Case III

Bottex relates that a man employed in a brew-house in Strasburg, having gone to Saint Etienne, inhabited the latter town for about two months, when he one night heard something walk round his bed, and pass over the coverlet; the next day, at the same hour, the same noise; but then he distinctly heard these words: "Ah! I have found you, then!" He recognized the voice of a young person whom he had left at Strasburg.

Thenceforward, the voice followed him everywhere; asked for money, spoke of marriage, and menaced him with the devil if he did not comply with her wishes; in fact, she so tormented him that he could neither work nor sleep, so he resolved to enter a hospital at Lyons.

He did not see the woman who spoke to him, but distinctly heard her voice; and no hour passed that she did not talk to him. When requested to listen to her, he leaned his head to the left, and immediately heard her; when he repeated word for word what she said.

* A. L. Wigan, M. D., A New View of Insanity, the Duality of the Mind, p. 123, London, 1844.

This man was perfectly sane; he knew perfectly well that the woman whose voice he heard was not near him. "She must," said he, laughing, "have made a compact with the devil." He could not explain what he experienced otherwise but he did not hold on to the idea, knowing it to be absurd. By degrees, the voice addressed him more rarely; finally, he no longer heard her, and went out cured at the end of a month.

Case IV

A lady about sixty years of age, of extremely nervous susceptibility, was from time to time affected with singular visions. Suddenly she would see a robber enter her chamber, and conceal himself under her bed; she was instantly seized with violent palpitations of the heart, and universal trembling. She was, nevertheless, perfectly aware of the falsity of these impressions, and her reason made great efforts to dissipate the fears which they awoke in her mind.

Satisfied that no person could have entered her room, the lady resisted the impulse which led her to open the windows and call for assistance; after a struggle of some minutes, reason finally triumphed, and she was restored to calmness; she would then approach the bed, and examine it without fear and with great satisfaction. "I frequently witnessed," says Mathey, "the courageous efforts of the lady to free herself from the fantastic ideas of all kinds that beset her."

Hallucination, although understood and appreciated as such, by the person under its influence, may, by its frequency and duration, produce so unhappy an effect on the mind as to cause death.

Case V

"I knew," said Wigan, "a very intelligent and amiable man, who had the power of placing before him his own image; he often laughed heartily at the sight of his resemblance, which also always appeared laughing. For a length of time this illusion was a subject of amusement and pleasantry; but the result was deplorable. By degrees he became persuaded that he was haunted by his double. This other disputed obstinately with him, and to his great mortification, occasionally confuted him, which was humiliating, inasmuch as he had a great opinion of his own judgment. This gentleman, although eccentric, was never subjected to restraint or confinement. Finally, wearied out, he resolved not to enter on another year, paid all his debts, wrapped in separate papers the amount of the week's expenses, and awaited, pistol in hand, the night of the 31st of December. At the moment when the clock struck twelve, he blew out his brains."