Case XCVII

An uneducated woman in low life, aged twenty-four years, went sometimes to church, and always listened with most attention to the Holy Word when it revealed our true condition, and spoke of the horrors of sin. Absorbed in these meditations, her mind was impressed with extreme anguish, and her countenance exhibited all the grief with which she was penetrated. One day, whilst attending service, she was suddenly deprived almost entirely of motion and feeling, and at the close of her duties, was found motionless as a statue, her eyes open, gazing upward, and completely insensible. Without aid, her senses returned in the course of an hour. To the questions put to her, she replied that she had neither felt, nor heard anything, and that she was quite well during this state, which she compared to a deep sleep; she had seen her Saviour, and felt delightful sensations. This fit was repeated more than one hundred times in forty days. Sometimes it was lighter, and of shorter duration than at others; but in no case was the patient affected by the strongest volatile essences applied to the eyes and nostrils; and she was equally insensible to frictions and punctures.

During the fit, her pulse, her respiration and complexion were in a normal state; and immediately after it, she was able to resume her usual occupations. All her physical functions were healthy. During fourteen days she abstained from food and drink. It is a remarkable circumstance that the paroxysms always came on after she had listened to singing, or to the preaching of the gospel, when she expressed an ardent love for Christ. This malady having resisted all other means, was cured by air and exercise.*

The case reported by Hoffmann does not belong to catalepsy, but to ecstasy. In catalepsy, the mind nearly always remains in complete and absolute repose.

Ecstaey is often combined with Hysteria. - Zimmerman † speaks of a lady, gifted with much tenderness and sensibility, who, in her youth, had been subject to hysterics. Sometimes she would break off a conversation, feeling herself in a divine embrace. It has long been remarked that hysterical females have visions and hallucinations which resemble ecstasies.

* Frederici Hoffmanni, Opera Medica, torn. iii. sect. i. cap. iv. p. 50. † Traits de l'Experience.

The following account, communicated by Doctor Sanderet, Professor in the Medical College of Besangon, shows the connection that exists between these two nervous conditions: -

Case XCVIII

In the village of Voray (Haute Saone), twelve or thirteen kilometres from Besangon, lived Alexandrine Lanois, a girl seventeen years of age, simple in manners and appearance, and who, until the occurrence of the circumstances which I am about to relate, had attracted no attention. She was the daughter of poor parents, lived by the labor of her hands, and assisted her mother in household duties. In a word, as the cure expressed it, she was insignificant.

In the month of February, 1850, this young girl had an attack of pleurisy in the left side. Treated and cured, she experienced, towards the close of the same month, a relapse, which called for fresh care. This was followed by an attack of fever; first intermittent, then quotidian, then tertian; which yielded, after fifteen days, to sulphate of quinine.

This sickness had entirely passed away, when, at the beginning of June, she had a nervous attack, with hysterical symptoms, crises which were repeated twenty or thirty times during the day, lasting only a few minutes.

At the end of July, her ecstasies commenced. I will describe one of these, during which I watched her. I mention only the essential facts. Every paroxysm was regularly periodical; she slept for twelve hours, and then remained awake twenty-four. All the preventives prescribed by her medical attendant, such as motion, employment of the mind, muscular exertion, and repose, were useless; they came on and ended at the regular periods. At length, she herself would announce their approach. "I am going;" and, on coming to herself, she would say that she had been to paradise. She would then recite prayers, and sing psalms.

Cold baths were employed, and in twelve days the paroxysms ceased. The preceding details were supplied to me by M. Jen-nin, Jr., a very intelligent physician, living in the village of Voray, who had attended Alexandrine Lanois from the commencement.

Six months afterwards, in the month of October, the attacks reappeared, but their order was inverted; the paroxysms lasted twenty-four, the waking state only twelve hours. It was at this time that, in passing through the village, I was taken by a pious lady to see the miraculous girl. It was nearly four in the afternoon; I was told that I must hurry, if I wished to see her awake, as the paroxysms came on at four o'clock. I therefore hastened, and entered a narrow and dark room, crowded with curious people, who informed me that she had just fallen into the ecstatic sleep. I looked at my watch, and found it was two minutes after four.

She was stretched on a bed, the countenance perfectly calm, the eyes closed, the eyelids moving incessantly, the limbs supple, and falling gently and without effort when they were moved, the breathing equal and regular, the pulse quick.

Her hands were almost joined on her breast. After some minutes, she commenced rubbing them slowly and gently. " She is going to sing," said her mother to me; and, in fact, she began a song, in a full and vibrating voice, but which, nevertheless, was not her own; and although she sang with the accent peculiar to the village, yet her singing was undeniably marked by a strong musical sentiment. On raising her eyelid, I perceived the eye rapidly moving from the light; these repeated experiments brought tears to the outer corner of the left eye. At this time I pinched her severely, she did not appear to feel it; I drove a large pin into her hand, the result was similar; her insensibility was complete.