231 B. The following is another case in which the faculties appeared to be heightened in the secondary condition. The account is taken from the Proceedings S.P.R., vol. iv. pp. 230-32. The case was sent to Professor Barrett, in 1876, by a clergyman, then vicar of a London parish, and father of the subject. He did not choose to give further particulars, or to allow his name to be published.

My son was in his seventeenth year attacked by what was said to be cataleptic hysteria. At their first commencement they were little more than prolonged fainting fits; afterwards, each attack began by his passing in an instant into a state of complete rigidity. Occasionally he would remain for five minutes to a quarter of an hour in that state, retaining the attitude in which he was when attacked, as if made of marble, with his eyes open and fixed and perfectly unconscious. After a time he would rise with a sigh, move about, and speak without the slightest hesitation or incoherency, and thence continue for hours or days, leading an entirely separate existence, not recognising friends or relations or even the way to his own bedroom, and taking no notice if addressed by his own name, writing letters with another signature, always imagining himself to have arrived at middle-age, and alluding to incidents of his imaginary youth, which teemed with echoes of his past reading; he was most courteous and pleasant in his manner, excepting when any doubt was implied as to the accuracy of any statement which he made.

At times all his faculties were in a most excited state. He would continue for hours playing games of skill with almost preternatural dexterity; he would repeat to the air pages of poetry; and he would play and sing in a wild and original manner, of which he was incapable at other times, quite unconscious of the presence of others and impervious to any interruptions. In this state he has continued for a week at a time, going out with us to dine with old friends, whom, however, he never recognised, but treated as new acquaintances. He always spoke of his parents as far off in some distant Eastern country, in which he himself had been born, and spoke to us (his father and mother) as kind hosts and friends whom he was soon to leave. Suddenly he would fall to the ground, roll about in convulsive agony with loud groans, and, a little water being poured into his lips, would get up and go on talking upon the subject of conversation on which he had been engaged at the time of his seizure, and without the slightest remembrance of anything that had passed meanwhile. These attacks continued every few days for more than two years, during which he was forbidden all kinds of study.

At the age of nineteen we were advised to send him on a voyage, and accordingly he paid a visit to an uncle, a military officer at Madras; from thence he returned in six or seven months quite cured, went up to the University of Cambridge, where he went out in honours, and is now at the bar. These attacks never came upon him whilst actually employed, but generally at church, in bed, or during quiet conversation; they were often induced by anything that vexed or startled him. He has since told me that he might have resisted them, but that they came upon him with a sensation of pleasant drowsiness that fascinated him. Certainly he was the worse for any display of sympathy. I may add that he suffers now at times from some defect in the circulation which prevents great bodily exertion and which produces pain in his heart and head; in all other respects he is hale and hearty.

232 A. The following account of Mary Reynolds is taken from Professor W. James' "Principles of Psychology," vol. i. pp. 381-84, being there quoted from Dr. Weir Mitchell's report in the Transactions of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, April 4th, 1888.

This dull and melancholy young woman, inhabiting the Pennsylvania wilderness in 1811, was found one morning, long after her habitual time for rising, in a profound sleep from which it was impossible to arouse her. After eighteen or twenty hours of sleeping she awakened, but in a state of unnatural consciousness. Memory had fled. To all intents and purposes she was as a being for the first time ushered into the world. All of the past that remained to her was the faculty of pronouncing a few words, and this seems to have been as purely instinctive as the wailings of an infant; for at first the words which she uttered were connected with no ideas in her mind. Until she was taught their significance they were unmeaning sounds.

Her eyes were virtually for the first time opened upon the world. Old things had passed away; all things had become new. Her parents, brothers, sisters, friends, were not recognised or acknowledged as such by her. She had never seen them before - never known them.... To the scenes by which she was surrounded she was a perfect stranger. The house, the fields, the forest, the hills, the vales, the streams - all were novelties.... She had not the slightest consciousness that she had ever existed previous to the moment in which she awoke from that mysterious slumber. In a word, she was an infant, just born, yet born in a state of maturity....

The first lesson in her education was to teach her by what ties she was bound to those by whom she was surrounded.... This she was very slow to learn, and, indeed, never did learn, or, at least, never would acknowledge the ties of consanguinity, or scarcely those of friendship....

The next lesson was to re-teach her the arts of reading and writing. She was apt enough, and made such rapid progress in both, that in a few weeks she had readily re-learned to read and write....

The next thing that is noteworthy is the change which took place in her disposition. Instead of being melancholy, she was now cheerful to extremity. Instead of being reserved, she was buoyant and social. Formerly taciturn and retiring, she was now merry and jocose.... While she was, in this second state, extravagantly fond of company, she was much more enamoured of nature's works, as exhibited in the forests, hills, vales, and water-courses. She used to start in the morning, either on foot or horseback, and ramble until nightfall over the whole country; nor was she at all particular whether she were on a path or in the trackless forest....

She knew no fear, and as bears and panthers were numerous in the woods, and rattlesnakes and copperheads abounded everywhere, her friends told her of the danger to which she exposed herself; but it produced no other effect than to draw forth a contemptuous laugh, as she said, " I know you only want to frighten me and keep me at home, but you miss it, for I often see your bears, and I am perfectly convinced that they are nothing more than black hogs".

One evening, after her return from her daily excursion, she told the following incident: "As I was riding to-day along a narrow path a great black hog came out of the woods and stopped before me. I never saw such an impudent black hog before. It stood up on its hind feet and grinned and gnashed its teeth at me. I could not make the horse go on. I told him he was a fool to be frightened at a hog, and tried to whip him past, but he would not go, and wanted to turn back. I told the hog to get out of the way, but he did not mind me. 'Well,' said I, 'if you won't for words, I '11 try blows;' so I got off and took a stick, and walked up toward it. When I got pretty close by, it got down on all fours and walked away slowly and sullenly, stopping every few steps and looking back and grinning and growling. Then I got on my horse and rode on."...