Case CLVII

A. lost his wife, who died a victim to his ill-usage. He became sombre and morose; and suddenly in the night experienced hallucinations. He saw moving corpses and hideous phantoms, who came down in procession from the ceiling, and, one after the other, pulled him by the feet; at other times he was transported to the borders of the sea, heard the moaning of the waves, and saw the steamboats rapidly ploughing the main; then the scene suddenly changed, and enormous serpents sprang on him, entwining him in their vast folds, and stinging him in the abdomen. On the following night, his visions were of horses, who made the roof crack with their stamping. As soon as he closed his eyes, hoping to shut out these frightful visions, the fantastic panorama unrolled itself before him with still greater strength and rapidity.

* Journal des Connaissances Medicales Pratiques, Fev., 1842, p. 134, Analyse de M. Bouchardat.

With the day, peace returned, and A. seemed to revive, feeling, as he said, relieved in a manner which it was impossible to describe. The approach of night plunged him into the greatest anxiety, and his alarm became such that he made his little girl of ten years old sleep by him, who had vainly tried to persuade him of the falseness of these apparitions. She observed naively to me, says the physician: "I might well stare, for I could see neither boats nor serpents."

On the 13th of November, in the night, A. was found doubled up in a corner of his room, his hands joined in a suppliant posture; he was immovable; his look was fixed, and expressive of terror; he prayed the demon to have pity on him, and not persecute him so severely. On the following morning, at daybreak, he left home in a state of great exasperation; his clothes were in disorder, his looks haggard; weeping, he told bis child he was going to confess all the faults he had committed, for he saw the good God required it.

On the 15th, he was conducted by the police to the asylum. On the first days of his sojourn, the hallucinations persecuted him. This state did not last long; a remarkable change took place in his mental condition; at night, he slept uninterruptedly; he saw nothing, and no more heard a voice crying from the depths of his heart, that he should kill himself. (The treatment consisted in baths, and water for drink.)

On the 23d, fresh hallucinations of sight assailed him during the night; he saw a black machine, which turned rapidly around, and trees which danced like puppets. Early in the month of December, M. Aubanel carefully interrogated him; he found him very rational, excepting that he could not comprehend that all the abnormal phenomena which he had experienced were caused by aberration of the senses. He said he had seen, and truly seen them, for his eyes were open, and he was awake. On the 31st of the same month, he quitted the asylum cured.

The hallucinations of A. were primary and complicated, with a very slight intellectual disturbance; in a word, the case was one in which the datura stramonium would do wonders. This remedy was about to be tested, when M. Aubanel, in his distrust of the specific, put off the administration of the first doses for a few days; in the interval, it happened that the organism brought its own grand resources into play, and the cure was effected in a very short time without the intervention of any therapeutic agent. Do we not see the same thing occur in many analogous cases?*

Some years since, M. Mettevie conceived the notion of attacking hallucinations by electricity. He effected two or three cures by inserting needles in the membrane of the tympanum. This very painful method was, however, so difficult that he discontinued his attempts.

M. Baillarger also experimented on electricity; he made the first essay on himself, and saw a number of bluish flashes pass before his eyes; the sensation affected him very painfully. As the puncturing of the membrane of the tympanum might occasion serious mischief, he invented a little apparatus, intended only to rest on the membrane. M. Baillarger believes that this means acts, by producing a diversion of ideas, more or less powerful, and that it is only in this manner that it can be useful.

Medicaments occasionally succeed in the cure of hallucinations, not by their therapeutic effects, but by breaking the chain of ideas in the patient.