Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 15.djvu/474

458 for some time, then awoke, complaining of pain, with her hand on the fore part of her head, on which also she placed the hand of a person near her and pressed it down firmly with her own; after thus complaining for two or three hours, she fell asleep. The same thing happened on the next and the two or three succeeding evenings, nearly at the same hour, but each time with less complaint. Other circumstances about this time showed that she was suffering considerable uneasiness in her head. She was very impatient in the erect posture, and, when lifted out of bed, would not put her feet to the ground, but drew up her legs to her body, as if to force those who held her to lay her down again. This, however, was not the case when she required to be taken up for the purpose of making any evacuation. She generally also preferred to lie on her face, and always with her head very low, with both hands firmly clasped over it, exactly on the part to which she had formerly referred the peculiar feeling already mentioned, and showed much uneasiness when they were removed, unless the pressure was continued by the hand of another person.

After this, the torpor continued for some time without being interrupted; but in the mean time the symptoms of pain in the head, and the uneasiness in the erect posture, gradually wore off, and Mrs. Hnow no longer talked in her sleep. Her bowels were kept open by laxative medicine, which now did not operate so severely as to wake her. She had, since the beginning of June, had a blister applied to the nape of the neck, and three to the head at different periods; sinapisms to the feet were also had recourse to, and two or three times electric shocks were passed through her arms. These remedies, like other painful stimulants, caused her to complain much; and one of the blisters, which was sufficiently large to cover the whole scalp, made her open her eyes; but their effects were merely temporary, leaving, to all appearance, no permanent impression on her complaint. Lest there might be any serous effusion within the cranium, digitalis was used along with the sweet spirit of niter, in such quantity as greatly to augment the flow of urine. By its operation her pulse was reduced so low as forty-four in a minute; and, while using it, she appeared to suffer from sickness at the stomach, during which she often put her fingers into her mouth, as if wishing for something to eat or drink; and she was subject to what seemed an oppressive feeling in the region of the heart, with a peculiar interruption to her breathing, which came in paroxysms; all which symptoms left her after discontinuing the medicine.

Toward the latter end of July, the torpid state, which had suffered no more intermissions, was become on the whole not quite so deep; at least Mrs. Hnow gave signs of being more conscious of anything that was done to her. She smiled and seemed pleased on receiving particular sorts of food, and when her eye was opened, or any part of her face touched with a finder, her whole countenance became suffused with