Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 26.djvu/202

190 road, and all the past be a blank to Lira from some point the night before. These blanks occasionally lasted twenty-four hours, and he could never recall anything which happened, and only knew by the money and tickets that he had made a trip on his train. After a time he would put down in a note-book events of importance in this state, which he never did otherwise. The train-hands knew that he was, as they termed it, "memory-drunk," when he used his note-book freely, and seemed dull and abstracted. A pilot on a Sound steamer, after seasons of hard work, and exhaustion from loss of sleep, would use brandy to keep up, and have blanks of hours from which he would recover, having no recollection of what had happened. He would act as usual, only be less talkative, and dull in his manner. A skilled mechanic, who used spirits to excess, suffered from blanks of many hours' duration, during which he attended a dangerous machine, performing all the duties, requiring both skill and judgment. A clergyman, who drinks wine, has frequently conducted service, and preached a sermon without any memory of the fact, having a blank of all surroundings for hours. A grocer, after a period of great excess in the use of spirits, will conduct his business for hours without any consciousness of events, and only know by the books and the statements of others what has taken place. These are only a few of the histories of a large number of cases which I have gathered to illustrate the fact that in this trance state the mind may work along accustomed lines of thought and action. In this condition, the evidence of a mental blank is more or less obscure. In the next division, the mind displays unusual ranges of thought and action, some of which can be traced to the surroundings. A physician, who drank constantly, and was a bitter skeptic, went into a revival meeting and professed change of heart, and took part in the exercises, and the next morning had no recollection of it. Later, while drinking, he heard the singing of the revival meeting, and, dropping all business, entered and took a very active part, and seemed fully conscious of all the surroundings, yet, after a night's sleep, had no recollection whatever of anything which had occurred. In this case the trance state was manifest in unusual deeds and acts, suggested from the surroundings. A similar case was that of an editor, who, after drinking to excess, could always be found in temperance-meetings, making eloquent appeals, and yet he gave no evidence of being under the influence of spirits, nor could he remember anything of what had occurred. Another case is that of a man of fortune, who drank wine freely, awoke and found that he had married his servant, and made an unusual disposition of his property, which was all a blank to him. To his friends and others he seemed fully conscious of the nature and consequences of these events at the time. I think it will be found that inebriates brought suddenly into conditions of excitement are moved by circumstances and surroundings to which they are often really oblivious. If the trance state is