Page:A case of double consciousness Albert Wilson 1904 MPD in a child.djvu/9

Rh she could read. Perhaps this is more a confusional or lost condition, post-epileptic. Still she was quite ignorant both of her normal self (A) or of any other sub-stage.

B 9 was, however, a most important sub-stage and a very persistent visitor. In this she was imbecile, blind, and at times deaf, and usually paralysed in the feet. The striking feature in this case is that when blind she could draw, while at no other period of her life, either normal or abnormal, had she any ability in drawing. Is not this some ancestral devolution or throw-back? She would call out for "picters" and "pencil," and set to work drawing the fashions which one sees in the illustrated papers. She was guided entirely by touch. We proved this by moving the paper when she was not touching it. She at once discovered the error and commenced feeling for the pencil marks, resuming the drawing in a correct manner. I also proved the blindness by holding a book between her eyes and the paper. Her eyes were, however, normal, and Mr. Tweedy kindly confirmed this opinion. Once or twice when examining the retina, the stimulation of the light brought her to the normal condition. In this state she was a pitiable object, the vacant face expressionless, the eyes protruding as if the ocular muscles were paralysed, and the pupils widely dilated. Usually she understood nothing, and there often seemed no way of communicating with her. Sometimes for hours she would roll beads on a tray; at other times she wrote verses from memory, or the names of persons she knew; or she would copy, only in this she was guided by touch and not by sight. This seemed the most remarkable feature in the whole case. To what was the blindness due? It appeared to be organic, all the ocular apparatus paralysed. The calcarine area would probably escape. Dr. Bolton has shown this to be the visual area, in the sense of the recording sensitised plate, but here there was no psychic blindness, for her visual ideation persisted. It was the photographic apparatus which was disorganised. In seeking an explanation, there may have been paralysis of the roots of the second, third, and fourth, ciliary portions of the fifth and sixth nerves. Perhaps all was connected with superactivity of the cervical sympathetic, shutting off vascular supply in these ocular districts which must be connected. Other opinions might incline to a paralysis of Bolton’s visual area.