole, and the mi- croscope is necessary to reveal the delicate sculp- ture that beautifies its surface. From this egg is hatched a living, thinking, walking, eating and thriving animal ; it is not a butterfly, as was its parent, but it is a caterpillar, which this cut faith- fully represents. The caterpillar feeds on the leaves of certain plants, and is a great eater ; in twenty-four hours he will consume more than twice his own weight of food, and his growth is marvelously rapid, for in the course of one month he will have increased METAMOKPHOSIS. 73 nearly ten thousand times his original weight on leaving the egg. The caterpillar changes its coat several times, which is called "moulting" The outer husk or skin comes off and is reproduced anew ; and not only that, hut what is additionally marvelous, the lining membrane of all the digestive passages and of the breathing tubes is also cast off and repro- duced anew ! But what is more marvelous still, is the change from the caterpillar to a butterfly. When this change is taken place, the caterpillar passes into an intermediate, helpless, motionless, death-like condition, which is called the Chetsalis or Pupa state. The form of the pupa of the Meadow Brown Butterfly, is shown by the accompanying diagram. Before the caterpillar assumes the chrysalis form, it has to throw off its own skin, carrying with it the whole of its legs, and the jaws too, leaving it- self a limbless and apparently helpless mass, its only prehensile organs being a few minute, almost imperceptible hooks on the end of the tail ; and by the aid of these, some varieties suspend them- selves, by the tail only, the head hanging freely in the air; other varieties attach themselves to the supporting object by the tail and also keep the head in an upright position, with a silken girdle looped round the waist — and the marvelously dexterous and slight-of-hand-like movements by which this is accomplished, excite the astonishment of the be- 4 74 METAMOBPHOSIS. holder. It has learned from the Great Teacher ; therefore, though executing this feat but once in its life, it is done in the most perfect manner. Though the history of the caterpillar and butter- fly is exceedingly interesting, yet brevity here is a necessity, because it is the transformation itself that is chiefly the pertinent fact to introduce into this treatise. Through the thin envelope of the chrysalis is shown in careful compactness, all the external or- gans of the butterfly. The antennas appear very conspicuous, folded alongside the legs ; the wings, yet unexpanded, are visible on each side, very small, yet distinctly seen with all their veinings ; and the spiracles or breathing holes are placed in a row on each side of the body. As the time required for the egg to hatch to a caterpillar varies much, according to temperature, from a few days, when laid in summer, to several months when laid in autumn, and which remain quiescent during winter, to hatch out in spring, so also, the duration of the chrysalis stage is great- ly variable, and is likewise dependent on difference of temperature. Thus, it is that one of our com- mon butterflies has been known to pass only seven or eight days in the chrysalis state in the heat of summer; then in the spring the change occupies a fortnight; but when the caterpillar enters the chrysalis state in autumn, the butterfly does not make its appearance till the following spring. Some learned naturalists have thought they have discovered that the butterfly in all its parts lies hid METAMORPHOSIS. 75 under the caterpillar's skin, and can be distin- guished under microscopical dissection, and have, therefore, considered that these changes should be viewed rather in the light of successive devel- opements and emancipations of the various or- gans than as their actual transformations. Cer- tainly, it is true that the quality of the vital prin- ciple which developes the butterfly, exists in the caterpillar. As regards the fact then, what matters it where is the precise point of time when that vi- tal principle is developed to the degree which shows, microscopically or to the naked eye, the nerves and other outlines of the butterfly. Then whether it is a series of developments or emancipa- tions, seems to be merely a difference of terms, the great fact remains with its undiminished wonder, that a mere creeping worm becomes gloriously changed to winged being, differing from the for- mer in habits, in food, and in every essential par- ticular, even as widely as any two creatures can well differ ; even as widely as a serpent from a bird. HEREDITARY INFLUENCES. (19.) Before elucidating the relation of .the preced- ing sections to the conclusions which are the especial subjects of this volume, the author thinks proper to refer to other yaried and recognized phenomena, and here would make brief reference to the law of hereditary influences ; not brief from want of field and multiplicity of facts, but from the want of oc- casion here to enlarge upon, and consume time on a subject, with which all people are so familiar, be- cause of the facts being constantly presented to uni- versal observation. That " like begets like " is a phrase that need not be continually asserted to be believed. The fea- tures, complexion, size, strength, voice, movements, appetites, passions, inclinations, idiosyncrasies, dis- eases, shape in its perfections and deformities, etc., are known to resemble the same in one or more of the individuals, in the line of ancestry ; and the resemblance is more like to be of those of whom they are more immediately descended, as of father and mother. Thomas Watson, M. D., Professor of the Princi- ples and Practice of Physic, Kings College, Lon- don, referring to a number of diseases, says that they occur "much more frequently in persons, some one or more of whose ancestors have suffered from them, than in other persons : the tendency is trans- mitted, is hereditary. HEREDITAEY IHFLUE^CES. 77 That the circumstances of the parents do influ- ence the physical characters of the children, no one can doubt : it is matter of daily observation ; and one of the best possible illustrations of the fact is to be found in what are called family4ikenesses. We see children resembling their father, or their mo- ther; or both parents at once, as mulattoes. " Every one has heard of, or may remark in por- traits, the hereditary thick lip of the Imperial House of Austria. Many persons now living have had the opportunity of tracing the lineaments of our own Eoyal Eamily through at least three gene- rations. The sisters of one of our English dukes are remarkably handsome young women, and bear to this day a striking resemblance to the portraits of their beautiful ancestress, the celebrated Nell G-wyn. And independently of the general cast of features, we trace these family-likenesses in minute or unequivocal particulars, as the color of the hair and eyes, the shape of the limbs, the stature of the body, and so on ; nay, in more decided peculiarities than these, in points of unusual formation. You have heard, probably, of the American calculating boy, Zerah Colburn. A great number of individuals of his family, descended from a common ancestor, had six fingers and six toes instead of five. The peculiarity was transmitted through four successive generations ; and probably, could his pedigree have been further traced, through many more. " Haller gives an account of a web-footed family, descended from a mother in whom that configura- tion existed. There is now living in London, a 78 HEREDITARY LNPLUEKCES. musical composer of some celebrity, in whose per- son nature has played a similar freak ; and whose father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, were all web-footed before him. Beyond this point his information does not reach. I am indebted for the knowledge of this instance to one of my former pupils, Mr. Cooper of Grafton-street. " Not only the complexion, the features, the sta- ture of the parent, but the various successive phases of the parent's life, mental and corporal, of health and of decay, are often copied and repeated in the child. In the absence of disturbing agencies, the son attains maturity, becomes grey or bald, acquires a stoop or a round belly, loses his teeth and his memory at about the same age, and after the very same manner, with his father. Particular forms of degeneration and disease unfold themselves at similar periods in both ; and thus it is that certain maladies, the tendency to which is interwoven with the original texture of the body, are rightly deemed to be hereditary maladies." M. Mingot, of the Hopital de Chantelle, in the Gazette Held., November 6th, remarking upon he- reditary tongue-tie, states that " hereditary influ- ence may be observed in small details as well as in the general disposition of organs." He mentions the case of a lad fourteen years of age, whose tongue was kept down to the floor of the mouth in conse- quence of the short thick framum which extended to this point. The lad's mother had precisely the same defect, and of four children, three were born with the same state of the framum. HEKEDITARY INFLUENCES. 79 The Medical and Surgical Reporter, of Philadel- phia, August 29th, 1868, refers to a case of heredi- tary hare-lip in a little girl five years old, lately brought by M. Demarquay to the attention of the Surgical Society of Paris. " The interest of the case lies in the fact that, in the family from the grandparents downward, eleven children have been born with hare-lip, or with a peculiar conformation of the lower lip ; namely, two openings on either side of the mesial lines, traversing the whole labial thickness, with a peculiar form of the lip itself." The Edinburgh Medical Journal mentions cases of hereditary cataract cured by operation by Ben- jamin Bell, F. E. C. S. E. The mother, who is now dead, had been operated on for this complaint at the age of fourteen, with some benefit. An older daughter, aged twenty-five, has very defective vis- ion from the same cause with the rest of the family. Her sister, aged seventeen, was born with defective sight, which became greatly aggravated at the age of six years : she was cured by an operation at the age of seventeen. A brother could see moderately well for several years after birth, but the cataract eventually became complete, and he was cured by an operation at the age of fifteen. Another brother was born blind, but was cured by an operation at the age of thirteen. — Monthly Medical Reprint, Oct., 1868. An able work on " Hereditary Descent," by 0. S. Fowler, and published by S. E. Wells, the phre- nologist, of this city, is very comprehensive upon this subject, illustrating by examples very satisfac- 80 UNDERGROUND, OR torily, the many features -hereditary influence of which it treats, some of which are the follow- ing: Family likenesses, forms of body, muscular strength, physical debility, marks and excrescences, porcupine men, twenty-four fingers and toes, wens, flaxen locks, early baldness, deformities, gray hairs, length of life, beauty and all other physical quali- ties, gout and apoplexy, cancers and ringworms, dyspepsia aud heart affections, cutaneous affections, blindness, deafness, stammering, dizziness, fits, tic- doloreux, rheumatism, several diseases collectively, insanity, character and shape, races ; mental char- acteristics, as combativeness, destructiveness, ac- quisitiveness, cautiousness, approbativeness, etc.; excessive and deficient appetite, appetite for par- ticular things, cannibalism, love of particular kinds of property, propensity to commit given crimes, the haughty, overbearing spirit, love of liberty and ambition, specific moral faculties, benevolence, spirituality, constructiveness, order, specific intel- lectual talents, the musical passion, the reasoning powers, etc. The later works of Prof. S. E. Wells give a still enlarging interest to this subject. UNDERGROUND, OR LATENT PECULIARITIES. Peculiarities often pass one generation, being la- tent,, as it were, to reappear in the next, or a subse- quent generation. The work on Hereditary descent previously alluded to, gives interesting examples of LATENT PECULIARITIES. 81 this kind. " Two of the children of P. E. of Wood- stock, Vermont, have little holes or issues just in front of their ears, which discharge during colds ; the father has none ; but, at the corresponding loca- tion, he has a little indentation the size of a pinhead. A sister has it, and her children. His father, through whom this mark descends, has only a slight indentation like that of his son, but his maternal grandmother has it. It therefore passes oyer one generation in his father and sisters, and two in himself and father, but reappears in the third — his children. " Mrs. H , of Boston has bright red hair, not one of her numerous family of children has it, and only one of her grandchildren, of whom she has a goodly number."' Mr. W , had red hair, yet every one of his children had dark hair, and all his grandchildren except two ; but his GEEAT-grandchildren all oyer the country are appearing with red hair. Many who know these descendants and their parents, and grandparents, but not their red-haired progenitor, wonder from what source they derive this peculi- arity. In these cases it lies dormant for two generations and appears only in the first and fourth. "At the Temperance House in Lowell, in 1843, the chambermaid had a cancer on her face. Her father had none, but his mother died of one, and she resembled this grandmother while he did not. Her uncle, however, resembled this grandmother — his mother — and had a similar cancer, as did two of 4* 82 UNDERGROUND, OR his children, who also resembled their father, and of course, grandmother and consin. In Professor Watson's lectures, delivered at Kings College, London, we find recognition of this very- interesting and "curious circumstance observable in regard to these family-liknesses, namely, that they may fail to appear in the child, and yet ap- pear in the grandchild : may skip over a genera- tion or two ; may, after lying dormant, break out, as it were, in some collateral branch of the family tree. "This not only proves that certain physical peculiarities may be transmitted, but it discloses this remarkable property, that peculiarities not presented nor possessed by the parent may never- theless be transmitted by him. And this evidently opens a wide field for the operation of hereditary tendencies. A person is not to consider himself as necessarily free from a disposition to consumption or to gout, because his parents have never shown any symptoms of those disorders. " When one parent only bears the transmissible tendency, the disease appears to be most apt to break out in the children who most resemble that parent in their physical conformation and appear- ance. Yet this is not a universal rule. I am ac- quainted with a gentleman who has lost several brothers or sisters by phthisis. The fatal disposi- tion is known to exist on his mother's side, while his father's pedigree is believed to be quite free from it. All the children that have hitherto become consumptive have resembled the mother in bodily configuration and features, except this gentleman, LATENT PECULIAKITIES. 83 who is like his father's family, but who, neverthe- less, labors under unequivocal consumption. * "It becomes a very interesting, and a very important question, whether acquired peculiarities can be transmitted. I have been told, by a gentle- man attending the class, that he knew a man who, having been accidentally deprived of sight, after- wards propagated blind children. I believe how- ever such an event to be uncommon. Dr. Prichard is of opinion that all original or connate bodily peculiarities tend to become hereditary, while changes in the organic structure of the individual from external causes during life, end with him, and have no obvious influence on his progeny. " I need scarcely say a word respecting the im- portance to medical men, and indeed to all men, of a knowledge of these hereditary dispositions. Such knowledge ought to regulate, in some degree, the choice of persons wishing so marry. Where both parents have a decided tendency to any complaint, there will be a double probability of a diseased offspring. Lawful intermarriages between mem- bers of the same family are often highly objection- able on the same score. Any inherent defect or morbid propensity is aggravated by what cattle- dealers call ' breeding in and in/ " * " This gentleman, an eminent London physician, has died since this lecture was given." 84 MAKKIAGES OF COKSA^GUIKITT MARRIAGES OF CONSANGUINITY. (20.) Previously in this yolume is shown that the offspring inherits the peculiarities of their pa- rents, grandparents, etc., and it is not in truth op- posed to this law that marriages of near relatives cause the offspring generally to be feebler in mind and body than their parents. Indeed, instead of considering this state of things an exception, we ought rather to look for this result, because we must consider that there are two laws besides that bear upon this subject. 1. It is a law that children inherit not only from one or both parents, but also from grandparents and great-grandparents. 2. It is a law that marriages of unlike persons improve the progeny in physical and mental en- dowments. Therefore, when the marriages are between relatives, as the children usually inherit the characteristics more of their parents than their grandparents; then, if near relatives marry, it is plain that the resources of this inheritance are nar- rowed down — are become more limited — and the result is exactly what we ought to expect. It is well known that domestic animals are improved by crossing the breed, and that they are deteriorated " by breeding in and in." And this law extends not only throughout the animal kingdom, but to plants also. Illustrative cases of the effects of intermarrying RESTEICT AXD DIMINISH TITAL RESOURCES. 85 with blood relations are given extensively by Josiah Coffin, from which are here condensed the substance of a few. N. P , of W , married his cousin; had three children; all weak in intellect; one was clump-footed, another had but one eye. Mr. and Mrs. E , were cousins ; had two children ; one weak in intellect, the other almost an idiot. A family in N. B , Mass., where were a number of foolish children, were the offspring of cousins. The Eev. Dr. Dufield, formerly of Philadelphia, mentioned two or three families in the interior of Pennsylvania, who had intermarried, to keep their property among themselves, for several generations, till their, posterity were nearly idiots. L. H , of N" , Mass., married his second cousin, and had one daughter who was nearly an idiot. S. L , of N , Mass., married his second cousin ; had ten children; all living, 1841; four of them were unable to walk ; were hauled about in car- riages designed for that purpose, and one of these was deaf and dumb ; another became helpless from numbness beginning at the extremities and ex- tending ; the others grew lame in the same man- ner. In the town of P , N. Y., where the parents were cousins, all of their ten children were destitute of the ordinary powers of under- standing. Mr. E. S , of Mass., married his cousin ; they were both of strong mind, firm nerve, and sound health ; they had seven daughters and one son ; three of the daughters were " deranged," the rest were of feeble health, and very nervous. 86 MARKIAGES OF CONSANGUINITY Mr. P , of B , Mass., married liis second cousin, and their oldest child is too deficient in mind to take care of himself. J. P , of W , married his cousin, and one of their children died an idiot : two sons died at the age of twenty-three, of feeble bodies and irritable minds; and one girl had diseased eyes: some of the boys were club-footed, wry-necked, etc. Mr. E , of Mass., married his cousin ; had five daughters and three sons; one of the daughters was an idiot, painful to behold ; two of the other daughters are foolish, the other two are weak : one son was weak-minded, and had been lame: one son ran away with the town's money ; the other son was a worthy, upright man, but was unfor- tunate in all his undertakings. Many other simi- lar cases were given by Mr. Coffin. Prof. Fowler, has given many cases illustrative of this law, and a few of them will here be referred to. C. W married his cousin, and of his six child- ren, three were deaf and dumb. Mr. B of JST. H., married his cousin, and had eight children, four of which died early ; one kept his cradle till five years old, when it died ; three had moderate ca- pacities, two were complete idiots, and one, the only bright one, ha;Cc, D d, E e, Ff. G g, #and h. It is plain that the individual P, inherits peculiarities from four grandparents, eight great-grandparents, and sixteen great-great-grandparents; and con- 108 WHY MAKEIAGES OF CO^SAXGUIKITY sidering the varied conditions of life — the varities of occupations, associations, habits, food and cli- mate, which have their qualifying influences, and also, the underground or latent peculiarities, sus- ceptible of becoming active in the progeny, it is plain that the resources of P to thrive upon inher- itance are rather favorable, because nature is a force striving to maintain and progress. The vi- tal powers of the progeny P, strive to take on by inheritance all the qualities of these progenitors that are vigorous and well balanced. A?s A a But let us consider this dia- ./ j gram, representing the successive xf I marrying of brothers and sisters. / \ s j There it is plain that E, can have B / y. j, only two grandparents, O and c, and only two great-grandparents, B and b, and only two great-great- \ | grandparents, A and a. Now, ''••j c after the conflicts of accidents / ! and exposures, imprudences, toils, ••/' and poisonous influences, and \ ] whatever causes disease, it must B / N d De plain that the resources of /'] healthful inheritance are very r \''' greatly restricted, limited, nar- ! / \ j rowed down, or whatever other E V M e term may be used to express the want of strength in the offspring. And if it should be objected that, suppose previous to A, a, there had been no intermarriages of relation, and that the vigor of many preceding progenitors may s KESTEICT VITAL KESOUKCES. 109 have passed through A, B, C, and D, by the law of latency, down to E, the answer is appropriate, that the immediate inheritance from near ancestry, rather than remote, generally takes precedence. The unfavorable effect upon the progeny from the intermarrying of relations is almost universally accepted as true. The law of Moses, as presented in the Book of Leviticus, defines the relationships within which marriage was not allowed. " * Nearly all the Indians of North America were divided into clans, or, as they were called by the Algonkins, totems, the genealogies of which were scrupulously preserved in the female line. No per- son could marry in their own totem ; and it was currently believed that if this rule was violated, serious physical consequences would result." Darwin, in his celebrated work on the Origin of Species by means of natural selection, says : " I have collected so large a body of facts showing, in accordance with the almost universal belief of breeders, that with animals and plants, a cross be- tween different varieties, or between individuals of the same variety but of another strain, gives vigor and fertility to the offspring; and on the other hand, that close interbreeding diminishes vigor and fertility ; that these facts alone incline me to believe that ," ect. But notwithstanding this almost universally ac- cepted law, Dr. B , of Berlin, in the December number of the Journal fur Kinderlcranhliieten, * Medical and Surgical Reporter. 110 WHY MARRIAGES OE CONSANGUINITY seems to take some exceptions to it. But his ar- ticle appears to have some strange contradictions with itself. He says, (A.) "The relationship of the parents, no matter how near this may be, even to brother and sister, exerts in itself positively no injurious influence on the physical or mental char- acter of the children ; nor is it in the least a cause of sterility." He further says, (B.) "repeated mar- riages, generation after generation, between rela- tions, have nevertheless the effect of developing the bodily or mental weaknesses of ancestors in their descendants, and in this respect, a crossing of blood becomes a necessity in order to avoid these weaknesses." And he says, (C.) "But per contra, just as these weaknesses are increased by such marriages, so are physical and mental advan- tages, such as muscular power, courage, business tact, energy, etc. ; they are developed and become the rights of birth. And therefore, precisely these marriages are to be recommended, (es wiirde ge- rade, solche Ehen zu empfehlen sein), in order to keep the blood pure and improve the family." In the above, (B.) and (C), we have virtually two statements contradictory of each other. First, thus, (B.) : By repeated marriages of relatives the bodily or mental weaknesses of their ancestors are developed in the descendants, leaving their bodily and mental energies in the back-ground, "under- ground" or latent. Secondly, thus, (0.) : By re- peated marriages of relatives, the bodily or men- tal energies of their ancestors are developed in the descendants, leaving their bodily or mental weak- RESTRICT VITAL RESOURCES. Ill nesses in the background, " underground. " or la- tent! Therefore, precisely, are his two statements in direct contradiction to each other. Again, let us examine his first statement, quoted above, (A), that "marriage even of brothers and sisters positively exerts no injurious influence on the children. If this is law, then why may it not be law that the intermarriage of the children of these children, brothers and sisters, should posi- tively exert no injurious influence, instead of, as he says, then developing the weaknesses of their ancestors, so that " the crossing of blood becomes a necessity in order to avoid these weaknesses ?" Cer- tainly it seems that if the second intermarriage of relatives proved decidedly injurious, the first in- termarriage must have been somewhat so. Now, it is well known that hereditary peculi- arities, as a general rule in marriages not of con- sanguinity, show more in the children than in the grandchildren, though this is not always the case, for sometimes the peculiarity runs underground, or is latent in the child to appear in the grand- child, (see chapter on Latent Peculiarities, page 82.) ; and when the exception occurs it does not prove that the exception is the rule. And when it does occur that a peculiarity, pre- dominant in the grandparent and latent in the parent, becomes predominant in the child, it is not because it was in the second generation that it be- came predominant, but rather because the mental, moral and physical causes that influenced " anterior education," (see page 106), and its infancy an % 112 WHY MAERIAGES OF COKSAKGUI^ITY youth, (see pages 9 and 10), were more in simili- tude with those that caused such peculiarity to be predominant in the grandparent. When it is observed, in any case, that the child- ren of consanguine parents are in the first gener- ation as healthy as their parents, this should not be at once interpreted as law, because the unfavorable influences resulting from such consanguinity hap- pens to be in a state of latency in those children. Also, doth not the fact that successive intermar- riages in consanguinity develop the weaknesses in an increasing ratio, prove that the more varied is our inheritance, conditions of health being equal, (the more plurality of personality that enters into the individual) the vigor, and power, and precision of effort become his inheritance. Are not all nature's laws immutable, so that what we call exceptions to them are only seeming exceptions ? Dr. B , claims that certain fam- ilies have married in and in for centuries, and that their members are now " remarkable for physical strength and good looks." Now, this is not a real but only a seeming exception to the law that mar- rying " in and in " is prejudicial to the offspring, as will doubtless be plain on examination. To be physically strong, and to have what may be .called good looks, can exist without real brain-power; and in the above cases he does not claim anything in regard to brain power, (precision of intellection.) But suppose they had equally as much brain- power also ; even then, a positive and perhaps un- answerable explanation of such seeming exception EESTEICT YITAL RESOURCES. 113 to the above stated law is this; as instance: sup- pose Mr. Chang-fee, resembling somewhat the Mon- golian race, and Miss Plimpley, resembling the European race, having marked contrasts in their mental and physical temperaments, should marry ; and suppose some of their children, as is often the case, should resemble apparently their father alto- gether, and some their mother altogether, and all combination of resemblance in any one child to both parents being latent or "underground," so that they differ from each other apparently as much as their father and mother differ : Now, suppose a brother to the Mr. Chang-fee above mentioned, differing from him however, should marry a sis- ter of the above-mentioned Miss Plimpley, who also differed from her in temperament, talents, etc.; and suppose their children should differ in the same manner as their above-mentioned cousins, some taking on, for the most part, the varied pe- culiarities which have descended through their grandfather, and the others taking on, for the most part, the varied peculiarities that have de- scended through their grandmother; and sup- pose these cousins should intermarry, and from the above hereditary influences, and even latent peculiarities called into activity in the descendants, and others even created, by the qualifying influ ences of varied mental and physical occupations, habits, varied qualities of food, associations, thoughts, etc., if still there should be developed marked contrasts in their children — what then? They are all Chang-fee, are they not ? l!4 why marriages of consanguinity The marked contrasts in the ancestors, thus, to- gether with influences of habit, etc., now cause all consanguine results to be latent, not appearing in the descendants before their varied habits, modes of life, climate, food, occupations, thoughts, asso- ciations, etc., have caused it to be neutralized, pos- sibly forever. Thus, these families by the name of Chang-fee, intermarrying, the consanguinity itself would only be a seeming one — it would not be real. Dr. Gallard, author of Nouveau Diction aire Sciences Medicales, gives the mortality of children under seven at one in 6.40, and the mortality of children under seven, in marriages of consanguin- ity, at one in 8.10 ; and by some, this might be re- garded as in favor of marriages of cousins. Yet, we ought to take into account that mankind gen- erally seek others than relatives as partners, and also that they prefer to choose healthy partners, and that among relatives all bodily and mental imper- fections are more apt to be known to each other, as also their bodily and mental perfections, and therefore, the marriages in the former case would be avoided, and not so much in the latter. There- fore, when marriages of relatives occur, it is more likely to be, as a general thing, when the parties possess vigorous health of body and mind, and its consequent good nature and genial attractiveness; because of which the children of such healthy cous- ins 'are not so likely to suffer as they would be if the selection had not such conditions in its favor. Hence, we must conclude that Dr. Gallard's EESTEICT YITAL KESOUECES. 115 statistics have no bearing at all in favor of the gen- eral marrying of cousins. And, precisely also, this same view of the case will itself reply to another Dr. , who found that out of a thousand cases of consumption he had examined, in only six was there consanguinity of parents. It would have been some service to medical science, if he had therewith given information in regard to the con- sanguinity also of their grandparents and great- grandparents. LATEST QUALITIES MAY BE ABOUSED TO ACTIOS. Vitality is a force that acts with intelligence. When our feet are so pinched that we cannot do our duties, this intelligence speaks to us by corns. When circulation is interrupted by ligated arteries, the circulation is re-established by other arteries be- coming formed just where needed; being actually newly created by the vital force. The vital force resorts to all available means to accomplish its pur- pose. When there is an almost mortal contusion of the brain, so that the man is apparently killed, sometimes this vital force resorts to the latent physiological inheritance to sustain the patient, which inheritance, by its very latency, has not yet had the experiences of thoughts and deeds by which man realizes duration of life. By the same blow that was almost death to the 116 LATENT QUALITIES experienced life, the latent part, the inexperienced life, has become aroused from its latency to vital progression — to living action. But when first aroused it is infantile in its mental experiences and expression. (See the case of George Mckern, page 17.) In the same manner when the synchronous ac- tion of plural personalities has sustained custom- ary precision of a mental entity, and upon that precision having been interrupted by a severe blow upon the head, it has afterward been restored by another blow. (See the case related by Louyer Yilleramy, page 28.) Also, when there is impover- ishment from a want of diversified personality, then sometimes a blow on the head revives a latent personality to action, so that in time it becomes experienced and synchronous in action with the existing one, and in this way cures idiocy. (See the case of Pope Clement XI, the case related by Dr. Prichard, and that of Father Mabillon, page 28.) How truly do these cases corroborate the thesis which is the subject of this volume. To utilize the knowledge of the plurality in per- sonality, we should consider what has perhaps been sufficiently alluded to, and what has been observed by all people, that mankind differ greatly in their constitutions; and also the fact associated there- with, that the qualities of food, occupations, chan- nels of thoughts, etc., which are most favorable to the health of the individual, also differ. In the foregoing respects, individuals have a MAY BE AROUSED TO ACTION. 117 plurality of inheritance from their many ancestors : and a special quality which exists active in the an- cestry may be inherited latent in an individual descendant. In order to arouse a special inherited latent personality so as to become active, though possibly it might occur from a chanced and dan- gerous concussion of the head, (page 28,) or by the effort of nature, the individual should change his mode of life, in all respects, as far as possible, so as to conform to that mode which was the habit of his ancestor who possessed, not in latency but in action, that especial quality. Or this may be dis- tinctly stated thus : If an individual has inher- ited a tendency to disease from only one parent, the other parent being vigorous, and if he becomes affected with disease from such inherited tendency, he should by all means, as far as possible, change his mode of life to conform to that of the early days of the healthy parent. He should change the mode of life as respects quality of food, drink, air, exercise, occupation, etc. ; and it might be said, his entire habits, in order to make most available the latent inheritance which there may exist, at least in that degree which will exercise its remedial counteracting influence for health. But suppose both parents should be weakly, and transmit weakness to the child, then the habits of the one so inheriting disease should be changed to conform to those of some vigorous one, as nearly as possible related in the line of ancestry. And if the inheritance of latent vigor which existed in action in an ancestor so far back in time that his 118 LATENT QUALITIES history is lost, it may be indicated in some uncle or aunt in whom the inheritance of that vigor may be active ; and in such a case, the imitation, as far as occupations and habits are concerned, ought to be not so much those that the uncle or aunt were accustomed to, but rather such as seemed more agreeable to them, and to which their inclinations inclined; for indeed, the ancestors themselves may have been placed in a condition not conform- ing to that which was most suited to them, and yet not varying so much therefrom as actually to cause ill health. The foregoing remarks become the explanation how it is that mankind differ so much in the pos- session of peculiarities that show their active ten- dencies either toward health or toward disease; for even tendencies to disease may be inherited, con- cerning which it may be well here to refer to the accepted authority of Prof. Watson, formerly of King's College, London, whose remarks are defi- nite on this subject. " There are certain complaints which some have a tendency to and some have not. The tendency is sometimes strong and evident, sometimes feeble and faintly marked ; sometimes it displays itself in the midst of circumstances the most favorable to health, sometimes it requires for its development conditions the most adverse and trying. To mention some of these diseases ; scrof- ula * * gout, mania, and (I believe I may add) spasmodic asthma. Not only is a disposition to these complaints strikingly pronounced in some persons, but other persons appear wholly free from MAY BE AROUSED TO ACTION. 119 such a tendency; nay, even devoid of the suscep- tibility of them. Gout, in those capable of it, may be acquired by habits, as it may be prevented and repressed by the opposite habits. The habits that in certain persons bring it on, are the intemperate use of the luxuries of the table, and an indolent and sedentary life ; but there are many people in whom no amount of rich living or idleness will generate gout ; so there are some whom no expo- sure to impure air, cold, wet, and no privations — in other words, no appliance of the influences cal- culated to bring the strumous diathesis into play, will ever produce any form of scrofula, will ever render them consumptive, for instance, consump- tion being one of the most common and fatal shapes of scrofulous disease. There are many who, under the utmost distress and excitement of mind, never become insane. There are many who never become affected with asthma, although surrounded by the most powerful exciting causes to that com- T)lfllTlt '^^* 4s H> H» % *i» Hs " But there is a singular caprice in asthmatic pa- tients in this respect : some persons subject to the disorder, are unable to breathe in the thick, smoky atmosphere of London, require a high and clear situation, and respire easiest in the difficult air of the keen mountain top; others can nowhere breathe so comfortably as in low, moist places in some of the streets by the water-side in the city ; for instance, a friend lived in New Market, a most exposed bleak spot, but if he left it and attempted to sleep in a strange place, he never was certain 120 LATENT QUALITIES that he should not be assailed in the night by his well-known enemy, (asthma) ; so that there were towns in which, after experiencing the effect of the atmosphere, he dared not sleep, and there were others in which he knew he might go to bed in security. It would have been difficult, I believe, to point out auy essential difference between some of those localities; his lungs, however, formed an infallible eudiometer. Another college acquain- tance of mine, (Wilson), much tormented by asth- ma, is equally sensible to these inscrutable influ- ences. Two inns in Cambridge are named respect- ively the Eed Lion and the Eagle ; he can sleep in one of them and not in the other : nay, he is thus variously affected within much narrower lim- its. He assures me that when in Paris he never escapes a fit of asthma when he attempts to sleep in the back part of Meurice's Hotel, and never suffers when he sleeps in a front room. Dover Street suits him, Charles Street does not." In the foregoing, Prof. Watson has recognized how greatly mankind differ in their constitutions ; and it is often brought forcibly to our observation. Of two individuals, oftentimes the stronger one sickens and dies from some unhealthy influence or exposure which has little or no effect upon the other. And suppose these two individualsxto be brothers, and therefore, having the same parentage, it would indicate that the active and the latent qualities existing in them by inheritance were dif- ferent in each other to cause such difference in their tendencies to, or susceptibilities of, a special MAT BE AROUSED TO ACTION. 121 disease. And of two individuals, possessing equal health and vigor, one will more readily, under the same influence, contract one kind of disease, and the other another kind; also, the asthmatic pa- tients, as above mentioned, who were so differently affected by different localities that showed no recog- nizable difference in unsalutary influences, indicate how apparently slight is the change required for some persons to inhale an atmosphere which, to them, in the one case is life, and in the other is death. Let us now draw nearer to an interesting view of plural personality, and consider the case of the Eev. J. E — , (pp.25 & 2 6), who from a concussion of the brain lost all his knowledge — returned men- tally to the condition of an intelligent child, and after learning again from tutors for several months, things which, though learned before, had become lost to him, after awhile "the rich storehouses of memory were gradually unlocked, so that in a few weeks his mind resumed its wonted vigor." He was possessed with plural personality; the one which had been active in his younger days had be- come passive to give place to another, doubtless, a more intellectual one, which, by his studies, had become aroused from its latency to activity, but from the concussion the former one had become active, and the latter passive, until, by intellectual exertion of the same kind as before, it had become aroused again to activity. The case immediately following this, (on pages 26 and 27,) of a gentleman thirty years old, who, after a severe sickness, lost the recollection of every thing, 6 122 LATENT QUALITIES even the names of the most common objects, and began again, his health being restored, to acquire knowledge like a child, and after he began to learn Latin, etc., is very important in illustrating this subject. After making considerable progress in his Latin, when reciting to his teacher he stopped suddenly and put his hand to his head, feeling a peculiar sensation, and informed his teacher that it appeared to him that he knew all this before ; and from that time he rapidly recovered his faculties ; that is, he became as he had been before his sick- ness, with his acquirements and memories. Now, suppose in this case he had, in his acquired in- fantile state, been taken to another country to live — for instance, to the country where one of his ancestors had lived whom he mostly resembled, not in mental power but in mental qualities, as near as those could be determined in his new infantile state ; and suppose also, that instead of learning the same branches of study that he had formerly learned, his mind had been directed altogether in another channel of study or occupation, such as, for instance, conformed to that of the ancestor from whom he had inherited the personality which by sickness had been aroused to activity — what then? He would have lived another life; he would have been the other being; he would prob- ably never afterward have recollected any of his Latin, or any circumstance of his former life, and he would have been a younger man ; for that per- sonality, which had existed in a state of latency or passiveness for thirty years, had not grown old by MAY BE AKOUSED TO ACTION. 123 the experiences of activity. But it would be rather an extraordinary chance for one in such a con- dition to be removed to another country, to have altogether different scenes and experiences of life, since no attention heretofore has been called to such possibilities, and it would be far more prob- able that his friends would keep him in the same place, and that he would be submitted to the same experiences, and have the same studies to pursue as in his former life, and hence would be most likely to recover his former personality. Are not these things true ? Again, on page twenty-seven there is another case, a very important one, illustrating plural person- ality — the case of a lady who from sickness was re- duced to a state of great weakness and a remark- able failure of memory. And what says the record in regard to that loss of memory? She forgot twelve years of her life, and those twelve years were the time she had lived in JEdinlurg, having for- merly lived in another city. This "case shows, that by going to Edinburg, and having the scenes and mode of living changed, she had developed there more exclusively a special personality, (which be- fore had, doubtless, been associated in action with another one, if on going to Edinburg she had not become very idiosyncratic,) but that distinct personality was more especially attacked by the disease, so that it lost its power both of body and mind. She recovered her health, the account says, " but remained in a state of imbecility, resembling the dotage of old age ! " If this lady, after the re- 124 LATENT QUALITIES covery of her health, had been taken back to Edin- burg and placed in the same house, with precisely the same qualities of food, and surroundings, and occupations as far as possible, doubtless she would also have recovered the condition she was in when she resided there. Or, instead of that, if it had been known of whom, in the line of ancestry, she had inherited the personality which she still re- tained in a somewhat active condition, and had been taken to the place where that ancestor re- sided, and been subjected to the same kind of ex- periences which were most congenial and salutary to that ancestor, she would without doubt have experienced the invigoration of her mental power also, unless, from the surrendering one person- ality by disease, there was in this case so much im- poverishment of the other, by its existing in entire unity, as to approach a state of idiocy. Are these not the true explanations of phenom- ena that have heretofore been considered unex- planable? The case of a man is presented, (see page 14), who had received an injury of the head, and on his convalescence he spoke the Welsh lan- guage, which was the language of his youth, and which he had entirely lost. In remarking upon this, Prof. Combe, states that "the manner in which such an effect is produced is entirely un- known. Old people, when feeble, often relapse into the dialed of their youth." It seems a proper explanation to consider that they have cultivated another personality by remov- ing from the associations of their youth, and MAY BE AEOUSED TO ACTION. 125 changing almost all their entire habits; and when this personality is nearly worn out, and becomes passive, then the other personality, which was cul- tivated in youth, manifests the peculiarities of its own sphere of cultivation. And doubtless, too, this relapsing into the "dialect of their youth" will be found to occur oftener when the individual has re- turned in his age again to the place where he lived in youthful days, breathing the same air, drinking the same water, viewing the same scenes, etc., all which would exert their influence to revive to a degree the personality which was active to be im- pressed and receive character from the experiences of his earlier life. But the change must not be one of a minor degree, especially if it is desired to arouse an absolutely latent personality; it should extend to almost all the surroundings and influ- ences of his life, and should also be of a character which, if not at first, his desires would soon find congenial. It is by these laws that a more youthful, or more vigorous constitution may be revived or called up from its latency to action ; or, if not absolutely so, yet sufficiently to exercise the influence of its sus- taining power. There are frequent cases of youthful vigor in el- derly and aged people. — Case of lactation in a wo- man sixty years old, by which she nursed a grand- child two months old whose mother had died. — Medical and Surgical Reporter. But also, let it be remembered, the influences that would call to activity a latent feeble person- 126 LATENT QUALITIES ality ought to be avoided, for indeed, by this same law, a feeble personality, or one having a tendency to disease, may be revived as well as a vigorous one, under the influences tending to such a result. Then, avoid the places as a residence as well as the habits and channels of thought which were cus- tomary with unhealthy or feeble ancestors and blood relations. And here may properly be quoted the terse re- marks of Prof. Draper, though applied to other varied phenomena. " Organisms of every kind, so far as presenting any resistance to change, are im- pressed without any difficulty by every exterior condition. The only things which are absolutely unchangeable are the laws of nature ; everything else is to be looked upon as an effect, or as a changeable phenomena, arising from the operation of those laws." — (Note also the bearing of the chap- ters on "Appetency," and " Influence of the Mind.") Just now has come to hand JSTo. I, of Vol. XXI, of the Medical and Surgical Reporter, July 3d, 1869, and on turning its leaves, the following is presented on page 23. "A female child with two heads, was born a few days ago at Zerbst. A care- ful examination has shown that the spinal column is divided into two at the first of the true vertebrae, and that from this point two perfectly developed necks and heads proceed. The breast is half as broad again as is usual, the limbs simple and well formed. We have not yet heard in how far the in- ternal construction of the breast is simple or complex." These cases should not be called MAT BE AEOUSED TO ACTION". 127 monsters, if that term conveys any meaning at all repulsive to the most aesthetic choice of genial thought; for it becomes a very interesting and beautiful illustration that absolute plurality of per- sonality of an individual is not only possible but may be the rule, while the separation of the two in a part of the individual, showing two visible heads, or two visible pelves, etc., is simply the ex- ception to the rule which locates the bodies en- tirely within each other. It should not be supposed that in any case the author would advise the imitation of the vices of a relative whose quality of personality, as far as bod- ily health is concerned, it is desirable to revive from latency to activity in one's self. All vices have their destructive tendencies, and may destroy the individual whose health seemed a model of ex- cellence ; besides, it should be considered that even those whose vices seem prominent, have generally their principal thoughts occupied in active and useful pursuits. The intemperate have in their so- ber hours, as a general thing, some useful work to do which engages the most of their attention. Be- sides, the intemperate man may have double per- sonality, one of which would be more distinctly active during intoxication, and the other during his sober hours. (See the case of the Irish porter, page 16.) The vice of dishonesty, even when ap- pearing prominent in an individual, doubtless has but a very little of thought given to it, while al- most the entire amount of mental effort is given to some useful industry : and because it is law in the 128 LATENT QUALITIES social nature of man that there is right and there is wrong, doubtless, all who seem to be impelled, or are persuaded to wrong-doing, have an almost infinite longing to possess the power to overcome the inclination, or the temptation, and in that manner to be free from its consequences. There is a great want existing in the composition of the individual who is a thief by profession from the love of it ; and if it is merely from the desire of gain, then there is a great lack of the activity of the powers of reason in regard to the true nat- ural social laws of man ; and also, a lack of obser- vation as to the fact that it leads to pecuniary im- poverishment and degradation of the being whom we call human and humane. "So, also, he who is ready to abandon reason whenever any whimsical vapor floats upon his mind, names itself progress, and with false tongue tells him to abandon wife and home, and that he has liberty to be changeable in his marital affections, shows that he has not observed that all who follow such teaching, in a very short time, in a very few years, find that it yields only unhap- piness. With eyes open, he fails to see the sub- limer way of the pair who walk together, with affection growing still stronger with age, till the sun of their life sets peaceful and serene. However much we need to change our qualities of food, occupations, and general associations, etc., there is abundant room for those changes, all con- forming to virtue and honor. And as man needs but one and the same sun to give the light to his MAY BE AROUSED TO ACTION. 129 days throughout his entire life, though sometimes that sun is nearer, and ^metimes farther, some- times shining with clear face, and sometimes ob- scured by clouds, even so does man need but one earthly, constant and confiding friend to illumine and cheer the pathway of his life. He who does not observe these facts, which sure- ly seem to be placed to the observation of all peo- ple, certainly must be so greatly wanting in the essential elements of wisdom, that his teachings and examples would be unsafe to follow, and should be avoided by all people. Plurality of personality Of the individual has its great uses: there is greater brain-power; there is more brain surface by means of a greater number of convolutions; there is greater precision of thought, by the different persons (united) having different qualities of mind, so as to observe the same subject, as it were, from different stand- points. One so qualified, is more liberal in his views on religious or denominational theories; and seeing from different stand-points, he can recognize more clearly the various relations of truths and er- rors entertained by the different religious sects. And if the plural personalities of the individual act synchronously, he does not vacillate and change his opinions often, though he might appear to do so in presenting the various features of a subject. But if those plural personalities do not act syn- chronously but alternately, one at one time, and another at another, then we should expect, as we 6* 130 LATEKT QUALITIES frequently find to be pie case, the individual changes his opinions, scJ ^at we may not at any time know what view of a subject he will favor, or what course he will be likely to take in any enterprise. Yet, even one. acting so vaguely at different times, will on some important occasions act with especial propriety, and exhibit an unexpected greatness of in- tellect and character, because then his different personalities act synchronously and with precision. Multitudes of facts will corroborate the truth of plural personality. We observe that children as they grow to manhood and womanhood, sometimes change, not only their features, but also their tastes for certain kinds of food — their likes and dislikes in almost everything — take on a stronger or a feebler constitution ; change their character, etc., so as to appear like another person. ' In these cases, one personality, from disuse of its faculties, becomes more latent, and another from use of its faculties becomes more active. And even as twins are sometimes though seldom of the opposite sex, so do these personalities sometimes partake, one of the masculine, and another of the feminine element. The Medical Gazette quotes from a non-medical source the case of a young lady who married, had a child, and then com- menced to manifest whiskers, a rough voice, " and other more indisputable physical changes of sex." The New York Tribune, of July 14th, 1869, has the following among its scientific notes. A cor- respondent jof the American Naturalist states that a doe was recently shot near Minneapolis, Minn., MAY BE AEOUSED TO ACTION". 131 carrying a beautiful pair of antlers, each with four branches, and asks whether this is a new fact in natural history, or not ? To which the editors re- ply, that they haye never heard of a female deer assuming the character of a male before. But it is a well established fact, that female birds living to old age, often assume the plumage, and, to a cer- tain extent, the habits of the male. In the Mu- seum of the Peabody Academy of Science, at Sa- lem, Mass., there is a pea-hen that in the spring before her death, at the age of nineteen years, changed her dull female plumage for the bright plumage and full tail of the male bird. N". Vick- ery, taxidermist of Lynn, Mass., had the specimen mounted." * Cases of hermaphrodism are wonderful illus- trations of plural personalities of the male and the female element being enclosed in the same body. When the orator's features assume a more than ordinary glow of intelligence, and by a seeming inspiration of thought and language, he presents to us new images of great beauty and truth, his power results from the plural personality of which he is possessed, all being revived to synchronous action, and to a precision of thought which is its consequence. And why should there not be pre- cision of thought upon a subject from plural per- sonalities acting synchronously, as well as precision of vision by viewing an object with two eyes some- what different, and located to view the object from different positions ? Are objects of vision more im- portant than subjects of contemplation ? Certain- 132 LATEXT QUALITIES, ETC. ly not, for the vision is more able to recognize exact forms of all things, than the mind is to rec- ognize every feature of a subject, to acquire abso- lute truth. Therefore, there is the greater need of plural personalities to search out truth, than there is of two eyes to know the exact form of an object. ' In making available the plural personalities for the conservation of health and long life, the author should not be supposed to have any lack of regard for all other means of restoration. All other re- medial means, such as proper medicines, electricity when appropriate, etc., have their own powers to assist nature, or rather to be the vehicle through which nature carries on restorative processes; also, all the laws of mind and body, as presented under various heads, though, perhaps, from the order of presentment, seeming as not greatly appertaining to the subject, will, nevertheless, press forward for recognition by the scrutinizing mind, as laws that are advantageous to be used in making avail of any and all remedial agents. PLUEAL PERSONALITIES. In another part of this yolume attention has been called to the fact that, sometimes the mind will wander altogether from the subject of a printed page to other subjects, even while the eye continues to read line after line, and perhaps a page or more, when the mind returns to the sub- ject, only to find the eye reading much farther along in the contents of the work where the mind has not followed, and knows nothing at all of the subject. Even more extraordinary than this is the fact which may here be mentioned. Some per- sons, at times, while copying a manuscript or printed page, not only will read the lines, but also will copy them correctly, while the mind has wan- dered entirely away to some other subject for a brief period or longer. In these cases the eye and hand obey one personality, while the other person- ality is unconscious of this because its mental at- tention is directed entirely away. Sometimes, also, the mental attention of both personalities show manifest comprehensive and combined action, and each with united recognition of the other, as when an individual holds conversation on different subjects with two persons at the same time. Though the tongue cannot answer or reply to both synchronously, yet the mind, in its plurality of action, comprehends two speakers at the same time, and gives reply to one and then to the other. 134 PLUKAL PERSONALITIES. There are many people who experience this com- prehensive synchronous mental action. The case above mentioned, where the hand and eye copies while the entire recognized mental ac- tion is directed to some other subject, appears to the author to be in part a key to the phenomena of planchette. And the " in part a key" may pro- perly have emphasis, because other natural laws come in to complete the hey and explain this phe- nomenon. And those other natural laws are noth- ing more than those of animal magnetism and psy- chology, which, when manifested in great degrees, is called clairvoyance. Before explaining fully how the marvels of planchette are accomplished, the author would say a few words only on this correla- tion of the vital forces, and on psychology, or mesmerism, and allude to an astonishing phenom- enon recognized in standard works on entomology. Bring a female Kentish Glory Moth from the chrysalis, and take her immediately in a closed box out into her native woods, and in a very short time will arrive a company of male " Glories," and light upon or hover about the prison-house of the coveted maiden, where, without this magic at- traction, you might walk a whole day without see- ing a single one, the Kentish Glory being gener- ally reputed to be a very rare moth ; but as many as one hundred and twenty male Glories have been thus decoyed to their capture in a few hours by the charms of a couple of lady Glories shut up in a box. This exemplifies a great power of animal magnetism or clairvoyance by which they know PSYCHOLOGY AND MESMEEISM. 135 both the location and condition of one of their own race at a distance of more than a mile, and the sides of a wooden box intervening. "Correlation of Forces" is a fact accepted in science in its application to motion, heat, light and electricity, meaning that those forces are con- vertible one into another. May not the term cor- relation of forces be very properly applied to vital phenomena? When the vital force is moving nmscle and brain, it cannot equally, at the same time, restore the waste of muscle and brain ; also, when this same vital force is restoring muscular and brain exhaustion, it cannot at the same time equally support muscular and brain activity; therefore the necessity of rest of body and mind at night for restoration from the waste by mus- cular and brain action during the day. The vital force cannot act so powerfully in its ways and means to digest food when the mind is intensely active, nor is one arm so powerful to lift a weight while the other arm is likewise lifting. It is because of the correlation of the vital forces that the assimilation of digested food goes on best while the mind is passive. Now, suppose in a case of active plural person- alities of an individual, those personalities act syn- chronously and communicatively but not both mentally, for, suppose that the vital power of the individual is sufficient to support only the psycho- logical action of one personality and not its men- tal, and support the mental action of the other personality and not its psychological, then, from 136 PLUEAL PEKSOKALITIES. the aboye stated laws, the following facts would scarcely seem to be strange : In the plural personalities of an individual, one of those personalities may predominate in its psy- chological powers, with scarcely any mental, and the other may predominate in its mental powers with scarcely any psychological ; and the psycho- logical personality may become acquainted with conditions and circumstances, with the nature of their progressive action, and may transfer this knowledge directly to the mental personality when they act unitedly, and so produce what is called presentiment, which is a consciousness of what is to be without being able to recognize sufficient reasons for this mental recognition. For instance, an individual has been exposed to the poison of typhus fever, but before it brings on the disease his psychological personality recognizes that the amount of exposure and the condition of his sys- tem will cause death, and the psychological per- sonality transfers the knowledge of this ultimate consequence directly to the mental personality and he recognizes it in the manner called presentiment. The psychological personality of one individual may also gain knowledge from or through the mental and psychological personalities of other in- dividuals, and likewise transfer it to the mental personality, so that the individual gains presenti- mental knowledge of various circumstances and affairs. Most people recognize the truth of presen- timent, and the above seems to the author to af- ford a reasonable explanation. PSYCHOLOGY AND MESMERISM. 137 But does not the psychological personality eyer transfer its knowledge by a less direct means than by conjoined action with the mental personality which gives rise to presentiment? And if the manifestations of planchette and similar phenom- . ena are not fictitious, is it not by them that the psychological personality, not then acting conjoint- ly with the mental, transfers its knowledge by writing, moving the hands of an individual by the agency of its own sets of nerves, so that the men- tal personality of the individual does not recognize that they are the hands of its own body also, that are thus moved, though the board appears to move itself, or to be moved by an outward unknown power. The author has taken no special interest in plan- chette or kindred phenomena as regards the sup- position of their dealings with disembodied spirits or unnatural agencies, and believes that such phe- nomenon simply echoes through psychological per- sonalities the thoughts, imaginations, wishes, hopes, fears, etc., of the embodied personalities concerned in being the agents and subjects of its operations. This, at least, appears to the author to be not be- yond the province of the laws that exist in the mental, physiological and psychological constitu- tion of man. The fact (see anatomical phenomenon), of two heads having one body, and each head, or mental personality, using that body, shows plainly that distinct personalities, mental or psychological, contained within one skull may do the same thing. 138 PLURAL PERSONALITIES. The term " psychological personality " used in the preceding pages, is not intended to compre- hend an entire personality, but only a part, the other part of the same personality being mental; and of two personalities of an individual, each one may have its psychological powers, and also its mental powers ; or one may manifest mostly or solely pys- chological powers, and the other mostly or solely mental, having varied degrees in this respect. Although these two powers of one personality, may of themselves afford explanation of many PSYCHOLOGY AND MESMEKISM. 139 strange phenomena, yet there is much that is better accounted for through the plurality of personal- ities, with each possessing one or both of these powers. When one personality exists with predominant physical and psychological powers, and the other with predominant mental, the features will show these characteristics. The portrait on the preceding page shows great powers of endurance, but the mental individuality will not always manifest precision in its views of the various features of a subject, because the plural personalities have not at all times synchronous men- tal action. The comprehensiveness of his mind should not be expected to be always uniform, for only on those occasions which require the exercise of more than ordinary intellectual comprehensive scrutiny will the reserved power come to his aid. In the features of the late John A. Eoebling, plural personalities show to a degree their com- bined intellectual expression. The following cut is a faithful portrait of Mr. Eoebling, one of the most skillful engineers of the age. He constructed the suspension aqueduct over the Alleghany Eiver at Pittsburg, the Mon- ongahela Suspension Bridge, a series of suspension aqueducts on the line of the Delaware and Hudson Canal, the great Eailroad Suspension Bridge across Niagara, the great Cincinnati Bridge, whose span is 1030 feet. The last great work on which he was engaged up to the time of his death was the East Eiver Bridge. He had prepared all the plans, 140 PLUEAL PERSONALITIES. and made most of the arrangements for its con- struction at the time of his death, which resulted indirectly from his foot having been crushed be- tween a cross-beam of the dock and a float which was entering the slip. Besides the foregoing, Mr. Eoebling engaged successfully in several other extensive engineering enterprises, for which he was well fitted by his ac- tive and comprehensive intellectual capabilities. PSYCHOLOGY AND M3SMERISM. 141 The above is a faithful portraiture of M. Eugene Rouher, Senator, late Minister of State, Minister of Finance, Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor, of the Orders of Leopold, the Black Eagle of Prus- sia, the Oak, St. Maurice, and St. Lazarus, etc. Plural mental personality and its power is strik- ingly shown in his features, which exhibit great capacity for intellectual work, haying effective 142 PLURAL PERSONALITIES. precision. Account says of him, (Harper's Week- ly,) that " his early political connections, if he had any, which appears doubtful, seem to have sympa- thized with Orleanism." Now it is not probable that a man with such a feature would express ear- ly political convictions, for in his comprehensive conceptions he would comprehend that there is some right and reason in all parties, and would wait for sufficient developments before he would definitely show his preferences. " He concluded his collegiate studies at Cler- mont; graduated at law, in which he acquired a good repute. He was elected a representative after the Eevolution of 1848. Louis Napoleon, after his election to the Presidency, appointed M. Eouher Minister of Justice, and from this period his apti- tudes for parlimentary contention were established. In January 26, 1852, he was appointed Vice Pres- ident of the Council of State, and was charged with the administration of the section of Legis- lation, Justice and Foreign Affairs. In this new sphere of action his characteristic talents and capa- city for real work manifested themselves in a con- spicuous manner. M. Eouher was successively President of the Commission of Pensions to aged persons, member of Commission charged to distri- bute eight millions of francs in execution of the testamentary deposition of the Emperor Napoleon, and member of the Commission of the Universal Exposition of 1855. On the 3d of February in that year, he accepted the portfolio of Agricul- ture, Commerce and Public Works. Under his ad- PSYCHOLOGY AXD MESMERISM. 143 ministration immense reforms have been accom- plished ; public works and improvements of every kind have been carried out all over the country. " In conjunction with Baroche he negotiated with Mr. Cobden the commercial treaty between France and England, which was signed on the 23d of January, 1860. The unexampled impetus given to the French trade by the treaty, has opened up prospects of prosperity far beyond the most san- guine expectations. Since 1860 he has negotiated the commercial treaties of France with Belgium, Prussia, the Zollverein and Italy, all based on the same enlightened and liberal principles. "In 1863, M. Eouher passed from the Ministry of Commerce to the Presidency of the Council of State. Toward the close of the year he replaced, ad interim, M. Boudet as Minister of the Interior. On the death of M. Billaut, Eouher succeeded him in the Premiership. This position he has been compelled recently to resign, owing to the pressure of the Third Party in the Corps Legislatif. He has been called to the Presidency of the French Senate. M. Eouher may justly be ranked among the great orators who have adorned the deliber- ative assemblies of France." — Harper's Weekly. The philosophy of the great intellectual power of M. Eouher is what we see in the features, the synchronous action of two minds. Even as two eyes can view an object and make it more distinct by combining the different effect on the different eyes, even so, he could view a subject with his plu- ral minds, and comprehending the various bear- 144 PLURAL PERSONALITIES. ings, correct conclusions in regard to expediency would come to him almost without effort. But how, it may be asked, can mental action of plural personalities be manifest to an observer through the expression of the features? It is in the same way that the two eyes in viewing an object actual- ly see, (because of the two angles of vision,) two dif- ferent forms of the one object, which two forms occupy the same place, as the mind apprehends them through the vision ; and this gives more vivid outlines to all its parts, and the idea of solidity; also to a landscape it shows the perspective clearly. Even so, when the mental expressions of two or more personalities are pictured in one counte- nance, there is more vividness of the feature, — a something not easily described, which is the im- press of intellectual comprehensive power. APPENDIX. The instance of " double consciousness," of which Miss R was the subject, as presented on pages 11 and 12, is given more fully in an article furnished by Rev. Wm. S. Plumer, D.D., and published in the May number of Har- per's Magazine of 1860. As many very interesting features ofher case give additional corroborative evidence of plu- ral personalities of individuals, the author will here quote it in full ; and will also, by annotations, endeavor to show the points and bearings of the phenomena which this case exhibits. " For many years brief and meagre accounts of the re- markable case of Mary Reynolds have appeared in various quarters. In 1815 Major Elicott, Professor of Mathematics in the United States Military Academy at West Point, a relative of Miss Reynolds, communicated some of the facts of the case to the late Dr. Mitchell, of New York, by whom they were published in the Medical Repository. This statement is quoted by Professor Upham in his work on - Disordered Mental Action.' A further notice of the case appeared in the Alleghany Magazine. The late Archibald Alexander, D. D., many years later became interested in the subject, and secured materials for a full statement, which he proposed to place in the hands of Professor Henry, to be communicated to the American Philosophi- cal Society. But the death of Dr. Alexander prevented the execution of this design. Dr. Wayland, in a note to the later editions of his ' Intellectual Philosophy,' refers to this case as ' more remarkable than any that he had met with elsewhere,' and copies a considerable part of the statement of the subject herself, other portions of which I am enabled to give. All the accessible details of a case so 1 146 COKROBOEATIVE FACTS. singular should be placed upon permanent rocord. The following statement, which is more full and complete than any which has heretofore been prepared, embodies, I be- lieve, all that can now be known in relation to it. The venerable Mr. John Reynolds, who is honored by all who know him, the brother of. Mary, and his son, the Rev. John V. Reynolds, D.D., of Meadville, Pennsylvania, in whose family the last years of her life were passed, will vouch for the minute accuracy of all that is here stated. Many others who are still living will testify to the general truthfulness of the statements which follow. " Toward the close of the last century "William Reynolds, with his family, emigrated from England to America. He belonged to the Baptist denomination, and was an inti- mate friend of Robert Hall and other distinguished Dis- senters, and in after years his house, in what was then the 'Far West,' became a 'stopping-place' for the pioneer missionaries in their laborious excursions into the wilder- ness. " William Reynolds, leaving the remainder of his family in New York, took his son John, a lad of fourteen years, and set out to find a new home. They pitched upon a spot in Venango County, in Western Pennsylvania, be- tween Franklin and what is now known as Titusville — twelve miles from the former, and six from the latter. The whole surrounding country was an unbroken wilderness ; the nearest white neighbors being, as far as he knew, the few inhabitants of Franklin on the one side, and Jonathan Titus, the proprietor of the land on which Titusville now stands, on the other. "Here, in the unbroken wilderness, William Reynolds and his young son built a log-cabin, in which the father left the lad while he returned to New York to bring the remainder of the family to their new home. For four months the boy remained alone in the cabin, rarely seeing the face of a white man, but being frequently visited by Indians. In due time the Reynolds family were reunited in their new Western home. APPENDIX. 147 " Of this family was a daughter, Mary Reynolds. She was born in England, and was a child when brought to America. Her childhood and youth appear to have been marked by no extraordinary incidents. ' She possessed an excellent capacity,' says her kinsman, Professor Elicott, 'and enjoyed fair opportunities to acquire knowledge. Besides the domestic arts and social attainments, she had improved her mind by reading and conversation. Her memory was capacious, and well stored with a copious stock of ideas.' Though in no respect brilliant, she seems to have been naturally endowed with an uncommonly well-balanced organization, physical, mental, and moral. " "When she had reached about eighteen years of age she became subject to occasional attacks of 'fits.' Of the ex- citing cause and precise character of these no reliable in- formation can be attained ; for the new country in which she resided contained no physican competent to form a correct diagnosis of her case. An acute physiologist, taking account of the time when these attacks first ap- peared, and that of their final disappearance, would form an opinion as to their immediate physical cause. " On Sunday, in the spring of 1811, when she was about nineteen years of age, she had an attack of unusual sever- ity. She had taken a book and gone into the fields, at some distance from the house, that she might read in quiet. She was found lying in a state of utter insensibility. When she recovered her consciousness she was blind and deaf, and continued in this state for five or six weeks. The sense of hearing returned suddenly and entirely ; that of sight more gradually, but in the end perfectly. (A) " About three months after this attack, when she had apparently nearly recovered her usual health, though still somewhat feeble, she was found one morning, long after her usual hour of rising, in a profound sleep, from which it was impossible to arouse her. After some hours she awoke, but had lost all recollection of her former life. All the knowledge which she had acquired had passed away from her. She knew neither father nor mother, brothei s 148 COEEOBOEATIYE FACTS. nor sisters. She was ignorant of the use of the most famil- iar implements, and of the commonest details of everyday life. She had not the slightest consciousness that she had ever existed previous to the moment in which she awoke from that mysterious slumber. As far as all acquired knowledge was concerned, her condition was precisely that of a new-born infant. All of the past that remained to her was the faculty of pronouncing a few words ; and this seems to have been as purely instinctive as the wail- ings of an infant, for the words which she uttered were connected with no ideas in her mind. Until she was taught their significance they were unmeaning sounds to her. (B) " But in this state she differed from an infant in this, that her faculty of acquiring knowledge was that of a per- son in the possession of mature intellect, fully capable of dealing at once with the facts of existence. She therefore rapidly acquired a knowledge of the world into which she had, as it were, been so mysteriously re-born. " She continued in this state for about five weeks, when one morning she again awoke in her natural state, without any intimation from memory or consciousness that any thing unusual had happened to her. The five weeks that she had passed in her abnormal state were to her as though they had never been. All the knowledge and experience which had been so strangely lost were as strangely re- stored ; and she took up life again at the precise point where she had left it when she fell into that slumber from which she had awoke to the new life. She was surprised at the change of the season and the different arrangements of the things around her, which seemed to her to have been wrought in a single night. Her friends rejoiced as if they had received her back from the dead, fondly trusting that her restoration would be permanent, and that the ex- traordinary occurrences of that mysterious five weeks would never be repeated. But their anticipations were not to be realized. " After the lapse of a few weeks she again fell into a pro- APPENDIX. 149 found slumber, from which she awoke in her second state, taking up her new life again precisely where she had left it when she before passed from that state. The whole previous life of which memory or consciousnes remained was comprised in the limits of the five weeks which she had passed in this state. Her knowledge wa3 confined within the narrow limits of what she had then acquired. " These alternations from one state to the other continued for fifteen or sixteen years, but finally ceased when she had attained the age of thirty-five or thirty-six, leaving her permanently in her second state, in which she remain- ed without change for the last quarter of a century of her life. " In 1836, after these changes had wholly ceased, she wrote at the request of her nephew, Rev. John Y. Rey- nolds, D.D., of whose family she was then an inmate, a statement of some of the facts of her remarkable experi- ence. As she was then in her 'second state,' in which she had no recollection of the feelings or incidents of her other state, she relied upon the testimony of her friends for the circumstances related concerning the ' first state.' She says : " 'From the spring of 1811, when the first change oc- curred, until within eight or ten years, frequently changing from my first to my second, and from my second to my first state, I was more than three-fourths of my time in my second state. There was not any regularity as to the length of time that the one or the other continued. Some- times I remained several months, sometimes only a few weeks, or even days, in my second state ; but in no in- stance did I continue more than twenty days in my first state. The transitions from one to the other always took place during sleep. In passing from my second to my first state nothing special was noticeable in the character of my sleep. But in passing from my first to my second state my sleep was so profound that no one could awake me, and it not unfrequently continued eighteen or twenty hours. 150 CORROBORATIVE FACTS. '"Whatever knowledge I acquired in my second state became familiar to me in that state, and I made such pro- ficiency that I became well acquainted w T ith things, and was, in general, as intelligent in that as in my first state. " ' My mental sufferings in the near prospect of the trans- ition from either state to the other, but particularly from the first to the second (for I commonly had a presentiment of the change for a short time before it took place), were very great, for 1 feared I might never revert so as to know again in this world, as I then knew them, those who were dear to me. My feelings, in this respect, were not unlike those of one about to be separated from loved ones by death. During the earlier stages of my disease I had no idea, while in my second state, of employing my time in any thing useful. I cared for nothing but to ramble about, and never tired walking through the fields and woods. I ate and slept very little. Sometimes for two or three con- secutive days and nights I would neither eat nor sleep. I would often conceive prejudices, without cause, against my best friends. These feelings, however, began gradually to wear away, and eventually quite disappeared.' " The two lives which Mary Reynolds lived for many years were thus entirely separate. Each was complete in itself, the fragments of which it was composed, though in reality separated by the portions of the other life inter- vening, succeeded each other in uninterrupted succession, as far as the evidence of her own memory or consciousness was concerned. The thoughts and feelings, the know- ledge and experience, the joys and sorrows, the likes and dislikes of the one state did not in any way influence or modify those of the other. (C) But not only were the two lives entirely separate, but her character and habits in the two states were wholly different, In her first stale she was quiet and sedate, sober and pensive, almost to mel- ancholy, with an intellect sound though rather slow in its oper- ations, and apparently singularly destitute of the imaginative faculty. In her second state she was gay and cheerful, extravagantly fond of society, of fun and practical jokes, with a APPENDIX. 151 lively fancy and a strong propensity for versification and rhym- ing, though, some of her poetical productions appear to have possessed merit of a high order. The difference in her character in the two states was manifested in almost every act and habit. (D) Her handwriting in the one state differed wholly from that of the other. In her natural state the strange double life which she led was the cause of great unhappiness. She looked upon it as a severe af- fliction from the hand of Providence, and dreaded a re- lapse into the opposite state, fearing that she might never recover from it, and so might never again in this life know the friends of her youth, nor her parents, the guardians of her chil dhood. She had a great desire to retain a knowledge and memory of them. But in her abnormal state, though the prospect of changing into her natural state was far from being pleasant to her, yet it was for quite different reasons. She looked upon it as passing from a bright and joyous into a dull and stupid phase of life. Yet to her it was often a source of merriment, and the occasion of fre- quent humorous deceptions practiced upon her friends. " Having given a general outline of the facts of this singu- lar case, I will now detail such separate incidents as I have been able to collect. " At the time of her first change her brother John was a permanent inhabitant of Meadville. Hearing of her re- markable change he visited her at the old homestead. Of course she did not recognize him. But having been told of his relationship to her, she soon became warmly at- tached to him, and her affection grew as he repeated his visits during her continuance in her second state. " In her second state she had strong feelings of fondness or of dislike to persons. During the early part of her change to an unnatural state her friends found it necessary to keep a watchful eye upon her, and often to put restraint upon her movements. This restraint was never that of physical force, but consisted in prohibitory commands. This excited her displeasure, so that for some time she af- 152 CORROBORATIVE FACTS. fected to believe that those about her were not her relatives, as they affirmed that they were. " She became very anxious to visit her brother in Mead- ville, but her friends did not think it advisable to give her permission. Between one and two years after the first change, and while in her second state, she left home on horseback — an exercise of which she was very fond, and in which she was freely indulged — under pretense of visit- ing a neighbor. She made the visit — for she always care- fully kept the letter of her word, though not always the spirit — but she made her visit very brief, and then rode on to Meadville, a distance of nearly thirty miles. Her fam- ily soon learned where she had gone, and allowed her to remain some weeks. During that time she was a guest of Mrs. Kennedy, whose husband, Dr. Kennedy, had recently died. At the same time a young lady, Miss Nancy Dewey, was a guest in the same family. Between her and Mary Reynolds a strong friendship sprang up. One night they agreed together to play off a practical joke on Mr. John Reynolds, who was boarding at the same house. But it happened that neither of the young ladies awoke at the right time, and when Mary awoke in the morning she had changed to her natural state. " She now found herself in a strange house, for she had never been in Meadville in her natural state. She had for a sleeping companion a person who was a total stranger. She saw nothing with which she was familiar, and could not imagine where she was. Being in her natural state quiet and reserved, and even shy, she asked no questions. Miss Dewey spoke of the trick which they had proposed to play but had not awaked to perform. Miss Reynolds made no reply. She remembered nothing of the trick, and knew not who it was that addressed her. Miss Dewey saw that something unusual had occurred. She probably suspected the true state of the matter, for she had been fully told of the singular changes to which Miss Reynolds was subject. So she became silent. " Miss Reynolds dressed herself and found her way down APPENDIX. 153 stairs, wondering and perplexed, but waiting to see what would happen, and hoping that something would soon oc- cur that would solve the mystery. Mrs. Kennedy (after- ward the wife of Mr. John Reynolds) came into the sitting- room, and spoke in her usually cheerful manner; but Mary knew her not. Soon after her brother John entered the room. Then all was at once explained. In both states she knew him. In both states she knew that he resided in Meadville. So she knew she must be in Meadvilie. She informed him of the occurrence of the change, though there was little need of it. The observation of a moment or two, and the change in her disposition, were sufficient to reveal to her friends the transition from one state to the other. She was then introduced anew to those among whom she had so strangely fallen. She remained at Mrs Kennedy's, in Meadville, for some days, and then returned home. " Very soon after her return she awoke one night, and arousing a sister with whom she was sleeping, she ex- claimed, ' Come, Nancy ! it is time to get up and play that trick on John ! ' She had changed into her second state, and supposed that she was still in Meadville and sleeping with Miss Nancy Dewey, and that it was the same night on which they had planned the joke. When she found she had returned to the ' Nocturnal Shades,' as she called her home in Yenango when she was in her second state, she was much chagrined, for the larger society she found in Meadville was, in that state, much more to her taste. (E) " The foregoing statement illustrates two things. One is, that she did not in one state recognize acquaintances of the other state ; the other is, that there was a blank in her memory of the period, however long, passed in a given state when she passed into the other. Thus weeks and months disappeared during one sleep. And the sleep from which she awoke seemed to her but the continuation of that into which she had fallen long before. " During the earlier period of these changes she mani- fested, while in her second state, many symptoms of wild- 154 COEROBOKATIVE TACTS. ness and eccentricity, amounting almost to insanity. Proof of tliis is found in her long abstinence from food and sleep, and in her indifference to, and even strong preju- dices against, her best friends. 'For some time,' she writes, ' after I had been in my second state, my feelings were such that, had all my friends been lying dead around me, I do not think it would have given me one moment's pain of mind. At that time my feelings were never moved with the manifestations of joy or sorrow. I had no idea of the past or the future ; nothing but the present occupied my mind.' " She was also very restless, and had a strong and uncon- trollable inclination to wander off into the woods. Being utterly devoid of fear she could not be restrained by any representations her friends made to her respecting her perils from rattlesnakes, wolves, and bears, all of which were numerous in the vicinity. These things made her friends solicitous, and caused them to keep as close a watch as possible on all her movements. " It has been already stated that she was very careful to keep the letter of her word, though she did not feel herself bound by its spirit. She seemed rather to delight in find- ing some means or pretense of avoiding that, as giving her an opportunity of boasting of her smartness. She was very ingenious in finding such pretenses. But when once she promised to do or not to do a certain thing, her family and friends had perfect confidence that she would keep her word. " On one occasion in her ramblings she met a bear. She was on horseback riding along a path when she met it. In giving an account of the adventure on her return home, she said she had met a ' great black hog,' which acted very strangely. She said it grinned and growled at her, and would not get out of the way. She said her horse was frightened, and wished to turn back. She or- dered the black creature to leave the path, but it w T ould not mind her. ' Well,' she said, ' if you will not get out of the way, I will make you.' She was about to dismount APPENDIX. 155 and attempt to drive it from the path, when it slowly re- treated, occasionally stopping, turning round, and growl- ing. She used to insist that the bears with which her friends sought to frighten her from rambling off too far, were on- ly ' black hogs.' "About the same time, in one of her rambles, she saw a rattlesnake, with the beauty of which she was struck. She attempted to capture it. Instead of making battle it attempted to escape. It ran under a heap of logs. She seized it by the tail just as it was disappearing. Providen- tially her foot slipped, and to save herself from a fall she let go the snake. She afterward thrust her arm into the hole, but it had gone beyond her reach. It was known to be a rattlesnake both by its appearance and by its rattle. She afterward became familiar with the species, and re- membered that the one she had pursued was like those which she now knew. "Daring this stage of her history there was one person, a brother-in-law, who had complete control over her. This was another proof of an unusual, if not of an insane state of mind. She did not dare to disobey his commands, yet if he left any opportunity she would evade them. For instance, one morning he said to her, ' Mary you must not ride over the hills to-day.' This he considered equivalent to telling her that she must not ride at all, as her home was surrounded with hills, and she could not avoid them if she followed any road. But as soon as he was out of the way she got a horse, left home, and was gone nearly all day. In the evening he said, ' Mary, did I not tell you that you must not ride to-day?' She replied, ' No ! you told me I must not ride over the hills, and I did not ; but I rode through all the hollows I could find.' " Another singular fact should here be mentioned. Dur- ing that same period in the history of her case, immedi- ately after falling asleep, she would, in an audible voice, narrate the events of the day in which she had been an actor, sometimes laughing heartily at some joke she had played oS. She would then lay out her plans for the next 156 CORROBORATIVE FACTS. day. After this slie would become silent. The next day, unless thwarted, she would attempt to do all she had pro- posed, and in the order she had marked out. It has been stated that none of the knowledge or experience which Mary Reynolds had acquired during her early life, or while she was in her 'first state,' remained in her memory or passed over into her consciousness while she was in her second state. To this, however, there was one remarkable exception, the nature of which can best be stated in her own words, contained in the narrative from which I have before quoted. She says : " ' When I was for the first time in my second state, the family were one Sabbath preparing to go to Church at Ti- tusville. I was very anxious to accompany them, though at that time I was wholly ignorant of what preaching meant. They told me it was impossible for me to go. So, much to my dissatisfaction, I had to stay at home. On the night following that day I had a singular dream. I have a more distinct recollection of that dream than of any other thing which happened about that time. (F) " ' I dreamed that I was on a large plain, where neither a tree nor a stump was to be seen. It was beautifully green. A great number of persons, all clothed in white, were walking to and from a large river which flowed through the midst of the plain, singing as they walked. The music was the most delightful I ever heard. As I was standing and gazing with admiration on the scene be- fore me, I thought my sister Eliza, (who was dead), came up to me from among the throng, which had by this time collected — for I thought they increased in number very rapidly — and, with a sweet smile on her face, talked with me. Among other things, see told me I should join that company after a while, but that I could not then. While she was conversing with me I saw a very majestic person approach and ascend a platform that was erected about the middle of the plain. He opened a large book which he held in his hand, and began to speak, giving out for a .text, Revelation, iii. 20 : ' Behold, I stand at the door, and APPENDIX. 157 knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.' I was perfectly enraptured, for I thought he spoke to none but me. His eyes seemed to be directed toward me. ' Well,' I thought, ' this must be preaching ; for in my dream I remembered how I had been disappointed the day before at not being permitted to go to meeting, and I thought he knew my case, for he explained the Scriptures to me. The next day I repeated several passages, though at that time I could not read a word. It seemed that af- ter that dream I regained all my knowledge of the Scrip- tures. I frequently repeated passages of Scripture ; and when my friends, in reply to my assertion that they were contained in the Bible, would ask me how I knew that to be so, I told them the person whom I heard preaching in my dream made me acquainted with them. " ' When I arose the next morning after my dream I re- lated it to the family, and observed to them that I had been to a much more splended meeting than the one at which they had been. " 'In my dream I did not mingle with the company; but after I saw the person who ascended the pulpit, and when he commenced preaching, I became so interested that my attention was no longer attracted by the multi- tude, who were still moving about. But my sister re- mained by my side. " ' After this I used frequently to dream of seeing her. Particularly if any thing troubled me, she would appear to administer comfort. I loved to dream of her, though when awake I had not the slightest recollection of her. It was a remarkable circumstance that my sister and another particular friend, also dead, used to be my almost constant companions in my sleep. I have not dreamed of them since the earlier periods of my changes. I have wished much that I could, though at this time I do not re- member either of them except as they appeared to me in my dreams.' (G) " All her friends testified, and some still live to tes- 158 CORROBORATIVE FACTS. tify, that at the time mentioned by her she appeared to re- cover her lost knowledge of much contained in the Holy Scriptures, though, as she says, she could not then read, and did not know the Bible from any other book. She never recovered any other knowledge in the same or like manner. " Her parents were both very pious and intelligent — in sentiment Baptists. They had been, as I have before said, intimately acquainted with the Rev. Robert Hall and other distinguished ministers of the same persuasion in England. Among them was a maternal uncle. After the neighborhood had became somewhat settled, her father, William Reynolds, used to invite those living near him to come to his house on Lord's Day. He would read a ser- mon to them, and offer prayer with them and for them. His house was a well-known stopping-place. Often the pioneer ministers, chiefly Presbyterian, during their labor- ious missionary excursions, rested and preached at his house. Under such influences Mary must have made large acquisitions of religious knowledge, and become fa- miliar with the words of Holy "Writ. What she had thus acquired and subsequently lost, she recovered in the re- markable manner mentioned. (H) " It should be stated that Mary knew the lady, who appeared to her in her dream, to be her deceased sister, not by recognizing her from memory, but by describing her appearance, and learning -from her family that the de- scription exactly suited the appearance of her sister. For in her second state, whether asleep or awake, she had no recollection of her sister as one whom she had previously known in everyday walks. One friend thinks also that he has heard Mary say that, in the dream, Eliza informed her that she was her sister. But this is not certain. It is certain, however, that she minutely described a person precisely corresponding to the appearance of her sister. (I) " The indications of mental unsoundness which char- acterized the earlier portions ofihe time which she passed in her second state grew fainter, and at length wholly dis- APPENDIX. 159 appeared after these changes had ceased, leaving her per- manently in her abnormal state. This occurred about the year 1829, when she had reached her thirty-sixth year. She lived twenty-five years after this, wholly in her second state. (J) During this quarter of a century no one could have discovered in her any thing out of the ordinary way, except that she manifested an unusual degree of nervous- ness and restlessness ; yet that was not sufficient to attract particular attention. She was rational, sober, industrious, and gave good evidence of being a sincere Christian. For a number of years she was a consistent member of the Presbyterian Church. For some years she taught school, and in that capacity was both useful and acceptable. " During the last few years of her life she was a member of the family of her nephew, Rev. John V. Reynolds, D.D. Part of that time she kept house for him, showing a sound judgment, and manifesting a thorough acquaintance with the duties of her position. (K) " Her death occurred in January, 1854. In the morn- ing she arose in her usual health, ate her breakfast with a good appetite, and after breakfast went into the kitchen to superintend some matters in that department. In a few minutes the servant girl called to Dr. Reynolds, saying that his aunt had fallen down. He hastened to her, and assisted the girl in carrying her into the parlor, where she was laid on a sofa. The girl said that while Miss Mary was engaged about some matter, she suddenly raised her hands to her head and exclaimed, ' Oh ! I wonder what is the matter with my head.' She said no more, but imme- diately fell to the floor. When carried to the parlor she gasped once or twice, but never spoke, and then died. She was thus gratified in a wish which she had often ex- pressed : ' Sudden death, sudden glory ! ' She died at the age of somewhat more than sixty years. " The foregoing narrative embodies all that I have been able to gather which seemed to me to throw any light upon this case of Double Consciousness, the most remark- able which has been recorded. My object in preparing it 160 COEROBOKATIVE PACTS, has been to place before the public, and especially before those interested in mental philosophy the well authenti- cated facts in the case. That the case was a genuine one admits of no doubt. The leading facts are authenticated by a chain of testimony furnished by witnesses of unim- peachable character, covering the whole period. Mary Reynolds had no motive for practicing an imposture ; and her mental and moral character forbids the supposition that she had either the disposition or ability to plan and carry out such a fraud ; and had she done so, she could not have avoided detection in the course of the fifteen years during which the pretended changes alternated, and the subsequent quarter of a century, which she professed to pass wholly in her second state. (L) " The phenomena presented were as if her body was the house of two souls, not occupied by both at the same time, but alternately, first by one, then by the other, each in turn ejecting the other, until at last the usurper gained and held possession, after a struggle of fifteen years. For not only did she seem to have two memories, each in its turn active, and then dormant ; but the whole structure of her mind and consciousness, and their mode of operating seemed dissimilar, according to her state. Her sjmipathies, her method of reasoning, her tastes, her friendships, and the reasons which lead to their formation, were in one state wholly unlike what they were in the other. She had different objects of desire, took different views of life, looked at things through a different medium, according to her state. (M) " That her ' second state ' had its origin in, and was accompanied by physical disease, is evident from many considerations. She herself was conscious of this. In her narrative she writes : ' Whenever I changed into my nat- ural state, I was very much debilitated. When in my second state, I had no inclination for either food or sleep. My strength at such times was entirely artificial. 1 gener- ally had a flush in one cheek, and continued thirst, which denotes inward fever.' Physiologists, considering the time APPENDIX. 161 of life when the strange phenomena of her life began, and the time of their termination, will form some conclusions as to their ultimate cause ; but that the brain was the or- gan immediately affected is rendered probable from the convulsions that preceded the first change, and from the manner of her death, which unmistakably indicated that the brain was disordered. But the facts, as far as ascer- tainable now, fail to explain the special features of her case ; the two lives, covering fifteen years, wholly uncon- nected with each other, yet each continuous from state to state ; and the final settling down into a state of being last- ing for a quarter of a century, and accompanied by no special indications of either mental or physical disorder, yet which had no apparent relation to or connection with that which she had passed for the first nineteen years of her life, and which continued through a portion of the succeeding fifteen years. " The bearings of this case on the sanitive treatment of the insane, on questions of mental science beyond those alluded to, on questions of conscience or casuistry, and on the religious aspect of the matter, are left to the think- ing world. None will be more ready than the author to receive light on any of these important and intricate mat- ters." Western Theological Seminaey, 1859 ANNOTATIONS ON THE PRECEDING CASE. There are several features of the case of Miss Reynolds, which have very important bearing in corroborating the plurality of personalities, and of the arguments which the author has presented in the foregoing pages of this work. It will be noticed by the reader, that this lady was born in England, and had, in coming to America, become subjected to a different climate, etc., from that which her parents and herself had previously experienced. She had become subject to fits which became severe at her mature age, for 162 ANNOTATION'S ON THE PRECEDING CASE. which nature sought a remedy by the resort even to that of changing her predominant personality. In her changed state, at first, she retained nothing of her former person- ality, nothing except the faculty of pronouncing a few words instinctively, the meaning of which she did not un- derstand. This shows how absolute was the change ; and yet there lingered in a very small degree, automatic enunciations, which resulted from the acquirements of her former personality. (A, page 147 and 148.) At the time of her first change, it was after a long sleep ; and possibly this change succeeded a fit from which she never would have awaked had it not been to awake in another personality from that which had become too much exhausted to recover its mental action. In her changed personality (B page 148,) she acquired knowledge faster than an infant, because that personality had experienced physical growth before its mental indi- viduality had been awakened. (C, page 150.) Her character and habits in the two states were wholly different. In her first state she was quiet and sedate almost to melancholy, with an intellect which the narrator called sound though rather slow in its oper- ations; but in her second state she was gay and cheerful, extravagantly fond of society, of fun and practical jokes, etc. These are important considerations, — the sentences in the narration, page 150, are italicised by the author. It is evident that her first personality was one that she had taken on from some line ofher ancestry — a diseased inher- itance, which would eventually have destroyed her life early, had not nature made a successful struggle to change her personality. (D, page 151.) Her handwriting in the one state differed wholly from that of the other. This, also, shows that a different personality used different nerve-fibres, which also set to action different fibrillar of the muscles, therewith expressing a different mental entity. (E, page 153.) The blank in her memory of the period of one state when she passed into the other, shows that one AKKOTATIOKS OK THE PKECEDING CASE. 1C3 personality, during that time, was passive; and when one personality was passive, it was not then subject to the ex- periences that bring fatigue on body and mind. And as we hear nothing in the account of the return of her fits, it must be judged that the long sleep of one personality had been salutary and recuperative in its influence. (F, page 156 — see the entire pages 156 and 157.) The dream was, doubtless, the result of a small glimmering re- vival of her former personality which remembered her sister Eliza, with whom her former personality had been well acquainted. And there was also a glimmering re- membrance of the minister going into the pulpit, which she had often witnessed in her former personality ; and the text, " Behold, I stand at the door and knock," had doubtless been the subject of a discourse heard when in her former personality, or at least it is very probable these words had been familiar in her former memories. And after that dream, while still in her second state, she re- gained all her knowledge of the Scriptures which she pos- sessed in her former state. Here is a very important point in considering plural personalities. Her former person- ality, as regards Scriptural knowledge, and her second personality both acting together. This shows that not only can two hemispheres of the brain (see pages 53 and 54,) act either separately or together upon one subject, but also that it is possible for two entire hemispheres du- plicated within themselves to absolute plural personalities, to have their separate different experiences, and also to act together to recognize a subject with unity. (G-, see page 157 and 158.) Though in her second person- ality she recovered the knowledge of the Scriptures which belonged to her other (former) personality, she did not re- cover any other knowledge in the same or like manner. This shows that Scriptural knowledge had made a pecu- liar impression on her former personality ; and her parents being very pious people, as the context shows, and their anxiety, doubtless, exercised some psychological influence 164 ANNOTATIONS ON THE PRECEDING CASE. over her to cause her to regain so much of lier former per- sonality. (H, page 158.) There was, doubtless, sufficient partial revival of her former personality which caused her to rec- ognize her desceased sister, though it seems her second personality did not hold her in remembrance. But the history upon this is not clear further than that "it is cer- tain, however, that she minutely described a person precisely corresponding to the appearance of her sister" (I, page 158.) It could hardly be expected that a grown up body should awake in another mental personality and very rapidly gain experiences showing expressions which in all respects would appear to be absolutely normal. And especially would this be so while the second personality had not yet gained full power to retain its ascendancy over the individual. (J, page 159.) During a quarter of a century she remained in her second state ; and, doubtless, this resort of nature cured her fits and gave her a good lease of life. (K, page 159.) She probably died of apoplexy in a man- ner not peculiar, nor remarkable any more than is often the case with many other persons. (L, see page 160.) It will be seen that the Rev. Wm. S. Plumer, D.D., recognizes that "the phenomena presented, were as if her body was the house of two souls, — of one and the other alternately, till after awhile one entirely su- perseded the other in its power of possession." The ex- traordinary phenomena of her existence seemed, in his opinion, to have no other interpretation ; but the reader will see the bearing of the circumstance that her second per- sonality became united with a portion of the first in recog- nition of Scriptural knowledge, and this proves, as before stated, a step towards and the possibility of the entire unity of plural personalities. (M, see page 160.) Her second state had its origin in physical disease only in this way : It was the resort of na- ture to preserve her life; for she herself said, "whenever I changed into my natural (first) state, I was very much akkotatioks ok the pkecedistg case. 165 debilitated." She did not complain of debility in her sec- ond state — her mind recognized that she felt strong, though she called this strength artificial, because she gen- erally had a flush in one cheek and continued thirst. Anx- iety from the strangeness of the change may have caused her to think the flush of the cheek to be oftener or of more importance than it was ; for indeed the account (see the context, page 161), alludes to her " final settling clown into a state of being (her second state) lasting for a quarter of a century, and accompanied by no special indications of either mental or physical disorder." .# »-->"