Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 49.djvu/840

816 mentally confused, was the prey to intense terror, saw horrible visions, etc.

She married when between sixteen and seventeen years of age, and Dr. Azam lost sight of her for sixteen years. In 1876 he hunted her up again, and had kept her in sight until the appearance of his book in 1887. Considerable changes have taken place in her condition. The transition states are much shorter, being scarcely noticeable. Her second state has continuously gained ground upon her first, so that in 1865, ten years after its first appearance, her life was about equally divided between them. In 1875 the first only recurred at long and irregular intervals and lasted only a few hours. In 1887 its recurrences were rarer and shorter still. Throughout her life she has been a hysteric of the worst kind. She had had her sensations of touch, taste, and smell impaired, she had had frequent hæmorrhages from the nose, lungs, and stomach, and when excited had convulsive attacks. On one occasion she had a hæmorrhage from the scalp. Red spots often appear on the left side of the body and are accompanied by pain and heat, frequently by swelling. One such swelling on her hand burst her glove. The third state, that of panic terror and mental confusion, has become much more frequent and lasts longer. With advancing years and troubles her second state has become less gay and careless, so that the contrast of character is not so marked, but the gulf in her memories remains as wide as ever. She went to a friend's funeral in the second state; on her way home she passed into the first and could not imagine what brought her into a carriage full of mourners. Her sister-in-law died after a long illness; Fèlida passed into her first state and knew nothing of her death, but, remembering her illness, inferred that she had died from the mourning garb in which she found herself clad. Once in her second state she grew jealous of another woman and tried to hang herself, but was cut down in time by her neighbors. When she recovered she expressed the wish to go into her first state, for then, she said, she would forget her misery. And she did, for the next time she passed into it she showed herself most affectionate to the former object of her jealousy.

The changes that take place in Félida's case are more far-reaching than those of Ansel Bourne. Not only are large blocks of memories erased, but the active side of her mind is profoundly affected. Yet one would scarcely say that the two Félidas were different people. Rather does it seem that the real Félida is the second, the one which first came to light amid the changes of adolescence. It is like Ansel Bourne's case reversed, for A. J. Brown is Ansel Bourne shorn of nearly all that was his; the second Félida is the first Félida completed by the addition of much that was her birthright.