Case XLII

Dr. Martin, Superintendent of Antiquaille, communicated the following fact to M. Bottex: A man, fifty-two years of age, of a plethoric constitution, after having experienced a defect in the visual organs, so that objects were represented sometimes double, sometimes reversed, soon perceived symptoms of a congestion of the brain, which caused fear of apoplexy. Three copious bloodlettings in the arm, and an application of leeches to the anus relieved the congestion; but he afterwards experienced a singular hallucination, accompanied by squinting.

* Eusebe Salverte, Des sciences occultes, 2d edit. Paris, 1843,1 vol. in 8vo.

His eyelids contracted, and the globe of his eyes turned from right to left at irregular intervals; at which times he imagined he saw objects or persons which he appeared to follow with his eyes into the dining-room or kitchen; places entirely separated from the chamber where he lay. This patient, who comprehended that it was a false perception, died under another attack of apoplexy.

This case points out the transition from illusion to hallucination.

Illusion, as well as hallucination, may be recognized as false; but, as the malady progresses, it is considered real.

Case XLIII

Towards the close of 1835, Madame N., laundress, distressed by violent rheumatic pains, quitted her business and took to sewing. Little accustomed to such work, she frequently passed part of the night in providing for her wants; nevertheless, she fell into extreme poverty, and was seized with a severe ophthalmia, which soon became chronic. As she continued to sew, she saw four hands, four needles, and four seams; she had a double-double vision, in consequence of a slight divergence in the visual axis. At first, Madame N. accounted for this phenomenon; but, at the close of some days, becoming still poorer, and a powerful impression being made on her mind, she believed that she really sewed four seams at once, and that God, in compassion to her misfortunes, had worked a miracle in her behalf.*

Case XLIV

Cardan, of whom we shall elsewhere relate several hallucinations, relates that, during his stay in Paris, looking casually at his hands, he was much alarmed at seeing a red spot on the ring of the right forefinger. That evening, he received a letter from his son-in-law, imforming him of the imprisonment of his son, and the ardent wish that he had to see him at Milan, where he was detained. The mark continued to spread during fifty-three days, until it reached the extremity of the finger; it was as red as blood. After the execution of his son, the spot began to diminish; the day after his death, it had almost entirely disappeared, and two days after no traces remained, †

* Hoffbauer, Medecine legale relatif aux alienes et aux sourds muets, translated from the German by Chanibeyron, with notes by MM. Esquirol and Itard, 1 vol. in 8vo. Paris, 1807.

† Cardamus, De Vita propria.

Every sense may be the seat of illusion, and all may be simultaneously affected.

An irregular sensation may become the source, by its potency, of a melancholy affection.

An Italian lady had a constant tingling in her left ear, which increased daily, and which she compared to the ringing of a bell. Becoming quite melancholy in consequence, she went to a dentist in Florence, who happily thought of striking, one by one, all her teeth with a small hammer. As the hammer, in striking the eye-tooth of the upper jaw, occasioned at every stroke a tinkling sensation, he regarded that tooth as the seat of the evil, and therefore extracted it; when the lady was at once relieved from the annoyance that had troubled her. On sawing the tooth longitudinally, a little osseous concretion was found in the cavity suspended to the nutritive artery, and resembling the clapper of a bell.*

Illusions are infinitely varied. A commandant of artillery, who thought himself pursued by his enemies, imagined that the letters of books were of a particular nature, that they galloped one over the other, and were printed expressly for him. Nothing could drive from his mind the idea that the books in my library were composed for his purpose. This illusion may, in some sort, be likened to that described by Dendy,† which occurs in some cases where morphine had been employed, and which has relation to language; for, in reading and listening, it seemed as if words and sentences had lost their true meaning.

The transformation of figures and objects is a very usual form of illusion. Miss D - imagined every one in the house to be

Irish; all played a part in this general travestie. This one was her enemy; that, the enemy of one of her relatives; each one had his character and position, and acted accordingly. This illusion lasted a long time. Mrs. M------thought she saw her brother, who had been dead very many years, in the persons of several who were sick. Sauvages speaks of an error of hearing, under the name vertiginous tingling (tintoin vertigineux), which consists in hearing on the right, words addressed on the left, and vice versa.

* Obs. Med. Napol., December 1, 1833. † Philosophy of Mystery, p. 88.

Illusions of hearing are very common with the insane. A kind word addressed to another person, a simple movement of the lips, is converted into taunts, offensive words, and injuries.

Ravaillac, in chanting the Dixit Dominus of David, the Miserere and de Profundis, thought that the sound issuing from his larynx had the nature and effect of a war-trumpet.*

Illusions, like hallucinations, have often occasioned quarrels, duels, suicides, and murders.