Case CVIII

Madame Plantin, about 64 years of age, consulted, in the month of June, 1828, a somnambulist, who was introduced to her by Dr. Chapelain, and by whom she was informed that a tumor would form in her right breast, and threaten to become cancerous. The invalid passed the summer in the country, but attended very carelessly to the regimen prescribed. Towards the end of September she returned to see Dr. Chapelain, and confessed that the tumor was considerably increased. He began to magnetize her on the 23d October following, and the sleep was induced several days afterwards; but absolute somnambulism was never very perfect in her. The means employed retarded without curing the disease. Finally, the breast gathered, and the doctor thought that the only hope was to have it removed. M. Jules Cloquet, a very skilful surgeon, was of the same opinion; it remained to gain the consent of the invalid, in which Dr. Chapelain, by his influence over her, succeeded. He used the whole power of his will to produce insensibility of the part, and, when he thought he had succeeded, he pinched the end of the breast violently with his nails without causing pain. The invalid was ignorant of the day fixed for the operation; it was the 12th of April, 1829. Dr. Chapelain magnetised her, and powerfully magnetized the part on which they were about to operate. He also magnetized the operator and his assistant, who doubted not that Madame Plantin would awake at the first incision; but their astonishment was extreme at her profound insensibility. "It appeared to me," said Dr. Cloquet, "that we were cutting a corpse." I will subjoin the report of this case, transmitted to the surgical department of the Royal Academy of Medicine:* -

* In somnambulism, hearing is frequently preserved, questions are heard and replied to as in waking. Touch is also frequently perfect; and even in some cases acquires an extraordinary delicacy. This is the sense which presides, as it were, over all the actions of somnambulists. Sauvages of Montpellier has described two sick persons in the hospital as natural somnambulists, and also clairvoyants; his account is found in the Me-moires de l'Academie des Sciences (Szafkowski, Recherches sur les Halluci-nations, 1849, p. 155).

"On the day fixed for the operation, M. Cloquet, on his arrival at half-past 10, found the invalid dressed and seated in her arm-chair in the attitude of a person in a quiet natural sleep. She had been about an hour before to mass, which she habitually attended at that hour, and M. Chapelain magnetized her on her return. She spoke very calmly of the operation she was about to undergo. Everything being prepared, she undressed and seated herself in a chair.

"Dr. Chapelain supported her right arm, the left was allowed to lie at her side. M. Pailloux, house-student of the Hospital of St. Louis, had the care of giving the instruments and making the ligatures.

"A first incision, beginning near the hollow of the arm-pit, was directed above the tumor towards the inner face of the breast. The second, commencing at the same spot, cut round beneath the tumor and joined the first; the engorged glands were carefully dissected on account of their nearness to the axillary artery, and the tumor was extracted. The operation lasted from ten to twelve minutes. During all this time the patient conversed tranquilly with the operator; there was no change in the position of the limbs or features, nor in the respiration or the voice; the pulsations also were natural. She continued in the same automatic state of ease and impassibility in which M. Cloquet found her on his arrival. There was no cause for restraint; it was simply requisite to support her. A ligature was applied to the thoracic lateral artery, divided during the extraction of the glands. It is worthy of remark that, when the surgeon washed the skin in the neighborhood of the wound, with a sponge dipped in warm water, the patient manifested sensations resembling those produced by tickling, and said quickly, several times, ' Ah! stop; don't tickle me.'

* See the Archives generates de Medecine, t. xx. p. 131, et seq.t May, 1829.

"The wound being dressed with adhesive plaster, the patient was put in bed, still in a state of somnambulism, in which she was allowed to remain for forty-eight hours.*

"This lady had a daughter married to M. Lagandrd; unfortunately she was in the country, and could not be in Paris for some days after the operation. Madame Lagandre was a somnambulist, and exhibited remarkable clearness of perception.

"M. Cloquet proposed to Dr. Ghapelain to magnetize Madame Lagandre. To this he assented, and after placing her in the magnetic state, he made many inquiries respecting Madame Plantin. Her replies were as follows: 'My mother is very much reduced; she no longer lives but by magnetism, which sustains her artificially; she has no life in her.' 'Do you think that your mother's life can be saved?' 'No; she will die tomorrow morning early, without agony or suffering.' ' What are the diseased parts?' 'The left lung is shrunk, folded upon itself; it is surrounded by a skin-like membrane, and is floating in water. But it is chiefly there,' said the somnambulist, pointing to the inferior angle of the scapula, ' that my mother suffers. The right lung no longer breathes; it is dead; the left lung is healthy; it is by that my mother lives. There is a little water in the pericardium.' 'What is the condition of the organs of the abdomen?' 'The stomach and intestines are healthy; the liver is white and decolored on the surface.'

* Madame Plantin died fifteen or sixteen days after the operation, but from causes unconnected with it; she was opened, and the peculiarities of the autopsy were found to be remarkable.

"M. Chapelain powerfully magnetized the patient several times during Monday, and hardly succeeded in making her sleep. When he returned on Tuesday morning, about seven o'clock, she had just expired. The two physicians were desirous of verifying the descriptions of the somnambulist as to the interior condition of the body; and obtained the consent of the family to a post-mortem examination. M. Moreau, secretary of the surgical department of the Academy of Medicine, and Dr. Drousart, were requested to be present as witnesses, and it was determined on for the next day. It was conducted by M. Glo-quet and M. Pailloux, his assistant, and Dr. Chapelain. The latter put Madame Lagandre' into the magnetic sleep a little before the hour fixed on. I will not describe the scene of tenderness and filial piety which took place, during which the somnambulist bathed with tears the inanimate body of her mother.

"Dr. Chapelain hastened to calm her. The physicians desired to hear from her own lips what she had described as having seen within the body of her mother, and the somnambulist repeated, in a firm voice, and without hesitation, what she had already related to MM. Cloquet and Chapelain. She was then led by the latter into the room adjoining that in which the autopsy was to take place, and the door was carefully closed. Madame Lagandre' continued in a state of somnambulism, and notwithstanding the barrier that separated her from those gentlemen, she followed the knife in the hands of the operator, and observed to those near to her: 'Why do they make an incision in the middle of the chest when the disease is on the right side?'

"The indications of the somnambulist were found correct, and the description of the autopsy was written by Dr. Drousart, as follows: -

"Description of the post-mortem examination of the body of Madame Plantin, on Tuesday, 29th April, 1829: -

"Exterior. - Yellowish paleness over the body; very thin; abdomen large. The wound three quarters healed; the surface granulated, and flesh healthy; the edges sunken, and covered with a newly formed cicatrix.

"Interior. - On opening the chest, the cavity of the right pleura was discovered to be filled with a thick serosity, the quantity of which might be about two pints; the pulmonary and costal portions of that membrane are covered with soft layers of exudations, more abundant in the posterior portion of the cavity than in the anterior. The lung strongly drawn back on itself; the incisions made on the posterior edge, and principally on the superior lobe, exhibit the presence of pneumonia, whence issues a sero-purulent liquid, whitish in some places, and grayish in others. Several points of the anterior edge and the inferior lobe are yet permeable to air, and crackling; the pericardium contains about three or four ounces of limpid serosity. The posterior face of the heart is slightly red, and presents several small portions of a skinny exudation. Besides this, this organ has nothing remarkable.

"The liver is of ordinary size; the superior face is covered, towards the centre, with whitish spots which do not spread beyond the surface of the organ; the biliary gall-bladder is withered, and of a whitish color; it is filled with biliary calculi, and contains no bile.

"The other organs have not been examined."

Here follow the signatures.* The witnesses are all living, and hold a high rank in the medical world. Their communication has been interpreted in various ways, but no one has ever doubted their veracity.

The two following cases have been reported by M. Ghardel, Counsellor in the Court of Cassation, who received them from ocular witnesses, persons of respectability and integrity: -