Page:The Hunterian oration, for the year 1819.djvu/60

 speedily to discover and detect those impositions which some persons are induced to practise on us. A patient in the hospital feigned to be afflicted with catalepsy, in which disorder, it is said, a person loses all consciousness and volition, yet remains in the very attitude in which they were suddenly seized with this temporary suspension of the intellectual functions. Mr. Hunter began to comment before the surrounding students on the strangeness of the latter circumstance, and as the man stood with his hand a little extended and elevated, he said, you see, gentlemen, that the hand is supported, merely in consequence of the muscles persevering in that action to which volition had excited them prior to the cataleptic seizure. I wonder, continued he, what additional weight they would support, and so saying, he slipped the noose of a cord round the wrist, and hung to the other end a small weight, which produced no alteration in the position of the hand. Then, after a short time, with a pair of scissors he imperceptibly snipped the cord. The weight fell to the ground, and the hand was as suddenly raised in the air by the increased effort