Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 31.djvu/619

Rh are often sufficiently developed in male subjects to justify us in classing them in the hysterical category of nerve-sufferers.

In this category "the Soho sleeper" deserves to hold a high place, as will become manifest on reading the following condensed résumé of his history as given by Professor Charcot, in the "Progrès Médical" for March, 1886, and completed by some further details, published in recent numbers of the "British Medical Journal":

Ch. was born in 1848, and his family history points to a strong neurotic heredity. He served in the French army in Algeria; and during the Franco-German War received a wound in the left elbow which led to amputation of the arm (1871). A few months later he was seized while at supper with unconquerable drowsiness, from which he could not be aroused. The next morning he broke out into a terrific delirium that lasted two days. A second attack of a similar nature occurred soon after. In 1875 he suffered from strange nervous symptoms, and in 1878 had another attack of sleep, followed by a long period of imperfect articulation. In 1880 he was seized again; and in addition to complete loss of speech, there was loss of feeling and movement of the left leg. He remained six months under treatment. Since then there has been a series of relapses, after one of which (1885) he came under the notice of Professor Charcot in the Salpêtrière Hospital. He was then found to have lost to a great extent sensation on the left side of the body; he could not articulate a single sound, but could express himself freely by writing. He was troubled with nightmare, in which the hallucinations of his former delirious seizures used to recur. He recovered his speech quite suddenly, without passing through a period of stammering as on former occasions.

During the fifteen months that elapsed till his arrival in London, he seems several times to have gone through his usual ordeal of sleep, followed by loss of speech and paralysis of the left leg. The attack which he has just had, seems to have been excited by the emotion he experienced on being robbed of all his money (March 24th). The somnolent stage lasted about a fortnight, and was followed with the usual paralytic and aphasic condition. During his torpor his eyes were shut, and his general appearance was that of a man in a profound sleep. He did not react to the loudest sounds; but if a ray of light was cast upon the pupil the eyelids gradually opened, and the eyeballs converged toward the bright object. The results of various experiments made upon the patient in his trance-like state illustrate several of the hypnotic phenomena already described as observed in hystero-epileptic patients. His muscles presented both the hyper-excitable and the plastic peculiarities that characterize the lethargic and the cataleptic phases respectively of artificially-induced sleep, but with the difference that they both coexisted, whether the eyes were shut or opened. Certain phenomena of suggestion through the "muscular sense" could easily be elicited. For instance, a series of movements imparted to the face, arm, or leg was automatically repeated, and continued for an indefinite time. Again, on imparting to his upper extremity an attitude of menace with outstretched arm and clinched fist, his eyes (previously opened) suddenly turned toward the limb, and he assumed an expression of anger verging on ferocity. I noticed that on interposing an opaque object between the eyes and the arm, the latter speedily relaxed and fell, the eyes closed, and the patient relapsed into his accustomed slumber.

During the second week of the trance he began to obey orders repeatedly