Page:A case of multiple personality - Albert Wilson - 1904.djvu/25

xlix.] across her picture, she would detect it by touch and rub it out. It was very strange to see her feeling the copy with the left fingers and drawing with the right. She copied writing in the same way. She could feel the red ink lines ruled on foolscap. Sometimes we thought she could see, for in drawing in colours she would hold the crayons so close to the eye that they would sometimes touch the cornea, which at this stage was completely insensitive.

She would also write verses and names from memory, as if the word memory centre was restored to her. Yet she had no memory of past events or of spelling. One day when she seemed brighter and I said to her write "L-A-D-Y, Lady," she wrote "Lady," and said, "It is not L-A-D-Y, it is Lady." She could write her name in a block, but mentally did not disconnect or isolate the letters. In other words, she could not spell. One day in January she completely and suddenly regained her sight for about two minutes. She called to her sister, "I can see you." Her sister said, "What am I doing?" she replied correctly, "You are combing your hair." Her intelligence with regard to her surroundings improved, but she was practically an idiot. If I called to her loudly "Wake up," she laughed vacantly and replied, "Is awake." If I said, "You are asleep," she replied with apparent indifference, "Not sleep." She, however, did not know what hands and feet were.

On January 16th, 1897, the normal A appeared three or four times for about two minutes at a time. She could see, but could not walk, though normal. Once she said she felt so well and comfortable. Is that not incomprehensible? Another time she told her mother she felt "sometimes to be dying and to go right away." This was said in an abnormal state, and appeared to refer to the changing period, either from normal to abnormal, or vice versa.

She has always called me "the voice" when in this "imbecile" state: perhaps because I shouted at her. She wrote me several letters signed "Tom's Lamb." On January 25th, when she was unable to stand, I commanded her very firmly and persistently to do so, and with success. After this the power gradually returned after an absence of three to four weeks.