Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 67.djvu/607

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All trick or conspiracy was out of the question. Not only had the young woman been a harmless simple creature, but she was evidently under a nervous fever. In the town in which she had been resident for many years as a servant in different families, no solution presented itself. The young physician, however, determined to trace her past life, step by step; for the patient herself was incapable of returning a rational answer. He at length succeeded in discovering the place where her parents had lived, travelled thither, found them both dead, but an uncle surviving, and from him learned that the patient had been charitably taken by an old Protestant pastor at nine years old, and had remained with him some years, even till the old man's death. Of this pastor the uncle knew nothing, but that he was a very good man. With great difficulty and after much search, our young medical philosopher discovered a niece of the pastor's who had lived with him as housekeeper and had inherited his effects. She remembered the girl; related that her venerable uncle had been too indulgent, and could not hear the girl scolded; that she was willing to have kept her, but that, after her parent's death, the girl herself refused to stay. Anxious inquiries were then, of course, made concerning the pastor's habits; and the solution of the phenomenon was soon obtained. For it appeared that it had been the old man's custom for years to walk up and down a passage of his house into which the kitchen door opened, and to read to himself, with a loud voice, out of his favorite books. A considerable number of these were still in the niece's possession. She added that he was a very learned man and a great Hebraist. Among the books was found a collection of Rabbinical writings, together with several of the Greek and Latin fathers; and the physician succeeded in identifying so many passages with those taken down at the young woman's bedside that no doubt could remain in any rational mind concerning the true origin of the impression made on her nervous system.

The same power of the subjective mind is many times seen in hypnotic phenomena. The case cited is but one of a number, all of which are just as wonderful. Being a mind so perfectly endowed, it is hardly too audacious to say that this mind exercises its influence over all bodily functions, so that any function may be inhibited or accelerated by its influence. For example, the following is related of Henry Clay.

On one occasion he was unexpectedly called upon to answer an opponent who addressed the Senate on a question in which Clay was deeply interested. The latter felt too ill to reply at length. It seemed imperative, however, that he should say something; and he exacted a promise from a friend, who sat behind him, that he would stop him at the end of ten minutes. Accordingly, at the expiration of the prescribed time the friend gently pulled the skirts of Mr. Clay's coat. No attention was paid to the hint, and after a brief time it was repeated a little more imperatively. Still Clay paid no attention and it was again repeated. Then a pin was brought into requisition; but Clay was by that time thoroughly aroused, and was pouring forth a torrent of eloquence. The pin was inserted deeper and deeper into the orator's leg without eliciting any response, until his friend gave up in despair. Finally Mr. Clay happened to glance at the clock and saw that he had been speaking two hours; whereupon he fell into his friend's arms, completely overcome by exhaustion, upbraiding his friend severely for not stopping him at the prescribed time.