Sex in Relation to Society
CHAPTER IX.
53322 words | Chapter 23
PHYSIOLOGIC AND FUNCTIONAL ANOMALIES.
In considering the anomalies of the secretions, it must be remembered
that the ingestion of certain kinds of food and the administration of
peculiar drugs in medicine have a marked influence in coloring
secretions. Probably the most interesting of all these anomalies is the
class in which, by a compensatory process, metastasis of the secretions
is noticed.
Colored Saliva.--Among the older writers the Ephemerides contains an
account of blue saliva; Huxham speaks of green saliva; Marcellus
Donatus of yellow, and Peterman relates the history of a case of yellow
saliva. Dickinson describes a woman of sixty whose saliva was blue;
besides this nothing was definitely the matter with her. It seemed
however, that the color was due to some chemic-pencil poisoning rather
than to a pathologic process. A piece of this aniline pencil was
caught in the false teeth. Paget cites an instance of blue saliva due
to staining the tongue in the same manner. Most cases of anomalous
coloring of this kind can be subsequently traced to artificial
substances unconsciously introduced. Crocker mentions a woman who on
washing her hands constantly found that the water was stained blue, but
this was subsequently traced to the accidental introduction of an
orchid leaf. In another instance there was a woman whose linen was at
every change stained brown; this, however, was found to be due to a
hair-wash that she was in the habit of using.
Among the older writers who have mentioned abnormal modes of exit of
the urine is Baux, who mentions urine from the nipples; Paullini and
the Ephemerides describe instances of urination from the eyes.
Blancard, the Ephemerides, Sorbalt, and Vallisneri speak of urination
by the mouth. Arnold relates the history of a case of dysuria in which
urine was discharged from the nose, breasts, ears, and umbilicus; the
woman was twenty-seven years old, and the dysuria was caused by a
prolapsed uterus. There was an instance of anomalous discharge of urine
from the body reported in Philadelphia many years ago which led to
animated discussion. A case of dysuria in which the patient discharged
urine from the stomach was reported early in this century from Germany.
The patient could feel the accumulation of urine by burning pain in the
epigastrium. Suddenly the pain would move to the soles of the feet, she
would become nauseated, and large quantities of urine would soon be
vomited. There was reported the case of an hysterical female who had
convulsions and mania, alternating with anuria of a peculiar nature and
lasting seven days. There was not a drop of urine passed during this
time, but there were discharges through the mouth of alkaline waters
with a strong ammoniacal odor.
Senter reports in a young woman a singular case of ischuria which
continued for more than three years; during this time if her urine was
not drawn off with the catheter she frequently voided it by vomiting;
for the last twenty months she passed much gravel by the catheter; when
the use of the instrument was omitted or unsuccessfully applied the
vomitus contained gravel. Carlisle mentions a case in which there was
vomiting of a fluid containing urea and having the sensible properties
of urine. Curious to relate, a cure was effected after ligature of the
superior thyroid arteries and sloughing of the thyroid gland. Vomiting
of urine is also mentioned by Coley, Domine, Liron, Malago, Zeviani,
and Yeats. Marsden reports a case in which, following secondary papular
syphilis and profuse spontaneous ptyalism, there was vicarious
secretion of the urinary constituents from the skin.
Instances of the anomalous exit of urine caused by congenital
malformation or fistulous connections are mentioned in another chapter.
Black urine is generally caused by the ingestion of pigmented food or
drugs, such as carbolic acid and the anilines. Amatus Lusitanus,
Bartholinus, and the Ephemerides speak of black urine after eating
grapes or damson plums. The Ephemerides speaks of black urine being a
precursor of death, but Piso, Rhodius, and Schenck say it is anomalous
and seldom a sign of death. White urine, commonly known as chyluria, is
frequently seen, and sometimes results from purulent cystitis. Though
containing sediment, the urine looks as if full of milk. A case of this
kind was seen in 1895 at the Jefferson Medical College Hospital,
Philadelphia, in which the chyluria was due to a communication between
the bladder and the thoracic duct.
Ackerman has spoken of metastasis of the tears, and Dixon gives an
instance in which crying was not attended by the visible shedding of
tears. Salomon reports a case of congenital deficiency of tears.
Blood-stained tears were frequently mentioned by the older writers.
Recently Cross has written an article on this subject, and its analogy
is seen in the next chapter under hemorrhages from the eyes through the
lacrimal duct.
The Semen.--The older writers spoke of metastasis of the seminal flow,
the issue being by the skin (perspiration) and other routes. This was
especially supposed to be the case in satyriasis, in which the
preternatural exit was due to superabundance of semen, which could be
recognized by its odor. There is no doubt that some people have a
distinct seminal odor, a fact that will be considered in the section on
"Human Odors."
The Ephemerides, Schurig, and Hoffman report instances of what they
call fetid semen (possibly a complication of urethral disease). Paaw
speaks of black semen in a negro, and the Ephemerides and Schurig
mention instances of dark semen. Blancard records an instance of
preternatural exit of semen by the bowel. Heers mentions a similar
case caused by urethral fistula. Ingham mentions the escape of semen
through the testicle by means of a fistula. Demarquay is the authority
on bloody semen.
Andouard mentions an instance of blue bile in a woman, blue flakes
being found in her vomit. There was no trace of copper to be found in
this case. Andouard says that the older physicians frequently spoke of
this occurrence.
Rhodius speaks of the sweat being sweet after eating honey; the
Ephemerides and Paullini also mention it. Chromidrosis, or colored
sweat, is an interesting anomaly exemplified in numerous reports. Black
sweat has been mentioned by Bartholinus, who remarked that the
secretion resembled ink; in other cases Galeazzi and Zacutus Lusitanus
said the perspiration resembled sooty water. Phosphorescent sweat has
been recorded. Paullini and the Ephemerides mention perspiration which
was of a leek-green color, and Borellus has observed deep green
perspiration. Marcard mentions green perspiration of the feet, possibly
due to stains from colored foot-gear. The Ephemerides and Paullini
speak of violet perspiration, and Bartholinus has described
perspiration which in taste resembled wine.
Sir Benjamin Brodie has communicated the history of a case of a young
girl of fifteen on whose face was a black secretion. On attempting to
remove it by washing, much pain was caused. The quantity removed by
soap and water at one time was sufficient to make four basins of water
as black as if with India ink. It seemed to be physiologically
analogous to melanosis. The cessation of the secretion on the forehead
was followed by the ejection of a similar substance from the bowel,
stomach, and kidney. The secretion was more abundant during the night,
and at one time in its course an erysipelas-eruption made its
appearance. A complete cure ultimately followed.
Purdon describes an Irish married woman of forty, the subject of
rheumatic fever, who occasionally had a blue serous discharge or
perspiration that literally flowed from her legs and body, and
accompanied by a miliary eruption. It was on the posterior portions,
and twelve hours previous was usually preceded by a moldy smell and a
prickly sensation. On the abdomen and the back of the neck there was a
yellowish secretion. In place of catamenia there was a discharge
reddish-green in color. The patient denied having taken any coloring
matter or chemicals to influence the color of her perspiration, and no
remedy relieved her cardiac or rheumatic symptoms.
The first English case of chromidrosis, or colored sweat, was published
by Yonge of Plymouth in 1709. In this affection the colored sweating
appears symmetrically in various parts of the body, the parts commonly
affected being the cheeks, forehead, side of the nose, whole face,
chest, abdomen, backs of the hands, finger-tips, and the flexors,
flexures at the axillae, groins, and popliteal spaces. Although the
color is generally black, nearly every color has been recorded. Colcott
Fox reported a genuine case, and Crocker speaks of a case at Shadwell
in a woman of forty-seven of naturally dark complexion. The bowels were
habitually sluggish, going three or four days at least without action,
and latterly the woman had suffered from articular pains. The
discolored sweat came out gradually, beginning at the sides of the
face, then spreading to the cheeks and forehead. When seen, the upper
half of the forehead, the temporal regions, and the skin between the
ear and malar eminence were of a blackish-brown color, with slight
hyperemia of the adjacent parts; the woman said the color had been
almost black, but she had cleaned her face some. There was evidently
much fat in the secretion; there was also seborrhea of the scalp.
Washing with soap and water had very little effect upon it; but it was
removed with ether, the skin still looking darker and redder than
normal. After a week's treatment with saline purgatives the
discoloration was much less, but the patient still had articular pains,
for which alkalies were prescribed; she did not again attend. Crocker
also quotes the case of a girl of twenty, originally under Mackay of
Brighton. Her affection had lasted a year and was limited to the left
cheek and eyebrow. Six months before the patch appeared she had a
superficial burn which did not leave a distinct scar, but the surface
was slightly granular. The deposit was distinctly fatty, evidently
seborrheic and of a sepia-tint. The girl suffered from obstinate
constipation, the bowels acting only once a week. The left side flushed
more than the right In connection with this case may be mentioned one
by White of Harvard, a case of unilateral yellow chromidrosis in a man.
Demons gives the history of a case of yellow sweat in a patient with
three intestinal calculi.
Wilson says that cases of green, yellow, and blue perspiration have
been seen, and Hebra, Rayer, and Fuchs mention instances. Conradi
records a case of blue perspiration on one-half the scrotum. Chojnowski
records a case in which the perspiration resembled milk.
Hyperidrosis occurs as a symptom in many nervous diseases, organic and
functional, and its presence is often difficult of explanation. The
following are recent examples: Kustermann reports a case of acute
myelitis in which there was profuse perspiration above the level of the
girdle-sensation and none at all below. Sharkey reports a case of tumor
of the pons varolii and left crus cerebri, in which for months there
was excessive generalized perspiration; it finally disappeared without
treatment. Hutchinson describes the case of a woman of sixty-four who
for four years had been troubled by excessive sweating on the right
side of the face and scalp. At times she was also troubled by an
excessive flow of saliva, but she could not say if it was unilateral.
There was great irritation of the right side of the tongue, and for two
years taste was totally abolished. It was normal at the time of
examination. The author offered no explanation of this case, but the
patient gave a decidedly neurotic history, and the symptoms seem to
point with some degree of probability to hysteria. Pope reports a
peculiar case in which there were daily attacks of neuralgia preceded
by sweating confined to a bald spot on the head. Rockwell reports a
case of unilateral hyperidrosis in a feeble old man which he thought
due to organic affection of the cervical sympathetic.
Dupont has published an account of a curious case of chronic general
hyperidrosis or profuse sweating which lasted upward of six years. The
woman thus affected became pregnant during this time and was happily
delivered of an infant, which she nursed herself. According to Dupont,
this hyperidrosis was independent of any other affection, and after
having been combated fruitlessly by various remedies, yielded at last
to fluid extract of aconitin.
Myrtle relates the case of a man of seventy-seven, who, after some
flying pains and fever, began to sweat profusely and continued to do so
until he died from exhaustion at the end of three months from the onset
of the sweating. Richardson records another case of the same kind.
Crocker quotes the case of a tailor of sixty-five in whom hyperidrosis
had existed for thirty-five years. It was usually confined to the hands
and feet, but when worst affected the whole body. It was absent as long
as he preserved the horizontal posture, but came on directly when he
rose; it was always increased in the summer months. At the height of
the attack the man lost appetite and spirit, had a pricking sensation,
and sometimes minute red papules appeared all over the hand. He had
tried almost every variety of treatment, but sulphur did the most good,
as it had kept the disease under for twelve months. Latterly, even that
failed.
Bachman reports the history of a case of hyperidrosis cured by
hypnotism.
Unilateral and localized sweating accompanies some forms of nervous
disturbance. Mickle has discussed unilateral sweating in the general
paralysis of the insane. Ramskill reports a case of sweating on one
side of the face in a patient who was subject to epileptic convulsions.
Takacs describes a case of unilateral sweating with proportionate
nervous prostration. Bartholow and Bryan report unilateral sweating of
the head. Cason speaks of unilateral sweating of the head, face, and
neck. Elliotson mentions sweat from the left half of the body and the
left extremities only. Lewis reports a case of unilateral perspiration
with an excess of temperature of 3.5 degrees F. in the axilla of the
perspiring side. Mills, White, Dow, and Duncan also cite instances of
unilateral perspiration. Boquis describes a case of unilateral
perspiration of the skin of the head and face, and instances of
complete unilateral perspiration have been frequently recorded by the
older writers,--Tebure, Marcellus Donatus, Paullini, and Hartmann
discussing it. Hyperidrosis confined to the hands and feet is quite
common.
Instances of bloody sweat and "stigmata" have been known through the
ages and are most interesting anomalies. In the olden times there were
people who represented that in their own persons they realized at
certain periods the agonies of Gethsemane, as portrayed in medieval
art, e.g., by pictures of Christ wearing the crown of thorns in
Pilate's judgment hall. Some of these instances were, perhaps, of the
nature of compensatory hemorrhage, substituting the menses or periodic
hemorrhoids, hemoptysis, epistaxis, etc., or possibly purpura. Extreme
religious frenzy or deep emotions might have been the indirect cause of
a number of these bleeding zealots. There are instances on record in
which fear and other similar emotions have caused a sweating of blood,
the expression "sweating blood" being not uncommon.
Among the older writers, Ballonius, Marcolini, and Riedlin mention
bloody sweat. The Ephemerides speaks of it in front of the
hypochondrium. Paullini observed a sailor of thirty, who, falling
speechless and faint during a storm on the deck of his ship, sweated a
red perspiration from his entire body and which stained his clothes. He
also mentions bloody sweat following coitus. Aristotle speaks of bloody
sweat, and Pellison describes a scar which periodically opened and
sweated blood. There were many cases like this, the scars being usually
in the location of Christ's wounds.
De Thou mentions an Italian officer who in 1552, during the war between
Henry II of France and Emperor Charles V, was threatened with public
execution; he became so agitated that he sweated blood from every
portion of the body. A young Florentine about to be put to death by an
order of Pope Sixtus V was so overcome with grief that he shed bloody
tears and sweated blood. The Ephemerides contains many instances of
bloody tears and sweat occasioned by extreme fear, more especially fear
of death. Mezeray mentions that the detestable Charles IX of France,
being under constant agitation and emotion, sank under a disorder which
was accompanied by an exudation of blood from every pore of his body.
This was taken as an attempt of nature to cure by bleeding according to
the theory of the venesectionists. Fabricius Hildanus mentions a child
who, as a rule, never drank anything but water, but once, contrary to
her habit, drank freely of white wine, and this was soon followed by
hemorrhage from the gums, nose, and skin.
There is a case also related of a woman of forty-five who had lost her
only son. One day she fancied she beheld him beseeching her to release
his soul from purgatory by prayers and fasting every Friday. The
following Friday, which was in the month of August, and for five
succeeding Fridays she had a profuse bloody perspiration, the disorder
disappearing on Friday, March 8th, of the following year. Pooley says
that Maldonato, in his "Commentaries of Four Gospels," mentions a
healthy and robust man who on hearing of his sentence of death sweated
blood, and Zacchias noted a similar phenomenon in a young man condemned
to the flames. Allusion may also be made to St. Luke, who said of
Christ that in agony He prayed more earnestly, "and His sweat was, as
it were, great drops of blood falling down to the ground."
Pooley quotes the case of a young woman of indolent habit who in a
religious fanatical trance sweated blood. The stigmatists were often
imposters who artificially opened their scars, and set the example for
the really peculiar cases of bloody sweat, which among ignorant people
was considered evidence of sympathy with the agony of the Cross.
Probably the best studied case on record is that of Louise Lateau of
Bois d'Haine, which, according to Gray, occurred in 1869 in a village
of Belgium when the girl was at the age of twenty-three; her previous
life had offered nothing remarkable. The account is as follows: "One
Friday Louise Lateau noticed that blood was flowing from one side of
her chest, and this recurred every Friday. On each Thursday morning an
oval surface about one inch in length on the back of each hand became
pink in color and smooth, whilst a similar oval surface on the palm of
each hand became of the same hue, and on the upper surface of each foot
a pinkish-white square appeared. Examined under a magnifying glass, the
epidermis appeared at first without solution of continuity and
delicate. About noon on Thursday a vesicle formed on the pink surfaces
containing clear serum. In the night between Thursday and Friday,
usually between midnight and one o'clock, the flow of blood began, the
vesicle first rupturing. The amount of blood lost during the so called
stigmata varied, and some observers estimated it at about one and
three-quarter pints. The blood itself was of a reddish color, inclining
to violet, about the hue therefore, of capillary blood, coagulating in
the usual way, and the white and red corpuscles being normal in
character and relative proportion. The flow ceased on Saturdays. During
the flow of the blood the patient was in a rapt, ecstatic condition.
The facial expression was one of absorption and far-off contemplation,
changing often to melancholy, terror, to an attitude of prayer or
contrition. The patient herself stated that at the beginning of the
ecstasy she imagined herself surrounded by a brilliant light; figures
then passed before her, and the successive scenes of the crucifixion
were panoramically progressive. She saw Christ in person--His clothing,
His wounds, His crown of thorns, His cross--as well as the Apostles,
the holy women, and the assembled Jews. During the ecstasy the
circulation of the skin and heart was regular, although at times a
sudden flash or pallor overspread the face, according with the play of
the expression. From midday of Thursdays, when she took a frugal meal,
until eight o'clock on Saturday mornings the girl took no nourishment,
not even water, because it was said that she did not feel the want of
it and could not retain anything upon her stomach. During this time the
ordinary secretions were suspended."
Fournier mentions a statesman of forty-five who, following great
Cabinet labors during several years and after some worriment, found
that the day after indulging in sexual indiscretions he would be in a
febrile condition, with pains in the thighs, groins, legs, and penis.
The veins of these parts became engorged, and subsequently blood oozed
from them, the flow lasting several days. The penis was the part most
affected. He was under observation for twenty months and presented the
same phenomena periodically, except that during the last few months
they were diminished in every respect. Fournier also mentions a curious
case of diapedesis in a woman injured by a cow. The animal struck her
in the epigastric region, she fell unconscious, and soon after vomited
great quantities of blood, and continued with convulsive efforts of
expulsion to eject blood periodically from every eight to fifteen days,
losing possibly a pound at each paroxysm. There was no alteration of
her menses. A physician gave her astringents, which partly suppressed
the vomiting, but the hemorrhage changed to the skin, and every day she
sweated blood from the chest, back of the thighs, feet, and the
extremities of the fingers. When the blood ceased to flow from her skin
she lost her appetite, became oppressed, and was confined to her bed
for some days. Itching always preceded the appearance of a new flow.
There was no dermal change that could be noticed.
Fullerton mentions a girl of thirteen who had occasional oozing of
blood from her brow, face, and the skin under the eyes. Sometimes a
pound of clots was found about her face and pillow. The blood first
appeared in a single clot, and, strange to say, lumps of fleshy
substance and minute pieces of bone were discharged all day. This
latter discharge became more infrequent, the bone being replaced by
cartilaginous substance. There was no pain, discoloration, swelling, or
soreness, and after this strange anomaly disappeared menstruation
regularly commenced. Van Swieten mentions a young lady who from her
twelfth year at her menstrual periods had hemorrhages from pustules in
the skin, the pustules disappearing in the interval.
Schmidt's Jahrbucher for 1836 gives an account of a woman who had
diseased ovaries and a rectovesicovaginal fistula, and though sometimes
catamenia appeared at the proper place it was generally arrested and
hemorrhage appeared on the face. Chambers mentions a woman of
twenty-seven who suffered from bloody sweat after the manner of the
stigmatists, and Petrone mentions a young man of healthy antecedents,
the sweat from whose axillae and pubes was red and very pungent.
Petrone believes it was due to a chromogenic micrococcus, and relieved
the patient by the use of a five per cent solution of caustic potash.
Chloroform, ether, and phenol had been tried without success. Hebra
mentions a young man in whom the blood spurted from the hand in a
spiral jet corresponding to the direction of the duct of the
sweat-gland. Wilson refers to five cases of bloody sweat.
There is a record of a patient who once or twice a day was attacked
with swelling of the scrotum, which at length acquired a deep red color
and a stony hardness, at which time the blood would spring from a
hundred points and flow in the finest streams until the scrotum was
again empty.
Hill describes a boy of four who during the sweating stage of malaria
sweated blood from the head and neck. Two months later the
skin-hemorrhages ceased and the boy died, vomiting blood and with
bloody stools.
Postmortem sweating is described in the Ephemerides and reported by
Hasenest and Schneider. Bartholinus speaks of bloody sweat in a cadaver.
In considering the anomalies of lactation we shall first discuss those
of color and then the extraordinary places of secretion. Black milk is
spoken of by the Ephemerides and Paullini. Red milk has been observed
by Cramer and Viger. Green milk has been observed by Lanzonius,
Riverius, and Paullini. The Ephemerides also contains an account of
green milk. Yellow milk has been mentioned in the Ephemerides and its
cause ascribed to eating rhubarb.
It is a well-known fact that some cathartics administered to nursing
mothers are taken from the breast by their infants, who,
notwithstanding its indirect mode of administration, exhibit the
effects of the original drug. The same is the case with some poisons,
and instances of lead-poisoning and arsenic-poisoning have been seen in
children who have obtained the toxic substance in the mother's milk.
There is one singular case on record in which a child has been poisoned
from the milk of its mother after she had been bitten by a serpent.
Paullini and the Ephemerides give instances of milk appearing in the
perspiration, and there are numerous varieties of milk-metastasis
recorded Dolaeus and Nuck mention the appearance of milk in the saliva.
Autenreith mentions metastasis of milk through an abdominal abscess to
the thigh, and Balthazaar also mentions excretion of milk from the
thigh. Bourdon mentions milk from the thigh, labia, and vulva. Klein
speaks of the metastasis of the milk to the lochia. Gardane speaks of
metastasis to the lungs, and there is another case on record in which
this phenomenon caused asphyxia. Schenck describes excretion of milk
from the bladder and uterus. Jaeger in 1770 at Tubingen describes the
metastasis of milk to the umbilicus, Haen to the back, and Schurig to a
wound in the foot. Knackstedt has seen an abscess of the thigh which
contained eight pounds of milk. Hauser gives the history of a case in
which the kidneys secreted milk vicariously.
There is the history of a woman who suffered from metastasis of milk to
the stomach, and who, with convulsive action of the chest and abdomen,
vomited it daily. A peculiar instance of milk in a tumor is that of a
Mrs. Reed, who, when pregnant with twins, developed an abdominal tumor
from which 25 pounds of milk was drawn off.
There is a French report of secretion of milk in the scrotum of a man
of twenty-one. The scrotum was tumefied, and to the touch gave the
sensation of a human breast, and the parts were pigmented similar to an
engorged breast. Analysis showed the secretion to have been true human
milk.
Cases of lactation in the new-born are not infrequent. Bartholinus,
Baricelli, Muraltus, Deusingius, Rhodius, Schenck, and Schurig mention
instances of it. Cardanus describes an infant of one month whose
breasts were swollen and gave milk copiously. Battersby cites a
description of a male child three weeks old whose breasts were full of
a fluid, analysis proving it to have been human milk; Darby, in the
same journal, mentions a child of eight days whose breasts were so
engorged that the nurse had to milk it. Faye gives an interesting paper
in which he has collected many instances of milk in the breasts of the
new-born. Jonston details a description of lactation in an infant.
Variot mentions milk-secretion in the new-born and says that it
generally takes place from the eighth to the fifteenth day and not in
the first week. He also adds that probably mammary abscesses in the
new-born could be avoided if the milk were squeezed out of the breasts
in the first days. Variot says that out of 32 children of both sexes,
aged from six to nine months, all but six showed the presence of milk
in the breasts. Gibb mentions copious milk-secretion in an infant, and
Sworder and Menard have seen young babes with abundant milk-secretion.
Precocious Lactation.--Bochut says that he saw a child whose breasts
were large and completely developed, offering a striking contrast to
the slight development of the thorax. They were as large as a stout
man's fist, pear-shaped, with a rosy areola, in the center of which was
a nipple. These precocious breasts increased in size at the beginning
of the menstrual epoch (which was also present) and remained enlarged
while the menses lasted. The vulva was covered with thick hair and the
external genitalia were well developed. The child was reticent, and
with a doll was inclined to play the role of mother.
Baudelocque mentions a girl of eight who suckled her brother with her
extraordinarily developed breasts. In 1783 this child milked her
breasts in the presence of the Royal Academy at Paris. Belloc spoke of
a similar case. There is another of a young negress who was able to
nourish an infant; and among the older writers we read accounts of
young virgins who induced lactation by applying infants to their
breasts. Bartholinus, Benedictus, Hippocrates, Lentilius, Salmuth, and
Schenck mention lactation in virgins.
De la Coide describes a case in which lactation was present, though
menstruation had always been deficient. Dix, at the Derby Infirmary,
has observed two females in whom there was continued lactation,
although they had never been pregnant. The first was a chaste female of
twenty-five, who for two years had abundant and spontaneous discharge
of milk that wetted the linen; and the other was in a prostitute of
twenty, who had never been pregnant, but who had, nevertheless, for
several months an abundant secretion of healthy milk. Zoologists know
that a nonpregnant bitch may secrete milk in abundance. Delafond and de
Sinnety have cited instances.
Lactation in the aged has been frequently noticed. Amatus Lusitanus and
Schenck have observed lactation in old women; in recent years Dunglison
has collected some instances. Semple relates the history of an elderly
woman who took charge of an infant the mother of which had died of
puerperal infection. As a means of soothing the child she allowed it to
take the nipple, and, strange to say, in thirty-six hours milk appeared
in her breasts, and soon she had a flow as copious as she had ever had
in her early married life. The child thrived on this production of a
sympathetic and spontaneous lactation. Sir Hans Sloane mentions a lady
of sixty-eight who though not having borne a child for twenty years,
nursed her grandchildren one after another.
Montegre describes a woman in the Department of Charente who bore two
male children in 1810. Not having enough milk for both, and being too
poor to secure the assistance of a midwife, in her desperation she
sought an old woman named Laverge, a widow of sixty-five, whose husband
had been dead twenty-nine years. This old woman gave the breast to one
of the children, and in a few days an abundant flow of milk was
present. For twenty-two months she nursed the infant, and it thrived as
well as its brother, who was nursed by their common mother--in fact, it
was even the stronger of the two.
Dargan tells of a case of remarkable rejuvenated lactation in a woman
of sixty, who, in play, placed the child to her breast, and to her
surprise after three weeks' nursing of this kind there appeared an
abundant supply of milk, even exceeding in amount that of the young
mother.
Blanchard mentions milk in the breasts of a woman of sixty, and Krane
cites a similar instance. In the Philosophical Transactions there is an
instance of a woman of sixty-eight having abundant lactation.
Warren, Boring, Buzzi, Stack, Durston, Egan, Scalzi, Fitzpatrick, and
Gillespie mention rejuvenation and renewed lactation in aged women.
Ford has collected several cases in which lactation was artificially
induced by women who, though for some time not having been pregnant
themselves, nursed for others.
Prolonged lactation and galactorrhea may extend through several
pregnancies. Green reports the case of a woman of forty-seven, the
mother of four children, who after each weaning had so much milk
constantly in her breasts that it had to be drawn until the next birth.
At the time of report the milk was still secreting in abundance. A
similar and oft-quoted case was that of Gomez Pamo, who described a
woman in whom lactation seemed indefinitely prolonged; she married at
sixteen, two years after the establishment of menstruation. She became
pregnant shortly after marriage, and after delivery had continued
lactation for a year without any sign of returning menstruation. Again
becoming pregnant, she weaned her first child and nursed the other
without delay or complication. This occurrence took place fourteen
times. She nursed all 14 of her children up to the time that she found
herself pregnant again, and during the pregnancies after the first the
flow of milk never entirely ceased; always after the birth of an infant
she was able to nurse it. The milk was of good quality and always
abundant, and during the period between her first pregnancy to seven
years after the birth of her last child the menses had never
reappeared. She weaned her last child five years before the time of
report, and since then the milk had still persisted in spite of all
treatment. It was sometimes so abundant as to necessitate drawing it
from the breast to relieve painful tension.
Kennedy describes a woman of eighty-one who persistently menstruated
through lactation, and for forty-seven years had uninterruptedly nursed
many children, some of which were not her own. Three years of this time
she was a widow. At the last reports she had a moderate but regular
secretion of milk in her eighty-first year.
In regard to profuse lacteal flow, Remy is quoted as having seen a
young woman in Japan from whom was taken 12 1/2 pints of milk each day,
which is possibly one of the most extreme instance of continued
galactorrhea on record.
Galen refers to gynecomastia or gynecomazia; Aristotle says he has seen
men with mammae a which were as well developed as those of a woman, and
Paulus aegineta recognized the fact in the ancient Greeks. Subsequently
Albucasis discusses it in his writings. Bartholinus, Behr, Benedictus,
Borellus, Bonet, the Ephemerides, Marcellus Donatus, Schenck, Vesalius,
Schacher, Martineau, and Buffon all discuss the anomalous presence of
milk in the male breast. Puech says that this condition is found in one
out of 13,000 conscripts.
To Bedor, a marine surgeon, we owe the first scientific exposition of
this subject, and a little later Villeneuve published his article in
the French dictionary. Since then many observations have been made on
this subject, and quite recently Laurent has published a most
exhaustive treatise upon it.
Robert describes an old man who suckled a child, and Meyer discusses
the case of a castrated man who was said to suckle children. It is said
that a Bishop of Cork, who gave one-half crown to an old Frenchman of
seventy, was rewarded by an exhibition of his breasts, which were
larger than the Bishop had ever seen in a woman. Petrequin speaks of a
male breast 18 inches long which he amputated, and Laurent gives the
photograph of a man whose breasts measured 30 cm. in circumference at
the base, and hung like those of a nursing woman.
In some instances whole families with supernumerary breasts are seen.
Handyside gives two instances of quadruple breasts in brothers.
Blanchard speaks of a father who had a supernumerary nipple on each
breast and his seven sons had the same deformities; it was not noticed
in the daughters. The youngest son transmitted this anomaly to his four
sons. Petrequin describes a man with three mammae, two on the left
side, the third being beneath the others. He had three sons with
accessory mammae on the right side and two daughters with the same
anomaly on the left side. Savitzky reports a case of gynecomazia in a
peasant of twenty-one whose father, elder brother, and a cousin were
similarly endowed. The patient's breasts were 33 cm. in circumference
and 15 cm. from the nipple to the base of the gland; they resembled
normal female mammae in all respects. The penis and the other genitalia
were normal, but the man had a female voice and absence of facial hair.
There was an abundance of subcutaneous fat and a rather broad pelvis.
Wiltshire said that he knew a gynecomast in the person of a
distinguished naturalist who since the age of puberty observed activity
in his breasts, accompanied with secretion of milky fluid which lasted
for a period of six weeks and occurred every spring. This authority
also mentions that the French call husbands who have well-developed
mammae "la couvade;" the Germans call male supernumerary breasts
"bauchwarze," or ventral nipples. Hutchinson describes several cases
of gynecomazia, in which the external genital organs decreased in
proportion to the size of the breast and the manners became effeminate.
Cameron, quoted by Snedden, speaks of a fellow-student who had a
supernumerary nipple, and also says he saw a case in a little boy who
had an extra pair of nipples much wider than the ordinary ones.
Ansiaux, surgeon of Liege, saw a conscript of thirteen whose left mamma
was well developed like that of a woman, and whose nipple was
surrounded by a large areola. He said that this breast had always been
larger than the other, but since puberty had grown greatly; the genital
organs were well formed. Morgan examined a seaman of twenty-one,
admitted to the Royal Naval Hospital at Hong Kong, whose right mamma,
in size and conformation, had the appearance of the well developed
breast of a full-grown woman. It was lobulated and had a large,
brown-colored areola; the nipple, however, was of the same size as that
on the left breast. The man stated that he first observed the breast to
enlarge at sixteen and a half years; since that time it had steadily
increased, but there was no milk at any time from the nipple; the
external genital organs were well and fully developed. He complained of
no pain or uneasiness except when in drilling aloft his breast came in
contact with the ropes.
Gruger of St. Petersburg divides gynecomazia into three classes:--
(1) That in which the male generative organs are normal;
(2) In which they are deformed;
(3) In which the anomaly is spurious, the breast being a mass of fat or
a new growth.
The same journal quotes an instance (possibly Morgan's case) in a young
man of twenty-one with a deep voice, excellent health, and genitals
well developed, and who cohabited with his wife regularly. When sixteen
his right breast began to enlarge, a fact that he attributed to the
pressure of a rope. Glandular substance could be distinctly felt, but
there was no milk-secretion. The left breast was normal. Schuchardt has
collected 272 cases of gynecomazia.
Instances of Men Suckling Infants.--These instances of gynecomazia are
particularly interesting when the individuals display ability to suckle
infants. Hunter refers to a man of fifty who shared equally with his
wife the suckling of their children. There is an instance of a sailor
who, having lost his wife, took his son to his own breast to quiet him,
and after three or four days was able to nourish him. Humboldt
describes a South American peasant of thirty-two who, when his wife
fell sick immediately after delivery, sustained the child with his own
milk, which came soon after the application to the breast; for five
months the child took no other nourishment. In Franklin's "Voyages to
the Polar Seas" he quotes the instance of an old Chippewa who, on
losing his wife in childbirth, had put his infant to his breast and
earnestly prayed that milk might flow; he was fortunate enough to
eventually produce enough milk to rear the child. The left breast, with
which he nursed, afterward retained its unusual size. According to
Mehliss some missionaries in Brazil in the sixteenth century asserted
that there was a whole Indian nation whose women had small and withered
breasts, and whose children owed their nourishment entirely to the
males. Hall exhibited to his class in Baltimore a negro of fifty-five
who had suckled all his mistress' family. Dunglison reports this case
in 1837, and says that the mammae projected seven inches from the
chest, and that the external genital organs were well developed.
Paullini and Schenck cite cases of men suckling infants, and Blumenbach
has described a male-goat which, on account of the engorgement of the
mammae, it was necessary to milk every other day of the year.
Ford mentions the case of a captain who in order to soothe a child's
cries put it to his breast, and who subsequently developed a full
supply of milk. He also quotes an instance of a man suckling his own
children, and mentions a negro boy of fourteen who secreted milk in one
breast. Hornor and Pulido y Fernandez also mention similar instances of
gynecomazia.
Human Odors.--Curious as it may seem, each individual as well as each
species is in life enveloped with an odor peculiarly its own, due to
its exhaled breath, its excretions, and principally to its insensible
perspiration. The faculty of recognizing an odor in different
individuals, although more developed in savage tribes, is by no means
unknown in civilized society. Fournier quotes the instance of a young
man who, like a dog, could smell the enemy by scent, and who by smell
alone recognized his own wife from other persons.
Fournier also mentions a French woman, an inhabitant of Naples, who had
an extreme supersensitiveness of smell. The slightest odor was to her
intolerable; sometimes she could not tolerate the presence of certain
individuals. She could tell in a numerous circle which women were
menstruating. This woman could not sleep in a bed which any one else
had made, and for this reason discharged her maid, preparing her own
toilet and her sleeping apartments. Cadet de Gassieourt witnessed this
peculiar instance, and in consultation with several of the physicians
of Paris attributed this excessive sensitiveness to the climate. There
is a tale told of a Hungarian monk who affirmed that he was able to
decide the chastity of females by the sense of smell alone. It is well
known that some savage tribes with their large, open nostrils not only
recognize their enemies but also track game the same as hounds.
Individual Odors.--Many individuals are said to have exhaled
particularly strong odors, and history is full of such instances. We
are told by Plutarch that Alexander the Great exhaled an odor similar
to that of violet flowers, and his undergarments always smelled of this
natural perfume. It is said that Cujas offered a particular analogy to
this. On the contrary, there are certain persons spoken of who exhaled
a sulphurous odor. Martial said that Thais was an example of the class
of people whose odor was insupportable. Schmidt has inserted in the
Ephemerides an account of a journeyman saddler, twenty-three years of
age, of rather robust constitution, whose hands exhaled a smell of
sulphur so powerful and penetrating as to rapidly fill any room in
which he happened to be. Rayer was once consulted by a valet-de-chambre
who could never keep a place in consequence of the odor he left behind
him in the rooms in which he worked.
Hammond is quoted with saying that when the blessed Venturni of
Bergamons officiated at the altar people struggled to come near him in
order to enjoy the odor he exhaled. It was said that St. Francis de
Paul, after he had subjected himself to frequent disciplinary
inflictions, including a fast of thirty-eight to forty days, exhaled a
most sensible and delicious odor. Hammond attributes the peculiar odors
of the saints of earlier days to neglect of washing and, in a measure,
to affections of the nervous system. It may be added that these odors
were augmented by aromatics, incense, etc., artificially applied. In
more modern times Malherbe and Haller were said to diffuse from their
bodies the agreeable odor of musk. These "human flowers," to use
Goethe's expression, are more highly perfumed in Southern latitudes.
Modifying Causes.--According to Brieude, sex, age, climate, habits,
ailments, the passions, the emotions, and the occupations modify the
difference in the humors exhaled, resulting in necessarily different
odors. Nursing infants have a peculiar sourish smell, caused by the
butyric acid of the milk, while bottle-fed children smell like strong
butter. After being weaned the odors of the babies become less decided.
Boys when they reach puberty exhibit peculiar odors which are similar
to those of animals when in heat. These odors are leading symptoms of
what Borden calls "seminal fever" and are more strongly marked in those
of a voluptuous nature. They are said to be caused by the absorption of
spermatic fluid into the circulation and its subsequent elimination by
the skin. This peculiar circumstance, however, is not seen in girls, in
whom menstruation is sometimes to be distinguished by an odor somewhat
similar to that of leather. Old age produces an odor similar to that of
dry leaves, and there have been persons who declared that they could
tell approximately the age of individuals by the sense of smell.
Certain tribes and races of people have characteristic odors. Negroes
have a rank ammoniacal odor, unmitigated by cleanliness; according to
Pruner-Bey it is due to a volatile oil set free by the sebaceous
follicles. The Esquimaux and Greenlanders have the odors of their
greasy and oily foods, and it is said that the Cossacks, who live much
with their horses, and who are principally vegetarians, will leave the
atmosphere charged with odors several hours after their passage in
numbers through a neighborhood. The lower race of Chinamen are
distinguished by a peculiar musty odor, which may be noticed in the
laundry shops of this country. Some people, such as the low grade of
Indians, have odors, not distinctive, and solely due to the filth of
their persons. Food and drink, as have been mentioned, markedly
influence the odor of an individual, and those perpetually addicted to
a special diet or drink have a particular odor.
Odor after Coitus.--Preismann in 1877 makes the statement that for six
hours after coitus there is a peculiar odor noticeable in the breath,
owing to a peculiar secretion of the buccal glands. He says that this
odor is most perceptible in men of about thirty-five, and can be
discerned at a distance of from four to six feet. He also adds that
this fact would be of great medicolegal value in the early arrest of
those charged with rape. In this connection the analogy of the breath
immediately after coitus to the odor of chloroform has been mentioned.
The same article states that after coitus naturally foul breath becomes
sweet.
The emotions are said to have a decided influence on the odor of an
individual. Gambrini, quoted by Monin, mentions a young man,
unfortunate in love and violently jealous, whose whole body exhaled a
sickening, pernicious, and fetid odor. Orteschi met a young lady who,
without any possibility of fraud, exhaled the strong odor of vanilla
from the commissures of her fingers.
Rayer speaks of a woman under his care at the Hopital de la Charite
affected with chronic peritonitis, who some time before her death
exhaled a very decided odor of musk. The smell had been noticed several
days, but was thought to be due to a bag of musk put purposely into the
bed to overpower other bad smells. The woman, however, gave full
assurance that she had no kind of perfume about her and that her
clothes had been frequently changed. The odor of musk in this case was
very perceptible on the arms and other portions of the body, but did
not become more powerful by friction. After continuing for about eight
days it grew fainter and nearly vanished before the patient's death.
Speranza relates a similar case.
Complexion.--Pare states that persons of red hair and freckled
complexion have a noxious exhalation; the odor of prussic acid is said
to come from dark individuals, while blondes exhale a secretion
resembling musk. Fat persons frequently have an oleaginous smell.
The disorders of the nervous system are said to be associated with
peculiar odors. Fevre says the odor of the sweat of lunatics resembles
that of yellow deer or mice, and Knight remarks that the absence of
this symptom would enable him to tell whether insanity was feigned or
not. Burrows declares that in the absence of further evidence he would
not hesitate to pronounce a person insane if he could perceive certain
associate odors. Sir William Gull and others are credited with
asserting that they could detect syphilis by smell. Weir Mitchell has
observed that in lesions of nerves the corresponding cutaneous area
exhaled the odor of stagnant water. Hammond refers to three cases under
his notice in which specific odors were the results of affections of
the nervous system. One of these cases was a young woman of hysterical
tendencies who exhaled the odor of violets, which pervaded her
apartments. This odor was given off the left half of the chest only and
could be obtained concentrated by collecting the perspiration on a
handkerchief, heating it with four ounces of spirit, and distilling the
remaining mixture. The administration of the salicylate of soda
modified in degree this violaceous odor. Hammond also speaks of a young
lady subject to chorea whose insensible perspiration had an odor of
pineapples; a hypochondriac gentleman under his care smelled of
violets. In this connection he mentions a young woman who, when
suffering from intense sick headache, exhaled an odor resembling that
of Limburger cheese.
Barbier met a case of disordered innervation in a captain of infantry,
the upper half of whose body was subject to such offensive perspiration
that despite all treatment he had to finally resign his commission.
In lethargy and catalepsy the perspiration very often has a cadaverous
odor, which has probably occasionally led to a mistaken diagnosis of
death. Schaper and de Meara speak of persons having a cadaveric odor
during their entire life.
Various ingesta readily give evidence of themselves by their influence
upon the breath. It has been remarked that the breath of individuals
who have recently performed a prolonged necropsy smells for some hours
of the odor of the cadaver. Such things as copaiba, cubebs, sandalwood,
alcohol, coffee, etc., have their recognizable fragrance. There is an
instance of a young woman taking Fowler's solution who had periodic
offensive axillary sweats that ceased when the medicine was
discontinued.
Henry of Navarre was a victim of bromidrosis; proximity to him was
insufferable to his courtiers and mistresses, who said that his odor
was like that of carrion. Tallemant says that when his wife, Marie de
Medicis, approached the bridal night with him she perfumed her
apartments and her person with the essences of the flowers of her
country in order that she might be spared the disgusting odor of her
spouse. Some persons are afflicted with an excessive perspiration of
the feet which often takes a disgusting odor. The inguinoscrotal and
inguinovulvar perspirations have an aromatic odor like that of the
genitals of either sex.
During menstruation, hyperidrosis of the axillae diffuses an aromatic
odor similar to that of acids or chloroform, and in suppression of
menses, according to the Ephemerides, the odor is as of hops.
Odors of Disease.--The various diseases have their own peculiar odors.
The "hospital odor," so well known, is essentially variable in
character and chiefly due to an aggregation of cutaneous exhalations.
The wards containing women and children are perfumed with butyric acid,
while those containing men are influenced by the presence of alkalies
like ammonia.
Gout, icterus, and even cholera (Drasch and Porker) have their own
odors. Older observers, confirmed by Doppner, say that all the
plague-patients at Vetlianka diffused an odor of honey. In diabetes
there is a marked odor of apples. The sweat in dysentery unmistakably
bears the odor of the dejecta. Behier calls the odor of typhoid that of
the blood, and Berard says that it attracts flies even before death.
Typhus has a mouse-like odor, and the following diseases have at
different times been described as having peculiar odors,--measles, the
smell of freshly plucked feathers; scarlatina, of bread hot from the
oven; eczema and impetigo, the smell of mold; and rupia, a decidedly
offensive odor.
The hair has peculiar odors, differing in individuals. The hair of the
Chinese is known to have the odor of musk, which cannot be washed away
by the strongest of chemicals. Often the distinctive odor of a female
is really due to the odor of great masses of hair. It is said that
wig-makers simply by the sense of smell can tell whether hair has been
cut from the living head or from combings, as hair loses its odor when
it falls out. In the paroxysms of hysteroepilepsy the hair sometimes
has a specific odor of ozone. Taenia favosa gives to the scalp an odor
resembling that of cat's urine.
Sexual Influence of Odors.--In this connection it may be mentioned that
there is a peculiar form of sexual perversion, called by Binet
"fetichism," in which the subject displays a perverted taste for the
odors of handkerchiefs, shoes, underclothing, and other articles of
raiment worn by the opposite sex. Binet maintains that these articles
play the part of the "fetich" in early theology. It is said that the
favors given by the ladies to the knights in the Middle Ages were not
only tokens of remembrance and appreciation, but sexual excitants as
well. In his remarkable "Osphresiologie," Cloquet calls attention to
the sexual pleasure excited by the odors of flowers, and tells how
Richelieu excited his sexual functions by living in an atmosphere
loaded with these perfumes. In the Orient the harems are perfumed with
intense extracts and flowers, in accordance with the strong belief in
the aphrodisiac effect of odors.
Krafft-Ebing quotes several interesting cases in which the connection
between the olfactory and sexual functions is strikingly verified.
"The case of Henry III shows that contact with a person's perspiration
may be the exciting cause of passionate love. At the betrothal feast of
the King of Navarre and Margaret of Valois he accidentally dried his
face with a garment of Maria of Cleves which was moist with her
perspiration. Although she was the bride of the Prince of Conde, Henry
immediately conceived such a passion for her that he could not resist
it, and, as history shows, made her very unhappy. An analogous instance
is related of Henry IV, whose passion for the beautiful Gabrielle is
said to have originated at the instant when, at a ball, he wiped his
brow with her handkerchief."
Krafft-Ebing also says that "one learns from reading the work of Ploss
('Das Weib') that attempts to attract a person of the opposite sex by
means of the perspiration may be discerned in many forms in popular
psychology. In reference to this a custom is remarkable which holds
among the natives of the Philippine Islands when they become engaged.
When it becomes necessary for the engaged pair to separate they
exchange articles of wearing apparel, by means of which each becomes
assured of faithfulness. These objects are carefully preserved,
covered with kisses, and smelled."
The love of perfumes by libertines and prostitutes, as well as sensual
women of the higher classes, is quite marked. Heschl reported a case of
a man of forty-five in whom absence of the olfactory sense was
associated with imperfect development of the genitals; it is also well
known that olfactory hallucinations are frequently associated with
psychoses of an erotic type.
Garnier has recently collected a number of observations of fetichism,
in which he mentions individuals who have taken sexual satisfaction
from the odors of shoes, night-dresses, bonnets, drawers, menstrual
napkins, and other objects of the female toilet. He also mentions
creatures who have gloated over the odors of the blood and excretions
from the bodies of women, and gives instances of fetichism of persons
who have been arrested in the streets of Paris for clipping the long
hair from young girls. There are also on record instances of
homosexual fetichism, a type of disgusting inversion of the sexual
instinct, which, however, it is not in the province of this work to
discuss.
Among animals the influence of the olfactory perceptions on the sexual
sense is unmistakable. According to Krafft Ebing, Althaus shows that
animals of opposite sexes are drawn to each other by means of olfactory
perceptions, and that almost all animals at the time of rutting emit a
very strong odor from their genitals. It is said that the dog is
attracted in this way to the bitch several miles away. An experiment by
Schiff is confirmatory. He extirpated the olfactory nerves of puppies,
and found that as they grew the male was unable to distinguish the
female. Certain animals, such as the musk-ox, civet-cat, and beaver,
possess glands on their sexual organs that secrete materials having a
very strong odor. Musk, a substance possessing the most penetrating
odor and used in therapeutics, is obtained from the preputial follicles
of the musk-deer of Thibet; and castor, a substance less penetrating,
is obtained from the preputial sacs of the beaver. Virgin moths
(Bombyx) carried in boxes in the pockets of entomologists will on wide
commons cause the appearance of males of the same species.
Bulimia is excessive morbid hunger, also called canine appetite. While
sometimes present in healthy people, it is most often seen in idiots
and the insane, and is a symptom of diabetes mellitus. Mortimer
mentions a boy of twelve who, while laboring under this affliction, in
six days devoured food to the extent of 384 pounds and two ounces. He
constantly vomited, but his craving for food was so insatiable that if
not satisfied he would devour the flesh off his own bones. Martyn,
Professor of Botany at Cambridge in the early part of the last century,
tells of a boy ten years old whose appetite was enormous. He consumed
in one week 373 pounds of food and drink. His urine and stools were
voided in normal quantities, the excess being vomited. A pig was fed on
what he vomited, and was sold in the market. The boy continued in this
condition for a year, and at last reports was fast failing. Burroughs
mentions a laborer at Stanton, near Bury, who ate an ordinary leg of
veal at a meal, and fed at this extravagant rate for many days
together. He would eat thistles and other similar herbs greedily. At
times he would void worms as large as the shank of a clay-pipe, and
then for a short period the bulimia would disappear.
Johnston mentions a case of bulimia in a man who devoured large
quantities of raw flesh. There is an instance on record of a case of
canine appetite in which nearly 400 pounds of solid and fluid elements
were taken into the body in six days and again ejected. A recovery was
effected by giving very concentrated food, frequently repeated in small
quantities. Mason mentions a woman in St. Bartholomew's Hospital in
London in the early part of this century who was wretched unless she
was always eating. Each day she consumed three quartern-loaves, three
pounds of beef-steak, in addition to large quantities of vegetables,
meal, etc., and water. Smith describes a boy of fourteen who ate
continuously fifteen hours out of the twenty-four, and who had eight
bowel movements each day. One year previous his weight was 105 pounds,
but when last seen he weighed 284 pounds and was increasing a half
pound daily. Despite his continuous eating, this boy constantly
complained of hunger.
Polydipsia is an abnormal thirst; it may be seen in persons otherwise
normal, or it may be associated with diseases--such as diabetes
mellitus or diabetes insipidus. Mackenzie quotes a case from Trousseau,
in which an individual afflicted with diabetes insipidus passed 32
liters of urine daily and drank enormous quantities of water. This
patient subjected himself to severe regimen for eight months,--although
one day, in his agonies, he seized the chamber-pot and drank its
contents at once. Mackenzie also mentions an infant of three who had
polydipsia from birth and drank daily nearly two pailfuls of water. At
the age of twenty-two she married a cobbler, unaware of her propensity,
who found that his earnings did not suffice to keep her in water alone,
and he was compelled to melt ice and snow for her. She drank four
pailfuls a day, the price being 12 sous; water in the community was
scarce and had to be bought. This woman bore 11 children. At the age of
forty she appeared before a scientific commission and drank in their
presence 14 quarts of water in ten hours and passed ten quarts of
almost colorless urine. Dickinson mentions that he has had patients in
his own practice who drank their own urine. Mackenzie also quotes
Trousseau's history of a man who drank a liter of strong French brandy
in two hours, and habitually drank the same quantity daily. He stated
that he was free from the effects of alcohol; on several occasions on a
wager he took 20 liters of wine, gaining his wager without visibly
affecting his nervous system.
There is an instance of a man of fifty-eight who could not live through
the night without a pail of water, although his health was otherwise
good. Atkinson in 1856 reported a young man who in childhood was a
dirt-eater, though at that time complaining of nothing but excessive
thirst. He was active, industrious, enjoyed good health, and was not
addicted to alcoholics. His daily ration of water was from eight to
twelve gallons. He always placed a tub of water by his bed at night,
but this sometimes proved insufficient. He had frequently driven hogs
from mudholes to slake his thirst with the water. He married in 1829
and moved into Western Tennessee, and in 1854 he was still drinking the
accustomed amount; and at this time he had grown-up children. Ware
mentions a young man of twenty who drank six gallons of water daily. He
was tormented with thirst, and if he abstained he became weak, sick,
and dizzy. Throughout a long life he continued his habit, sometimes
drinking a gallon at one draught; he never used spirits. There are
three cases of polydipsia reported from London in 1792.
Field describes a boy with bilious remittent fever who would drink
until his stomach was completely distended and then call for more.
Emesis was followed by cries for more water. Becoming frantic, he would
jump from his bed and struggle for the water bucket; failing in this,
he ran to the kitchen and drank soapsuds, dish-water, and any other
liquid he could find. He had swallowed a mass of mackerel which he had
not properly masticated, a fact proved later by ejection of the whole
mass. There is a case on record a in which there was intolerable
thirst after retiring, lasting for a year. There was apparently no
polydipsia during the daytime.
The amount of water drunk by glass-blowers in a day is almost
incredible. McElroy has made observations in the glass-factories in his
neighborhood, and estimates that in the nine working hours of each day
a glass-blower drinks from 50 to 60 pints of water. In addition to
this many are addicted to the use of beer and spirits after working
hours and at lunch-time. The excreta and urine never seem to be
perceptibly increased. When not working these men do not drink more
than three or four pints of water. Occasionally a man becomes what is
termed "blown-up with water;" that is, the perspiration ceases, the man
becomes utterly helpless, has to be carried out, and is disabled until
the sweating process is restored by vigorously applied friction. There
is little deleterious change noticed in these men; in fact, they are
rarely invalids.
Hydroadipsia is a lack of thirst or absence of the normal desire for
water. In some of these cases there is a central lesion which accounts
for the symptoms. McElroy, among other cases, speaks of one in a
patient who was continually dull and listless, eating little, and
complaining of much pain after the least food. This, too, will be
mentioned under abstinence.
Perverted appetites are of great variety and present many interesting
as well as disgusting examples of anomalies. In some cases the tastes
of people differ so that an article considered by one race as
disgusting would be held as a delicacy by another class. The ancients
used asafetida as a seasoning, and what we have called "stercus
diaboli," the Asiatics have named the "food of the gods." The
inhabitants of Greenland drink the oil of the whale with as much
avidity as we would a delicate wine, and they eat blubber the mere
smell of which nauseates an European. In some nations of the lower
grade, insects, worms, serpents, etc., are considered edible. The
inhabitants of the interior of Africa are said to relish the flesh of
serpents and eat grubs and worms. The very earliest accounts of the
Indians of Florida and Texas show that "for food, they dug roots, and
that they ate spiders, ants' eggs, worms, lizards, salamanders, snakes,
earth, wood, the dung of deer, and many other things." Gomara, in his
"Historia de les Indias," says this loathsome diet was particular to
one tribe, the Yagusces of Florida. It is said that a Russian peasant
prefers a rotten egg to a fresh one; and there are persons who prefer
game partly spoiled.
Bourke recalls that the drinking of human urine has often been a
religious rite, and describes the urine-dance of the Zunis of New
Mexico, in which the participants drink freely of their urine; he draws
an analogy to the Feast of the Fools, a religious custom of Pagan
origin which did not disappear in Europe until the time of the
Reformation. It is still a practice in some parts of the United States
to give children fresh urine for certain diseases. It is said that the
ordure of the Grand Lama of Thibet was at one time so venerated that it
was collected and worn as amulets.
The disgusting habit of eating human excrement is mentioned by Schurig,
who gives numerous examples in epileptics, maniacs, chlorotic young
women, pregnant women, children who have soiled their beds and,
dreading detection, have swallowed their ejecta, and finally among men
and women with abnormal appetites. The Indians of North America
consider a broth made from the dung of the hare and caribou a dainty
dish, and according to Abbe Domenech, as a means of imparting a flavor,
the bands near Lake Superior mix their rice with the excrement of
rabbits. De Bry mentions that the negroes of Guinea ate filthy,
stinking elephant-meat and buffalo-flesh infested with thousands of
maggots, and says that they ravenously devoured dogs' guts raw.
Spencer, in his "Descriptive Sociology," describes a "Snake savage" of
Australia who devoured the contents of entrails of an animal. Some
authors have said that within the last century the Hottentots devoured
the flesh and the entrails of wild beasts, uncleansed of their filth
and excrement, and whether sound or rotten. In a personal letter to
Captain Bourke, the Reverend J. Owen Dorsey reports that while among
the Ponkas he saw a woman and child devour the entrails of a beef with
their contents. Bourke also cites instances in which human ordure was
eaten by East Indian fanatics. Numerous authorities are quoted by
Bourke to prove the alleged use of ordure in food by the ancient
Israelites. Pages of such reference are to be found in the works on
Scatology, and for further reference the reader is referred to books on
this subject, of which prominent in English literature is that of
Bourke.
Probably the most revolting of all the perverted tastes is that for
human flesh. This is called anthropophagy or cannibalism, and is a
time-honored custom among some of the tribes of Africa. This custom is
often practised more in the spirit of vengeance than of real desire for
food. Prisoners of war were killed and eaten, sometimes cooked, and
among some tribes raw. In their religious frenzy the Aztecs ate the
remains of the human beings who were sacrificed to their idols. At
other times cannibalism has been a necessity. In a famine in Egypt, as
pictured by the Arab Abdullatif, the putrefying debris of animals, as
well as their excrement, was used as food, and finally the human dead
were used; then infants were killed and devoured, so great was the
distress. In many sieges, shipwrecks, etc., cannibalism has been
practiced as a last resort for sustaining life. When supplies have
given out several Arctic explorers have had to resort to eating the
bodies of their comrades. In the famous Wiertz Museum in Brussels is a
painting by this eccentric artist in which he has graphically portrayed
a woman driven to insanity by hunger, who has actually destroyed her
child with a view to cannibalism. At the siege of Rochelle it is
related that, urged by starvation, a father and mother dug up the
scarcely cold body of their daughter and ate it. At the siege of Paris
by Henry IV the cemeteries furnished food for the starving. One mother
in imitation of what occurred at the siege of Jerusalem roasted the
limbs of her dead child and died of grief under this revolting
nourishment.
St. Jerome states that he saw Scotchmen in the Roman armies in Gaul
whose regular diet was human flesh, and who had "double teeth all
around."
Cannibalism, according to a prominent New York journal, has been
recently made a special study by the Bureau of Ethnology at Washington,
D.C. Data on the subject have been gathered from all parts of the
world, which are particularly interesting in view of discoveries
pointing to the conclusion that this horrible practice is far more
widespread than was imagined. Stanley claims that 30,000,000 cannibals
dwell in the basin of the Congo to-day--people who relish human flesh
above all other meat. Perah, the most peculiar form of cannibalism, is
found in certain mountainous districts of northeast Burmah, where there
are tribes that follow a life in all important respects like that of
wild beasts. These people eat the congealed blood of their enemies.
The blood is poured into bamboo reeds, and in the course of time, being
corked up, it hardens. The filled reeds are hung under the roofs of the
huts, and when a person desires to treat his friends very hospitably
the reeds are broken and the contents devoured.
"The black natives of Australia are all professed cannibals. Dr. Carl
Lumholtz, a Norwegian scientist, spent many months in studying them in
the wilds of the interior. He was alone among these savages, who are
extremely treacherous. Wearing no clothing whatever, and living in
nearly every respect as monkeys do, they know no such thing as
gratitude, and have no feeling that can be properly termed human. Only
fear of the traveler's weapons prevented them from slaying him, and
more than once he had a narrow escape. One of the first of them whom he
employed looked more like a brute than a man. 'When he talked,' says
the doctor, 'he rubbed his belly with complacency, as if the sight of
me made his mouth water.' This individual was regarded with much
respect by his fellows because of his success in procuring human flesh
to eat. These aborigines say that the white man's flesh is salt and
occasions nausea. A Chinaman they consider as good for eating as a
black man, his food being chiefly vegetable.
"The most horrible development of cannibalism among the Australian
blacks is the eating of defunct relatives. When a person dies there
follows an elaborate ceremony, which terminates with the lowering of
the corpse into the grave. In the grave is a man not related to the
deceased, who proceeds to cut off the fat adhering to the muscles of
the face, thighs, arms, and stomach, and passes it around to be
swallowed by some of the near relatives. All those who have eaten of
the cadaver have a black ring of charcoal powder and fat drawn around
the mouth. The order in which the mourners partake of their dead
relatives is duly prescribed. The mother eats of her children and the
children of their mother. A man eats of his sister's husband and of his
brother's wife. Mothers' brothers, mothers' sisters, sisters' children,
mothers' parents, and daughters' children are also eaten by those to
whom the deceased person stands in such relation. But the father does
not eat of his children, nor the children of their sire.
"The New Zealanders, up to very recent times, were probably the most
anthropophagous race that ever existed. As many as 1000 prisoners have
been slaughtered by them at one time after a successful battle, the
bodies being baked in ovens underground. If the individual consumed
had been a redoubtable enemy they dried his head as a trophy and made
flutes of his thigh bones.
"Among the Monbuttos of Africa human fat is commonly employed for a
variety of purposes. The explorer Schweinfurth speaks of writing out in
the evenings his memoranda respecting these people by the light of a
little oil-lamp contrived by himself, which was supplied with some
questionable-looking grease furnished by the natives. The smell of this
grease, he says, could not fail to arouse one's worst suspicions
against the negroes. According to his account the Monbuttos are the
most confirmed cannibals in Africa. Surrounded as they are by a number
of peoples who are blacker than themselves, and who, being inferior to
them in culture, are held in contempt, they carry on expeditions of war
and plunder which result in the acquisition of a booty especially
coveted by them--namely, human flesh. The bodies of all foes who fall
in battle are distributed on the field among the victors, and are
prepared by drying for transportation. The savages drive their
prisoners before them, and these are reserved for killing at a later
time. During Schweinfurth's residence at the Court of Munza it was
generally understood that nearly every day a little child was
sacrificed to supply a meal for the ogre potentate. For centuries past
the slave trade in the Congo Basin has been conducted largely for the
purpose of furnishing human flesh to consumers. Slaves are sold and
bought in great numbers for market, and are fattened for slaughter.
"The Mundurucus of the Upper Amazon, who are exceedingly ferocious,
have been accused of cannibalism. It is they who preserve human heads
in such a remarkable way. When one of their warriors has killed an
enemy he cuts off the head with his bamboo knife, removes the brain,
soaks the head in a vegetable oil, takes out bones of the skull, and
dries the remaining parts by putting hot pebbles inside of it. At the
same time care is taken to preserve all the features and the hair
intact. By repeating the process with the hot pebbles many times the
head finally becomes shrunken to that of a small doll, though still
retaining its human aspect, so that the effect produced is very weird
and uncanny. Lastly, the head is decorated with brilliant feathers, and
the lips are fastened together with a string, by which the head is
suspended from the rafters of the council-house."
Ancient Customs.--According to Herodotus the ancient Lydians and Medes,
and according to Plato the islanders in the Atlantic, cemented
friendship by drinking human blood. Tacitus speaks of Asian princes
swearing allegiance with their own blood, which they drank. Juvenal
says that the Scythians drank the blood of their enemies to quench
their thirst.
Occasionally a religious ceremony has given sanction to cannibalism. It
is said that in the Island of Chios there was a rite by way of
sacrifice to Dionysius in which a man was torn limb from limb, and
Faber tells us that the Cretans had an annual festival in which they
tore a living bull with their teeth. Spencer quotes that among the
Bacchic orgies of many of the tribes of North America, at the
inauguration of one of the Clallum chiefs on the northwest coast of
British America, the chief seized a small dog and began to devour it
alive, and also bit the shoulders of bystanders. In speaking of these
ceremonies, Boas, quoted by Bourke, says that members of the tribes
practicing Hamatsa ceremonies show remarkable scars produced by biting,
and at certain festivals ritualistic cannibalism is practiced, it being
the duty of the Hamatsa to bite portions of flesh out of the arms,
legs, or breast of a man.
Another cause of cannibalism, and the one which deserves discussion
here, is genuine perversion or depravity of the appetite for human
flesh among civilized persons,--the desire sometimes being so strong as
to lead to actual murder. Several examples of this anomaly are on
record. Gruner of Jena speaks of a man by the name of Goldschmidt, in
the environs of Weimar, who developed a depraved appetite for human
flesh. He was married at twenty-seven, and for twenty-eight years
exercised his calling as a cow-herd. Nothing extraordinary was noticed
in him, except his rudeness of manner and his choleric and gross
disposition. In 1771, at the age of fifty-five, he met a young traveler
in the woods, and accused him of frightening his cows; a discussion
arose, and subsequently a quarrel, in which Goldschmidt killed his
antagonist by a blow with a stick which he used. To avoid detection he
dragged the body to the bushes, cut it up, and took it home in
sections. He then washed, boiled, and ate each piece. Subsequently, he
developed a further taste for human flesh, and was finally detected in
eating a child which he had enticed into his house and killed. He
acknowledged his appetite before his trial.
Hector Boetius says that a Scotch brigand and his wife and children
were condemned to death on proof that they killed and ate their
prisoners. The extreme youth of one of the girls excused her from
capital punishment; but at twelve years she was found guilty of the
same crime as her father and suffered capital punishment. This child
had been brought up in good surroundings, yet her inherited appetite
developed. Gall tells of an individual who, instigated by an
irresistible desire to eat human flesh, assassinated many persons; and
his daughter, though educated away from him, yielded to the same
graving.
At Bicetre there was an individual who had a horribly depraved appetite
for decaying human flesh. He would haunt the graveyards and eat the
putrefying remains of the recently buried, preferring the intestines.
Having regaled himself in a midnight prowl, he would fill his pockets
for future use. When interrogated on the subject of his depravity he
said it had existed since childhood. He acknowledged the greatest
desire to devour children he would meet playing; but he did not possess
the courage to kill them.
Prochaska quotes the case of a woman of Milan who attracted children to
her home in order that she might slay, salt, and eat them. About 1600,
there is the record of a boy named Jean Granier, who had repeatedly
killed and devoured several young children before he was discovered.
Rodericus a Castro tells of a pregnant woman who so strongly desired to
eat the shoulder of a baker that she killed him, salted his body, and
devoured it at intervals.
There is a record of a woman who in July, 1817, was discovered in
cooking an amputated leg of her little child. Gorget in 1827 reported
the celebrated case of Leger the vine dresser, who at the age of
twenty-four wandered about a forest for eight days during an attack of
depression. Coming across a girl of twelve, he violated her, and then
mutilated her genitals, and tore out her heart, eating of it, and
drinking the blood. He finally confessed his crime with calm
indifference. After Leger's execution Esquirol found morbid adhesions
between the brain and the cerebral membranes. Mascha relates a similar
instance in a man of fifty-five who violated and killed a young girl,
eating of her genitals and mammae. At the trial he begged for
execution, saying that the inner impulse that led him to his crime
constantly persecuted him.
A modern example of lust-murder and anthropophagy is that of Menesclou,
who was examined by Brouardel, Motet, and others, and declared to be
mentally sound; he was convicted. This miscreant was arrested with the
forearm of a missing child in his pocket, and in his stove were found
the head and entrails in a half-burnt condition. Parts of the body were
found in the water-closet, but the genitals were missing; he was
executed, although he made no confession, saying the deed was an
accident. Morbid changes were found in his brain. Krafft-Ebing cites
the case of Alton, a clerk in England, who lured a child into a
thicket, and after a time returned to his office, where he made an
entry in his note-book: "Killed to-day a young girl; it was fine and
hot." The child was missed, searched for, and found cut into pieces.
Many parts, and among them the genitals, could not be found. Alton did
not show the slightest trace of emotion, and gave no explanation of the
motive or circumstances of his horrible deed; he was executed.
D'Amador tells of persons who went into slaughter-houses and
waste-places to dispute with wolves for the most revolting carrion. It
is also mentioned that patients in hospitals have been detected in
drinking the blood of patients after venesections, and in other
instances frequenting dead-houses and sucking the blood of the recently
deceased. Du Saulle quotes the case of a chlorotic girl of fourteen who
eagerly drank human blood. She preferred that flowing fresh from a
recent wound.
Further Examples of Depraved Appetites.--Bijoux speaks of a porter or
garcon at the Jardin des Plantes in Paris who was a prodigious glutton.
He had eaten the body of a lion that had died of disease at the
menagerie. He ate with avidity the most disgusting things to satiate
his depraved appetite. He showed further signs of a perverted mind by
classifying the animals of the menagerie according to the form of their
excrement, of which he had a collection. He died of indigestion
following a meal of eight pounds of hot bread.
Percy saw the famous Tarrare, who died at Versailles, at about
twenty-six years of age. At seventeen he weighed 100 pounds. He ate a
quarter of beef in twenty-four hours. He was fond of the most revolting
things. He particularly relished the flesh of serpents and would
quickly devour the largest. In the presence of Lorenze he seized a live
cat with his teeth, eventrated it, sucked its blood, and ate it,
leaving the bare skeleton only. In about thirty minutes he rejected the
hairs in the manner of birds of prey and carnivorous animals. He also
ate dogs in the same manner. On one occasion it was said that he
swallowed a living eel without chewing it; but he had first bitten off
its head. He ate almost instantly a dinner that had been prepared for
15 vigorous workmen and drank the accompanying water and took their
aggregate allowance of salt at the same time. After this meal his
abdomen was so swollen that it resembled a balloon. He was seen by
Courville, a surgeon-major in a military hospital, where he had
swallowed a wooden box wrapped in plain white paper. This he passed the
next day with the paper intact. The General-in-chief had seen him
devour thirty pounds of raw liver and lungs. Nothing seemed to diminish
his appetite. He waited around butcher-shops to eat what was discarded
for the dogs. He drank the bleedings of the hospital and ate the dead
from the dead-houses. He was suspected of eating a child of fourteen
months, but no proof could be produced of this. He was of middle height
and was always heated and sweating. He died of a purulent diarrhea, all
his intestines and peritoneum being in a suppurating condition.
Fulton mentions a girl of six who exhibited a marked taste for feeding
on slugs, beetles, cockroaches, spiders, and repulsive insects. This
child had been carefully brought up and was one of 13 children, none of
whom displayed any similar depravity of appetite. The child was of good
disposition and slightly below the normal mental standard for her age.
At the age of fourteen her appetite became normal.
In the older writings many curious instances of abnormal appetite are
seen. Borellus speaks of individuals swallowing stones, horns,
serpents, and toads. Plater mentions snail-eating and eel-eating, two
customs still extant. Rhodius is accredited with seeing persons who
swallowed spiders and scorpions. Jonston says that Avicenna, Rufus, and
Gentilis relate instances of young girls who acquired a taste for
poisonous animals and substances, who could ingest them with impunity.
Colonia Agrippina was supposed to have eaten spiders with impunity. Van
Woensel is said to have seen persons who devoured live eels.
The habit of dirt eating or clay-eating, called pica, is well
authenticated in many countries. The Ephemerides contains mention of
it; Hunter speaks of the blacks who eat potters' clay; Bartholinus
describes dirt-eating as does also a Castro. Properly speaking,
dirt-eating should be called geophagism; it is common in the Antilles
and South America, among the low classes, and is seen in the negroes
and poorest classes of some portions of the Southern United States. It
has also been reported from Java, China, Japan, and is said to have
been seen in Spain and Portugal. Peat-eating or bog-eating is still
seen in some parts of Ireland.
There were a number of people in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries who had formed the habit of eating small pebbles after each
meal. They formed the habit from seeing birds swallowing gravel after
eating. A number of such cases are on record.
There is on record the account of a man living in Wurtemberg who with
much voracity had eaten a suckling pig, and sometimes devoured an
entire sheep. He swallowed dirt, clay, pebbles, and glass, and was
addicted to intoxication by brandy. He lived sixty years in this manner
and then he became abstemious; he died at seventy-nine. His omentum was
very lean, but the liver covered all his abdominal viscera. His stomach
was very large and thick, but the intestines were very narrow.
Ely had a patient who was addicted to chalk-eating; this ha said
invariably relieved his gastric irritation. In the twenty-five years of
the habit he had used over 1/2 ton of chalk; but notwithstanding this
he always enjoyed good health. The Ephemerides contains a similar
instance, and Verzascha mentions a lime-eater. Adams mentions a child
of three who had an instinctive desire to eat mortar. This baby was
rickety and had carious teeth. It would pick its preferred diet out of
the wall, and if prevented would cry loudly. When deprived of the
mortar it would vomit its food until this substance was given to it
again. At the time of report part of the routine duties of the sisters
of this boy was to supply him with mortar containing a little sand.
Lime-water was substituted, but he insisted so vigorously on the solid
form of food that it had to be replaced in his diet. He suffered from
small-pox; on waking up in the night with a fever, he always cried for
a piece of mortar. The quantity consumed in twenty-four hours was about
1/2 teacupful. The child had never been weaned.
Arsenic Eaters.--It has been frequently stated that the peasants of
Styria are in the habit of taking from two to five grains of arsenious
acid daily for the purpose of improving the health, avoiding infection,
and raising the whole tone of the body. It is a well-substantiated fact
that the quantities taken habitually are quite sufficient to produce
immediate death ordinarily. But the same might be easily said of those
addicted to opium and chloral, a subject that will be considered later.
Perverted appetites during pregnancy have been discussed on pages 80
and 81.
Glass-eaters, penknife-swallowers, and sword-swallowers, being
exhibitionists and jugglers, and not individuals with perverted
appetites, will be considered in Chapter XII.
Fasting.--The length of time which a person can live with complete
abstinence from food is quite variable. Hippocrates admits the
possibility of fasting more than six days without a fatal issue; but
Pliny and others allow a much longer time, and both the ancient and
modern literature of medicine are replete with examples of abstinence
to almost incredible lengths of time. Formerly, and particularly in
the Middle Ages when religious frenzy was at its highest pitch,
prolonged abstinence was prompted by a desire to do penance and to gain
the approbation of Heaven.
In many religions fasting has become a part of worship or religions
ceremony, and from the earliest times certain sects have carried this
custom to extremes. It is well known that some of the priests and
anchorites of the East now subsist on the minimum amount of food, and
from the earliest times before the advent of Christianity we find
instances of prolonged fasting associated with religious worship. The
Assyrians, the Hebrews, the Egyptians, and other Eastern nations, and
also the Greeks and Romans, as well as feasting days, had their times
of fasting, and some of these were quite prolonged.
At the present day religious fervor accounts for but few of our
remarkable instances of abstinence, most of them being due to some form
of nervous disorder, varying from hysteria and melancholia to absolute
insanity. The ability seen in the Middle Ages to live on the Holy
Sacrament and to resist starvation may possibly have its analogy in
some of the fasting girls of the present day. In the older times these
persons were said to have been nourished by angels or devils; but
according to Hammond many cases both of diabolical abstinence from food
and of holy fasting exhibited manifest signs of hysteric symptoms.
Hammond, in his exhaustive treatise on the subject of "Fasting Girls,"
also remarks that some of the chronicles detail the exact symptoms of
hysteria and without hesitation ascribe them to a devilish agency. For
instance, he speaks of a young girl in the valley of Calepino who had
all her limbs twisted and contracted and had a sensation in her
esophagus as if a ball was sometimes rising in her throat or falling
into the stomach--a rather lay description of the characteristic
hysteric "lump in the throat," a frequent sign of nervous abstinence.
Abstinence, or rather anorexia, is naturally associated with numerous
diseases, particularly of the febrile type; but in all of these the
patient is maintained by the use of nutrient enemata or by other means,
and the abstinence is never complete.
A peculiar type of anorexia is that striking and remarkable digestive
disturbance of hysteria which Sir William Gull has called anorexia
nervosa. In this malady there is such annihilation of the appetite that
in some cases it seems impossible ever to eat again. Out of it grows an
antagonism to food which results at last, and in its worst forms, in
spasm on the approach of food, and this in its turn gives rise to some
of those remarkable cases of survival for long periods without food.
As this goes on there may be an extreme degree of muscular
restlessness, so that the patients wander about until exhausted.
According to Osler, who reports a fatal case in a girl who, at her
death, only weighed 49 pounds, nothing more pitiable is to be seen in
medical practice than an advanced case of this malady. The emaciation
and exhaustion are extreme, and the patient is as miserable as one with
carcinoma of the esophagus, food either not being taken at all or only
upon urgent compulsion.
Gull mentions a girl of fourteen, of healthy, plump appearance, who in
the beginning of February, 1887, without apparent cause evinced a great
repugnance to food and soon afterward declined to take anything but a
half cup of tea or coffee. Gull saw her in April, when she was much
emaciated; she persisted in walking through the streets, where she was
the object of remark of passers-by. At this time her height was five
feet four inches, her weight 63 pounds, her temperature 97 degrees F.,
her pulse 46, and her respiration from 12 to 14. She had a persistent
wish to be moving all the time, despite her emaciation and the
exhaustion of the nutritive functions.
There is another class of abstainers from food exemplified in the
exhibitionists who either for notoriety or for wages demonstrate their
ability to forego eating, and sometimes drinking, for long periods.
Some have been clever frauds, who by means of artifices have carried on
skilful deceptions; others have been really interesting physiologic
anomalies.
Older Instances.--Democritus in 323 B.C. is said to have lived forty
days by simply smelling honey and hot bread. Hippocrates remarks that
most of those who endeavored to abstain five days died within that
period, and even if they were prevailed upon to eat and drink before
the termination of their fast they still perished. There is a
possibility that some of these cases of Hippocrates were instances of
pyloric carcinoma or of stenosis of the pylorus. In the older writings
there are instances reported in which the period of abstinence has
varied from a short time to endurance beyond the bounds of credulity.
Hufeland mentions total abstinence from food for seventeen days, and
there is a contemporary case of abstinence for forty days in a maniac
who subsisted solely on water and tobacco. Bolsot speaks of abstinence
for fourteen months, and Consbruch mentions a girl who fasted eighteen
months. Muller mentions an old man of forty-five who lived six weeks on
cold water. There is an instance of a person living in a cave
twenty-four days without food or drink, and another of a man who
survived five weeks' burial under ruins. Ramazzini speaks of fasting
sixty-six days; Willian, sixty days (resulting in death); von Wocher,
thirty-seven days (associated with tetanus); Lantana, sixty days;
Hobbes, forty days; Marcardier, six months; Cruikshank, two months; the
Ephemerides, thirteen months; Gerard, sixty-nine days (resulting in
death); and in 1722 there was recorded an instance of abstinence
lasting twenty-five months.
Desbarreaux-Bernard says that Guillaume Granie died in the prison of
Toulouse in 1831, after a voluntary suicidal abstinence of sixty-three
days.
Haller cites a number of examples of long abstinence, but most
extraordinary was that of a girl of Confolens, described by Citois of
Poitiers, who published a history of the case in the beginning of the
seventeenth century. This girl is said to have passed three entire
years, from eleven to fourteen, without taking any kind of aliment. In
the "Harleian Miscellanies" is a copy of a paper humbly offered to the
Royal Society by John Reynolds, containing a discourse upon prodigious
abstinence, occasioned by the twelve months' fasting of a woman named
Martha Taylor, a damsel of Derbyshire. Plot gives a great variety of
curious anecdotes of prolonged abstinence. Ames refers to "the true and
admirable history of the maiden of Confolens," mentioned by Haller. In
the Annual Register, vol. i., is an account of three persons who were
buried five weeks in the snow; and in the same journal, in 1762, is the
history of a girl who is said to have subsisted nearly four years on
water. In 1684 four miners were buried in a coal-pit in Horstel, a half
mile from Liege, Belgium, and lived twenty-four days without food,
eventually making good recoveries. An analysis of the water used during
their confinement showed an almost total absence of organic matter and
only a slight residue of calcium salts.
Joanna Crippen lay six days in the snow without nutriment, being
overcome by the cold while on the way to her house; she recovered
despite her exposure. Somis, physician to the King of Sardinia, gives
an account of three women of Piedmont, Italy, who were saved from the
ruins of a stable where they had been buried by an avalanche of snow,
March 19, 1765. thirty-seven days before. Thirty houses and 22
inhabitants were buried in this catastrophe, and these three women,
together with a child of two, were sheltered in a stable over which the
snow lodged 42 feet deep. They were in a manger 20 inches broad and
upheld by a strong arch. Their enforced position was with their backs
to the wall and their knees to their faces. One woman had 15 chestnuts,
and, fortunately, there were two goats near by, and within reach some
hay, sufficient to feed them for a short time. By milking one of the
goats which had a kid, they obtained about two pints daily, upon which
they subsisted for a time. They quenched their thirst with melted snow
liquefied by the heat of their hands. Their sufferings were greatly
increased by the filth, extreme cold, and their uncomfortable
positions; their clothes had rotted. When they were taken out their
eyes were unable to endure the light and their stomachs at first
rejected all food.
While returning from Cambridge, February 2, 1799, Elizabeth Woodcock
dismounted from her horse, which ran away, leaving her in a violent
snowstorm. She was soon overwhelmed by an enormous drift six feet high.
The sensation of hunger ceased after the first day and that of thirst
predominated, which she quenched by sucking snow. She was discovered on
the 10th of February, and although suffering from extensive gangrene of
the toes, she recovered. Hamilton says that at a barracks near Oppido,
celebrated for its earthquakes, there were rescued two girls, one
sixteen and the other eleven; the former had remained under the ruins
without food for eleven days. This poor creature had counted the days
by a light coming through a small opening. The other girl remained six
days under the ruin in a confined and distressing posture, her hands
pressing her cheek until they had almost made a hole in it. Two persons
were buried under earthquake ruins at Messina for twenty-three and
twenty-two days each.
Thomas Creaser gives the history of Joseph Lockier of Bath, who, while
going through a woods between 6 and 7 P.M., on the 18th of August, was
struck insensible by a violent thunderbolt. His senses gradually
returned and he felt excessively cold. His clothes were wet, and his
feet so swollen that the power of the lower extremities was totally
gone and that of the arms was much impaired. For a long time he was
unable to articulate or to summon assistance. Early in September he
heard some persons in the wood and, having managed to summon them in a
feeble voice, told them his story. They declared him to be an impostor
and left him. On the evening of the same day his late master came to
his assistance and removed him to Swan Inn. He affirmed that during his
exposure in the woods he had nothing to eat; though distressing at
first, hunger soon subsided and yielded to thirst, which he appeased by
chewing grass having beads of water thereon. He slept during the
warmth of the day, but the cold kept him awake at night. During his
sleep he dreamt of eating and drinking. On November 17, 1806, several
surgeons of Bath made an affidavit, in which they stated that this man
was admitted to the Bath City Dispensary on September 15th, almost a
month after his reputed stroke, in an extremely emaciated condition,
with his legs and thighs shriveled as well as motionless. There were
several livid spots on his legs and one toe was gangrenous. After some
time they amputated the toe. The power in the lower extremities soon
returned.
In relating his travels in the Levant, Hasselquist mentions 1000
Abyssinians who became destitute of provisions while en route to Cairo,
and who lived two months on gum arabic alone, arriving at their
destination without any unusual sickness or mortality. Dr. Franklin
lived on bread and water for a fortnight, at the rate of ten pounds per
week, and maintained himself stout and healthy. Sir John Pringle knew
a lady of ninety who lived on pure fat meat. Glower of Chelmsford had a
patient who lived ten years on a pint of tea daily, only now or then
chewing a half dozen raisins or almonds, but not swallowing them. Once
in long intervals she took a little bread.
Brassavolus describes a younger daughter of Frederick King of Naples
who lived entirely without meat, and could not endure even the taste of
it, as often as she put any in her mouth she fell fainting. The monks
of Monte Santo (Mount Athos) never touched animal food, but lived on
vegetables, olives, end cheese. In 1806 one of them at the age of one
hundred and twenty was healthy.
Sometimes in the older writings we find records of incredible
abstinence. Jonston speaks of a man in 1460 who, after an unfortunate
matrimonial experience, lived alone for fifteen years, taking neither
food nor drink. Petrus Aponensis cites the instance of a girl fasting
for eight years. According to Jonston, Hermolus lived forty years on
air alone. This same author has also collected cases of abstinence
lasting eleven, twenty-two, and thirty years and cites Aristotle as an
authority in substantiating his instances of fasting girls.
Wadd, the celebrated authority on corpulence, quotes Pennant in
mentioning a woman in Rosshire who lived one and three-quarters years
without meat or drink. Granger had under observation a woman by the
name of Ann Moore, fifty-eight years of age, who fasted for two years.
Fabricius Hildanus relates of Apollonia Schreiera that she lived three
years without meat or drink. He also tells of Eva Flegen, who began to
fast in 1596, and from that time on for sixteen years, lived without
meat or drink. According to the Rev. Thos. Steill, Janet Young fasted
sixteen years and partially prolonged her abstinence for fifty years.
The Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal, which contains a mention of
the foregoing case, also describes the case of Janet Macleod, who
fasted for four years, showing no signs of emaciation. Benjamin Rush
speaks of a case mentioned in a letter to St. George Tucker, from J.
A. Stuart, of a man who, after receiving no benefit from a year's
treatment for hemiplegia, resolved to starve himself to death. He
totally abstained from food for sixty days, living on water and chewing
apples, but spitting out the pulp; at the expiration of this time he
died. Eccles relates the history of a beautiful young woman of sixteen,
who upon the death of a most indulgent father refused food for
thirty-four days, and soon afterward for fifty-four days, losing all
her senses but that of touch.
There is an account of a French adventurer, the Chevalier de
Saint-Lubin, who had a loathing for food and abstained from every kind
of meat and drink for fifty-eight days. Saint-Sauver, at that time
Lieutenant of the Bastille, put a close watch on this man and certified
to the verity of the fast. The European Magazine in 1783 contained an
account of the Calabria earthquake, at which time a girl of eighteen
was buried under ruins for six days. The edge of a barrel fell on her
ankle and partly separated it, the dust and mortar effectually stopping
the hemorrhage. The foot dropped off and the wound healed without
medical assistance, the girl making a complete recovery. There is an
account taken from a document in the Vatican of a man living in 1306,
in the reign of Pope Clement V, who fasted for two years. McNaughton
mentions Rubin Kelsey, a medical student afflicted with melancholia,
who voluntarily fasted for fifty-three days, drinking copiously and
greedily of water. For the first six weeks he walked about, and was
strong to the day of his death.
Hammond has proved many of the reports of "fasting girls" to have been
untrustworthy. The case of Miss Faucher of Brooklyn, who was supposed
to have taken no food for fourteen years, was fraudulent. He says that
Ann Moore was fed by her daughter in several ways; when washing her
mother's face she used towels wet with gravy, milk, or strong
arrow-root meal. She also conveyed food to her mother by means of
kisses. One of the "fasting girls," Margaret Weiss, although only ten
years old, had such powers of deception that after being watched by the
priest of the parish, Dr. Bucoldianus, she was considered free from
juggling, and, to everybody's astonishment, she grew, walked, and
talked like other children of her age, still maintaining that she used
neither food nor drink. In several other cases reported all attempts to
discover imposture failed. As we approach more modern times the
detection is more frequent. Sarah Jacobs, the Welsh fasting girl who
attained such celebrity among the laity, was taken to Guy's Hospital on
December 9, 1869, and after being watched by eight experienced nurses
for eight days she died of starvation. A postmortem examination of Anna
Garbero of Racconis, in Piedmont, who died on May 19, 1828, after
having endured a supposed fast of two years, eight months, and eleven
days, revealed remarkable intestinal changes. The serous membranes were
all callous and thickened, and the canal of the sigmoid flexure was
totally obliterated. The mucous membranes were all soft and friable,
and presented the appearance of incipient gangrene.
Modern Cases.--Turning now to modern literature, we have cases of
marvelous abstinence well substantiated by authoritative evidence.
Dickson describes a man of sixty-two, suffering from monomania, who
refused food for four months, but made a successful recovery.
Richardson mentions a case, happening in 1848, of a man of thirty-three
who voluntarily fasted for fifty-five days. His reason for fasting,
which it was impossible to combat, was that he had no gastric juice and
that it was utterly useless for him to take any nutrition, as he had no
means of digesting it. He lived on water until the day of his death.
Richardson gives an interesting account of the changes noticed at the
necropsy. There is an account of a religious mendicant of the Jain
caste who as a means of penance fasted for ninety-one days. The
previous year he had fasted eighty-six days. He had spent his life in
strict asceticism, and during his fasting he was always engrossed in
prayer.
Collins describes a maiden lady of eighty, always a moderate eater, who
was attacked by bronchitis, during which she took food as usual. Two
days after her recovery, without any known cause, she refused all food
and continued to do so for thirty-three days, when she died. She was
delirious throughout this fast and slept daily seven or eight hours. As
a rule, she drank about a wineglassful of water each day and her urine
was scanty and almost of the consistency of her feces. There is a
remarkable case of a girl of seventeen who, suffering with typhoid
fever associated with engorgement of the abdomen and suppression of the
functions of assimilation, fasted for four months without visible
diminution in weight. Pierce reports the history of a woman of
twenty-six who fasted for three months and made an excellent recovery.
Grant describes the "Market Harborough fasting-girl," a maiden of
nineteen, who abstained from food from April, 1874, until December,
1877, although continually using morphia. Throughout her fast she had
periodic convulsions, and voided no urine or feces for twelve months
before her death. There was a middle-aged woman in England in 1860 who
for two years lived on opium, gin, and water. Her chief symptoms were
almost daily sickness and epileptic fits three times a week. She was
absolutely constipated, and at her death her abdomen was so distended
as to present the appearance of ascites. After death, the distention of
the abdomen was found to be due to a coating of fat, four inches thick,
in the parietes. There was no obstruction to the intestinal canal and
no fecal or other accumulation within it. Christina Marshall, a girl
of fourteen, went fifteen and one-half months without taking solid
nourishment. She slept very little, seldom spoke, but occasionally
asked the time of day. She took sweets and water, with beef tea at
intervals, and occasionally a small piece of orange. She died April 18,
1882, after having been confined to her bed for a long while.
King, a surgeon, U.S.A., gives an account of the deprivation of a squad
of cavalry numbering 40. While scouting for Indians on the plains they
went for eighty-six hours without water; when relieved their mouths and
throats were so dry that even brown sugar would not dissolve on their
tongues. Many were delirious, and all had drawn fresh blood from their
horses. Despite repeated vomiting, some drank their own urine. They
were nearly all suffering from overpowering dyspnea, two were dead, and
two were missing. The suffering was increased by the acrid atmosphere
of the dry plains; the slightest exercise in this climate provoked a
thirst. MacLoughlin, the surgeon in charge of the S.S. City of Chester,
speaks of a young stowaway found by the stevedores in an insensible
condition after a voyage of eleven days. The man was brought on deck
and revived sufficiently to be sent to St. Vincent's Hospital, N.Y.,
about one and one-half hours after discovery, in an extremely
emaciated, cold, and nearly pulseless condition. He gave his name as
John Donnelly, aged twenty, of Dumbarton, Scotland. On the whole voyage
he had nothing to eat or drink. He had found some salt, of which he ate
two handfuls, and he had in his pocket a small flask, empty. Into this
flask he voided his urine, and afterward drank it. Until the second day
he was intensely hungry, but after that time was consumed by a burning
thirst; he shouted four or five hours every day, hoping that he might
be heard. After this he became insensible and remembered nothing until
he awakened in the hospital where, under careful treatment, he finally
recovered.
Fodere mentions some workmen who were buried alive fourteen days in a
cold, damp cavern under a ruin, and yet all lived. There is a modern
instance of a person being buried thirty-two days beneath snow, without
food. The Lancet notes that a pig fell off Dover Cliff and was picked
up alive one hundred and sixty days after, having been partially
imbedded in debris. It was so surrounded by the chalk of the cliff that
little motion was possible, and warmth was secured by the enclosing
material. This animal had therefore lived on its own fat during the
entire period.
Among the modern exhibitionists may be mentioned Merlatti, the fasting
Italian, and Succi, both of whom fasted in Paris; Alexander Jacques,
who fasted fifty days; and the American, Dr. Tanner, who achieved great
notoriety by a fast of forty days, during which time he exhibited
progressive emaciation. Merlatti, who fasted in Paris in 1886, lost 22
pounds in a month; during his fast of fifty days he drank only pure
filtered water. Prior to the fast his farewell meal consisted of a
whole fat goose, including the bones, two pounds of roast beef,
vegetables for two, and a plate of walnuts, the latter eaten whole.
Alexander Jacques fasted fifty days and Succi fasted forty days.
Jacques lost 28 pounds and 4 ounces (from 142 pounds, 8 ounces to 114
pounds, 4 ounces), while Succi's loss was 34 pounds and 3 ounces.
Succi diminished in height from 65 3/4 to 64 1/2 inches, while Jacques
increased from 64 1/2 to 65 1/2 inches. Jacques smoked cigarettes
incessantly, using 700 in the fifty days, although, by professional
advice, he stopped the habit on the forty-second day. Three or four
times a day he took a powder made of herbs to which he naturally
attributed his power of prolonging life without food. Succi remained in
a room in which he kept the temperature at a very high point. In
speaking of Succi's latest feat a recent report says: "It has come to
light in his latest attempt to go for fifty days without food that he
privately regaled himself on soup, beefsteak, chocolate, and eggs. It
was also discovered that one of the 'committee,' who were supposed to
watch and see that the experiment was conducted in a bona fide manner,
'stood in' with the faster and helped him deceive the others. The
result of the Vienna experiment is bound to cast suspicion on all
previous fasting accomplishments of Signor Succi, if not upon those of
his predecessors."
Although all these modern fasters have been accused of being jugglers
and deceivers, throughout their fasts they showed constant decrease in
weight, and inspection by visitors was welcomed at all times. They
invariably invited medical attention, and some were under the closest
surveillance; although we may not implicitly believe that the fasts
were in every respect bona fide, yet we must acknowledge that these men
displayed great endurance in their apparent indifference for food, the
deprivation of which in a normal individual for one day only causes
intense suffering.
Anomalies of Temperature.--In reviewing the reports of the highest
recorded temperatures of the human body, it must be remembered that no
matter how good the evidence or how authentic the reference there is
always chance for malingering. It is possible to send the index of an
ordinary thermometer up to the top in ten or fifteen seconds by rubbing
it between the slightly moistened thumb and the finger, exerting
considerable pressure at the time. There are several other means of
artificially producing enormous temperatures with little risk of
detection, and as the sensitiveness of the thermometer becomes greater
the easier is the deception.
Mackenzie reports the temperature-range of a woman of forty-two who
suffered with erysipelatous inflammation of a stump of the leg.
Throughout a somewhat protracted illness, lasting from February 20 to
April 22, 1879, the temperature many times registered between 108
degrees and 111 degrees F. About a year later she was again troubled
with the stump, and this time the temperature reached as high as 114
degrees. Although under the circumstances, as any rational physician
would, Mackenzie suspected fraud, he could not detect any method of
deception. Finally the woman confessed that she had produced the
temperature artificially by means of hot-water bottles, poultices, etc.
MacNab records a case of rheumatic fever in which the temperature was
111.4 degrees F. as indicated by two thermometers, one in the axilla
and the other in the groin. This high degree of temperature was
maintained after death. Before the Clinical Society of London, Teale
reported a case in which, at different times, there were recorded
temperatures from 110 degrees to 120 degrees F. in the mouth, rectum,
and axilla. According to a comment in the Lancet, there was no way that
the patient could have artificially produced this temperature, and
during convalescence the thermometer used registered normal as well as
subnormal temperatures. Caesar speaks of a girl of fifteen with enteric
fever, whose temperature, on two occasions 110 degrees F., reached the
limit of the mercury in the thermometer.
There have been instances mentioned in which, in order to escape
duties, prisoners have artificially produced high temperatures, and the
same has occasionally been observed among conscripts in the army or
navy. There is an account of a habit of prisoners of introducing
tobacco into the rectum, thereby reducing the pulse to an alarming
degree and insuring their exemption from labor. In the Adelaide
Hospital in Dublin there was a case in which the temperature in the
vagina and groin registered from 120 degrees to 130 degrees, and one
day it reached 130.8 degrees F.; the patient recovered. Ormerod
mentions a nervous and hysteric woman of thirty-two, a sufferer with
acute rheumatism, whose temperature rose to 115.8 degrees F. She
insisted on leaving the hospital when her temperature was still 104
degrees.
Wunderlich mentions a case of tetanus in which the temperature rose to
46.40 degrees C. (115.5 degrees F.), and before death it was as high as
44.75 degrees C. Obernier mentions 108 degrees F. in typhoid fever.
Kartulus speaks of a child of five, with typhoid fever, who at
different times had temperatures of 107 degrees, 108 degrees, and 108.2
degrees F.; it finally recovered. He also quotes a case of pyemia in a
boy of seven, whose temperature rose to 107.6 degrees F. He also speaks
of Wunderlich's case of remittent fever, in which the temperature
reached 107.8 degrees F. Wilson Fox, in mentioning a case of rheumatic
fever, says the temperature reached 110 degrees F.
Philipson gives an account of a female servant of twenty-three who
suffered from a neurosis which influenced the vasomotor nervous system,
and caused hysteria associated with abnormal temperatures. On the
evening of July 9th her temperature was 112 degrees F.; on the 16th, it
was 111 degrees; on the 18th, 112 degrees; on the 24th, 117 degrees
(axilla); on the 28th, in the left axilla it was 117 degrees, in the
right axilla, 114 degrees, and in the mouth, 112 degrees; on the 29th,
it was 115 degrees in the right axilla, 110 degrees in the left axilla,
and 116 degrees in the mouth The patient was discharged the following
September. Steel of Manchester speaks of a hysteric female of twenty,
whose temperature was 116.4 degrees. Mahomed mentions a hysteric woman
of twenty-two at Guy's Hospital, London, with phthisis of the left
lung, associated with marked hectic fevers. Having registered the limit
of the ordinary thermometers, the physicians procured one with a scale
reaching to 130 degrees F. She objected to using the large
thermometers, saying they were "horse thermometers." On October 15,
1879, however, they succeeded in obtaining a temperature of 128 degrees
F. with the large thermometer. In March of the following year she died,
and the necropsy revealed nothing indicative of a cause for these
enormous temperatures. She was suspected of fraud, and was closely
watched in Guy's Hospital, but never, in the slightest way, was she
detected in using artificial means to elevate the temperature record.
In cases of insolation it is not at all unusual to see a patient whose
temperature cannot be registered by an ordinary thermometer. Any one
who has been resident at a hospital in which heat-cases are received in
the summer will substantiate this. At the Emergency Hospital in
Washington, during recent years, several cases have been brought in
which the temperatures were above the ordinary registering point of the
hospital thermometers, and one of the most extraordinary cases
recovered.
At a meeting of the Association of American Physicians in 1895, Jacobi
of New York reported a case of hyperthermy reaching 148 degrees F. This
instance occurred in a profoundly hysteric fireman, who suffered a
rather severe injury as the result of a fall between the revolving rods
of some machinery, and was rendered unconscious for four days.
Thereafter he complained of various pains, bloody expectoration, and
had convulsions at varying intervals, with loss of consciousness, rapid
respiration, unaccelerated pulse, and excessively high temperature, the
last on one occasion reaching the height of 148 degrees F. The
temperature was taken carefully in the presence of a number of persons,
and all possible precautions were observed to prevent deception. The
thermometer was variously placed in the mouth, anus, axilla, popliteal
space, groin, urethra, and different instruments were from time to time
employed. The behavior of the patient was much influenced by attention
and by suggestion. For a period of five days the temperature averaged
continuously between 120 degrees and 125 degrees F.
In the discussion of the foregoing case, Welch of Baltimore referred to
a case that had been reported in which it was said that the temperature
reached as high as 171 degrees F. These extraordinary elevations of
temperature, he said, appear physically impossible when they are long
continued, as they are fatal to the life of the animal cell.
In the same connection Shattuck of Boston added that he had observed a
temperature of 117 degrees F.; every precaution had been taken to
prevent fraud or deception. The patient was a hysteric young woman.
Jacobi closed the discussion by insisting that his observations had
been made with the greatest care and precautions and under many
different circumstances. He had at first viewed the case with
skepticism, but he could not doubt the results of his observation. He
added, that although we cannot explain anomalies of this kind, this
constitutes no reason why we should deny their occurrence.
Duffy records one of the lowest temperatures on record in a negress of
thirty-five who, after an abortion, showed only 84 degrees F. in the
mouth and axillae. She died the next day.
The amount of external heat that a human being can endure is sometimes
remarkable, and the range of temperature compatible with life is none
the less extraordinary. The Esquimaux and the inhabitants of the
extreme north at times endure a temperature of--60 degrees F., while
some of the people living in equatorial regions are apparently healthy
at a temperature as high as 130 degrees F., and work in the sun, where
the temperature is far higher. In the engine-rooms of some steamers
plying in tropical waters temperatures as high as 150 degrees F. have
been registered, yet the engineers and the stokers become habituated to
this heat and labor in it without apparent suffering. In Turkish baths,
by progressively exposing themselves to graduated temperatures, persons
have been able to endure a heat considerably above the boiling point,
though having to protect their persons from the furniture and floors
and walls of the rooms. The hot air in these rooms is intensely dry,
provoking profuse perspiration. Sir Joseph Banks remained some time in
a room the temperature of which was 211 degrees F., and his own
temperature never mounted above normal.
There have been exhibitionists who claimed particular ability to endure
intense heats without any visible disadvantage. These men are generally
styled "human salamanders," and must not be confounded with the
"fire-eaters," who, as a rule, are simply jugglers. Martinez, the
so-called "French Salamander," was born in Havana. As a baker he had
exposed himself from boyhood to very high temperatures, and he
subsequently gave public exhibitions of his extraordinary ability to
endure heat. He remained in an oven erected in the middle of the
Gardens of Tivoli for fourteen minutes when the temperature in the oven
was 338 degrees F. His pulse on entering was 76 and on coming out 130.
He often duplicated this feat before vast assemblages, though hardly
ever attaining the same degree of temperature, the thermometer
generally varying from 250 degrees F. upward. Chamouni was the
celebrated "Russian Salamander," assuming the title of "The
Incombustible." His great feat was to enter an oven with a raw leg of
mutton, not retiring until the meat was well baked. This person
eventually lost his life in the performance of this feat; his ashes
were conveyed to his native town, where a monument was erected over
them. Since the time of these two contemporaneous salamanders there
have been many others, but probably none have attained the same
notoriety.
In this connection Tillet speaks of some servant girls to a baker who
for fifteen minutes supported a temperature of 270 degrees F.; for ten
minutes, 279 degrees F.; and for several minutes, 364 degrees F., thus
surpassing Martinez. In the Glasgow Medical Journal, 1859, there is an
account of a baker's daughter who remained twelve minutes in an oven at
274 degrees F. Chantrey, the sculptor, and his workman are said to have
entered with impunity a furnace of over 320 degrees F.
In some of the savage ceremonies of fire worship the degree of heat
endured by the participants is really remarkable, and even if the rites
are performed by skilful juggling, nevertheless, the ability to endure
intense heat is worthy of comment. A recent report says:--
"The most remarkable ceremonial of fire worship that survives in this
country is practiced by the Navajos. They believe in purification by
fire, and to this end they literally wash themselves in it. The feats
they perform with it far exceed the most wonderful acts of fire-eating
and fire-handling accomplished by civilized jugglers. In preparation
for the festival a gigantic heap of dry wood is gathered from the
desert. At the appointed moment the great pile of inflammable brush is
lighted and in a few moments the whole of it is ablaze. Storms of
sparks fly 100 feet or more into the air, and ashes fall about like a
shower of snow. The ceremony always takes place at night and the effect
of it is both weird and impressive.
"Just when the fire is raging at its hottest a whistle is heard from
the outer darkness and a dozen warriors, lithe and lean, dressed simply
in narrow white breech-cloths and moccasins and daubed with white earth
so as to look like so many living statues, come bounding through the
entrance to the corral that incloses the flaming heap. Yelping like
wolves, they move slowly toward the fire, bearing aloft slender wands
tipped with balls of eagle-down. Rushing around the fire, always to the
left, they begin thrusting their wands toward the fire, trying to burn
off the down from the tips. Owing to the intensity of the heat this is
difficult to accomplish. One warrior dashes wildly toward the fire and
retreats; another lies as close to the ground as a frightened lizard,
endeavoring to wriggle himself up to the fire; others seek to catch on
their wands the sparks that fly in the air. At last one by one they all
succeed in burning the downy balls from the wands. The test of
endurance is very severe, the heat of the fire being so great.
"The remarkable feats, however, are performed in connection with
another dance that follows. This is heralded by a tremendous blowing of
horns. The noise grows louder and louder until suddenly ten or more men
run into the corral, each of them carrying two thick bundles of
shredded cedar bark.
"Four times they run around the fire waving the bundles, which are then
lighted. Now begins a wild race around the fire, the rapid running
causing the brands to throw out long streamers of flames over the hands
and arms of the dancers. The latter apply the brands to their own nude
bodies and to the bodies of their comrades in front. A warrior will
seize the flaming mass as if it were a sponge, and, keeping close to
the man he is pursuing, will rub his back with it as if bathing him.
The sufferer in turn catches up with the man in front of him and bathes
him in flame. From time to time the dancers sponge their own backs
with the flaming brands. When a brand is so far consumed that it can no
longer be held it is dropped and the dancers disappear from the corral.
The spectators pick up the flaming bunches thus dropped and bathe their
own hands in the fire.
"No satisfactory explanation seems to be obtainable as to the means by
which the dancers in this extraordinary performance are able to escape
injury. Apparently they do not suffer from any burns. Doubtless some
protection is afforded by the earth that is applied to their bodies."
Spontaneous combustion of the human body, although doubted by the
medical men of this day, has for many years been the subject of much
discussion; only a few years ago, among the writers on this subject,
there were as many credulous as there were skeptics. There is,
however, no reliable evidence to support the belief in the spontaneous
combustion of the body. A few apochryphal cases only have been
recorded. The opinion that the tissues of drunkards might be so
saturated with alcohol as to render the body combustible is disproved
by the simple experiment of placing flesh in spirits for a long time
and then trying to burn it. Liebig and others found that flesh soaked
in alcohol would burn only until the alcohol was consumed. That various
substances ignite spontaneously is explained by chemic phenomena, the
conditions of which do not exist in the human frame. Watkins in
speaking of the inflammability of the human body remarks that on one
occasion he tried to consume the body of a pirate given to him by a U.
S. Marshal. He built a rousing fire and piled wood on all night, and
had not got the body consumed by the forenoon of the following day.
Quite a feasible reason for supposed spontaneous human combustion is to
be found in several cases quoted by Taylor, in which persons falling
asleep, possibly near a fire, have been accidentally ignited, and
becoming first stupefied by the smoke, and then suffocated, have been
burned to charcoal without awaking. Drunkenness or great exhaustion may
also explain certain cases. In substantiation of the possibility of
Taylor's instances several prominent physiologists have remarked that
persons have endured severe burns during sleep and have never wakened.
There is an account of a man who lay down on the top of a lime kiln,
which was fired during his sleep, and one leg was burned entirely off
without awaking the man, a fact explained by the very slow and gradual
increase of temperature.
The theories advanced by the advocates of spontaneous human combustion
are very ingenious and deserve mention here. An old authority has said:
"Our blood is of such a nature, as also our lymph and bile: all of
which, when dried by art, flame like spirit of wine at the approach of
the least fire and burn away to ashes." Lord Bacon mentions spontaneous
combustion, and Marcellus Donatus says that in the time of Godefroy of
Bouillon there were people of a certain locality who supposed
themselves to have been burning of an invisible fire in their entrails,
and he adds that some cut off a hand or a foot when the burning began,
that it should go no further. What may have been the malady with which
these people suffered must be a matter of conjecture.
Overton, in a paper on this subject, remarks that in the "Memoirs of
the Royal Society of Paris," 1751, there is related an account of a
butcher who, opening a diseased beef, was burned by a flame which
issued from the maw of the animal; there was first an explosion which
rose to a height of five feet and continued to blaze several minutes
with a highly offensive odor. Morton saw a flame emanate from beneath
the skin of a hog at the instant of making an incision through it.
Ruysch, the famous Dutch physician, remarks that he introduced a hollow
bougie into a woman's stomach he had just opened, and he observed a
vapor issuing from the mouth of the tube, and this lit on contact with
the atmosphere. This is probably an exaggeration of the properties of
the hydrogen sulphid found in the stomach. There is an account of a man
of forty-three, a gross feeder, who was particularly fond of fats and a
victim of psoriasis palmaria, who on going to bed one night, after
extinguishing the light in the room, was surprised to find himself
enveloped in a phosphorescent halo; this continued for several days and
recurred after further indiscretions in diet. It is well known that
there are insects and other creatures of the lower animal kingdom which
possess the peculiar quality of phosphorescence.
There are numerous cases of spontaneous combustion of the human body
reported by the older writers. Bartholinus mentions an instance after
the person had drunk too much wine. Fouquet mentions a person ignited
by lightning. Schrader speaks of a person from whose mouth and fauces
after a debauch issued fire. Schurig tells of flames issuing from the
vulva, and Moscati records the same occurrence in parturition,
Sinibaldust, Borellus, and Bierling have also written on this subject,
and the Ephemerides contains a number of instances.
In 1763 Bianchini, Prebendary of Verona, published an account of the
death of Countess Cornelia Bandi of Cesena, who in her sixty-second
year was consumed by a fire kindled in her own body. In explanation
Bianchini said that the fire was caused in the entrails by the inflamed
effluvia of the blood, by the juices and fermentation in the stomach,
and, lastly, by fiery evaporations which exhaled from the spirits of
wine, brandy, etc. In the Gentleman's Magazine, 1763, there is recorded
an account of three noblemen who, in emulation, drank great quantities
of strong liquor, and two of them died scorched and suffocated by a
flame forcing itself from the stomach. There is an account of a poor
woman in Paris in the last century who drank plentifully of spirits,
for three years taking virtually nothing else. Her body became so
combustible that one night while lying on a straw couch she was
spontaneously burned to ashes and smoke. The evident cause of this
combustion is too plain to be commented on. In the Lancet, 1845, there
are two cases reported in which shortly before death luminous breath
has been seen to issue from the mouth.
There is an instance reported of a professor of mathematics of
thirty-five years of age and temperate, who, feeling a pain in his left
leg, discovered a pale flame about the size of a ten-cent piece issuing
therefrom. As recent as March, 1850, in a Court of Assizes in Darmstadt
during the trial of John Stauff, accused of the murder of the Countess
Goerlitz, the counsel for the defense advanced the theory of
spontaneous human combustion, and such eminent doctors as von Siebold,
Graff, von Liebig, and other prominent members of the Hessian medical
fraternity were called to comment on its possibility; principally on
their testimony a conviction and life-imprisonment was secured. In 1870
there was a woman of thirty-seven, addicted to alcoholic liquors, who
was found in her room with her viscera and part of her limbs consumed
by fire, but the hair and clothes intact. According to Walford, in the
Scientific American for 1870, there was a case reported by Flowers of
Louisiana of a man a hard drinker, who was sitting by a fire surrounded
by his Christmas guests, when suddenly flames of a bluish tint burst
from his mouth and nostrils and he was soon a corpse. Flowers states
that the body remained extremely warm for a much longer period than
usual.
Statistics.--From an examination of 28 cases of spontaneous combustion,
Jacobs makes the following summary:--
(1) It has always occurred in the human living body.
(2) The subjects were generally old persons.
(3) It was noticed more frequently in women than in men.
(4) All the persons were alone at the time of occurrence.
(5) They all led an idle life.
(6) They were all corpulent or intemperate.
(7) Most frequently at the time of occurrence there was a light and
some ignitible substance in the room.
(8) The combustion was rapid and was finished in from one to seven
hours.
(9) The room where the combustion took place was generally filled with
a thick vapor and the walls covered with a thick, carbonaceous
substance.
(10) The trunk was usually the part most frequently destroyed; some
part of the head and extremities remained.
(11) With but two exceptions, the combustion occurred in winter and in
the northern regions.
Magnetic, Phosphorescent, and Electric Anomalies.--There have been
certain persons who have appeared before the public under such names as
the "human magnet," the "electric lady," etc. There is no doubt that
some persons are supercharged with magnetism and electricity. For
instance, it is quite possible for many persons by drawing a rubber
comb through the hair to produce a crackling noise, and even produce
sparks in the dark. Some exhibitionists have been genuine curiosities
of this sort, while others by skilfully arranged electric apparatus are
enabled to perform their feats. A curious case was reported in this
country many years ago, which apparently emanates from an authoritative
source. On the 25th of January, 1837, a certain lady became suddenly
and unconsciously charged with electricity. Her newly acquired power
was first exhibited when passing her hand over the face of her brother;
to the astonishment of both, vivid electric sparks passed from the ends
of each finger. This power continued with augmented force from the 25th
of January to the last of February, but finally became extinct about
the middle of May of the same year.
Schneider mentions a strong, healthy, dark-haired Capuchin monk, the
removal of whose head-dress always induced a number of shining,
crackling sparks from his hair or scalp. Bartholinus observed a similar
peculiarity in Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua. In another case luminous sparks
were given out whenever the patient passed urine. Marsh relates two
cases of phthisis in which the heads of the patients were surrounded by
phosphorescent lights. Kaster mentions an instance in which light was
seen in the perspiration and on the body linen after violent exertion.
After exertion Jurine, Guyton, and Driessen observed luminous urine
passed by healthy persons, and Nasse mentions the same phenomenon in a
phthisical patient. Percy and Stokes have observed phosphorescence in a
carcinomatous ulcer.
There is a description of a Zulu boy exhibited in Edinburgh in 1882
whose body was so charged with electricity that he could impart a shock
to any of his patrons. He was about six-and-a-half years of age,
bright, happy, and spoke English thoroughly well. From infancy he had
been distinguished for this faculty, variable with the state of the
atmosphere. As a rule, the act of shaking hands was generally attended
by a quivering sensation like that produced by an electric current, and
contact with his tongue gave a still sharper shock.
Sir Charles Bell has made extensive investigation of the subject of
human magnetism and is probably the best authority on the subject, but
many celebrated scientists have studied it thoroughly. In the Pittsburg
Medical Review there is a description of a girl of three and a half, a
blonde, and extremely womanly for her age, who possessed a wonderful
magnetic power. Metal spoons would adhere to her finger-tips, nose, or
chin. The child, however, could not pick up a steel needle, an article
generally very sensitive to the magnet; nor would a penny stick to any
portion of her body.
Only recently there was exhibited through this country a woman named
Annie May Abbott, who styled herself the "Georgia Electric Lady." This
person gave exhibitions of wonderful magnetic power, and invited the
inspection and discussion of medical men. Besides her chief
accomplishment she possessed wonderful strength and was a skilled
equilibrist. By placing her hands on the sides of a chair upon which a
heavy man was seated, she would raise it without apparent effort. She
defied the strongest person in the audience to take from her hand a
stick which she had once grasped. Recent reports say that Miss Abbott
is amusing herself now with the strong men of China and Japan. The
Japanese wrestlers, whose physical strength is celebrated the world
over, were unable to raise Miss Abbott from the floor, while with the
tips of her fingers she neutralized their most strenuous efforts to
lift even light objects, such as a cane, from a table. The
possibilities, in this advanced era of electric mechanism, make fraud
and deception so easy that it is extremely difficult to pronounce on
the genuineness of any of the modern exhibitions of human electricity.
The Effects of Cold.--Gmelin, the famous scientist and investigator of
this subject, says that man has lived where the temperature falls as
low as -157 degrees F. Habit is a marked factor in this endurance. In
Russia men and women work with their breasts and arms uncovered in a
temperature many degrees below zero and without attention to the fact.
In the most rigorous winter the inhabitants of the Alps work with bare
breasts and the children sport about in the snow. Wrapping himself in
his pelisse the Russian sleeps in the snow. This influence of habit is
seen in the inability of intruders in northern lands to endure the
cold, which has no effect on the indigenous people. On their way to
besiege a Norwegian stronghold in 1719, 7000 Swedes perished in the
snows and cold of their neighboring country. On the retreat from Prague
in 1742, the French army, under the rigorous sky of Bohemia, lost 4000
men in ten days. It is needless to speak of the thousands lost in
Napoleon's campaign in Russia in 1812.
Pinel has remarked that the insane are less liable to the effects of
cold than their normal fellows, and mentions the escape of a naked
maniac, who, without any visible after-effect, in January, even, when
the temperature was -4 degrees F., ran into the snow and gleefully
rubbed his body with ice. In the French journals in 1814 there is the
record of the rescue of a naked crazy woman who was found in the
Pyrenees, and who had apparently suffered none of the ordinary effects
of cold.
Psychologic Effects of Cold.--Lambert says that the mind acts more
quickly in cold weather, and that there has been a notion advanced that
the emotion of hatred is much stronger in cold weather, a theory
exemplified by the assassination of Paul of Russia, the execution of
Charles of England, and that of Louis of France. Emotions, such as
love, bravery, patriotism, etc., together with diverse forms of
excitement, seem to augment the ability of the human body to endure
cold.
Cold seems to have little effect on the generative function. In both
Sweden, Norway, and other Northern countries the families are as large,
if not larger, than in other countries. Cold undoubtedly imparts vigor,
and, according to DeThou, Henry III lost his effeminacy and love of
pleasure in winter and reacquired a spirit of progress and reformation.
Zimmerman has remarked that in a rigorous winter the lubberly Hollander
is like the gayest Frenchman. Cold increases appetite, and Plutarch
says Brutus experienced intense bulimia while in the mountains, barely
escaping perishing. With full rations the Greek soldiers under Xenophon
suffered intense hunger as they traversed the snow-clad mountains of
Armenia.
Beaupre remarks that those who have the misfortune to be buried under
the snow perish less quickly than those who are exposed to the open
air, his observations having been made during the retreat of the French
army from Moscow. In Russia it is curious to see fish frozen stiff,
which, after transportation for great distances, return to life when
plunged into cold water.
Sudden death from cold baths and cold drinks has been known for many
centuries. Mauriceau mentions death from cold baptism on the head, and
Graseccus, Scaliger, Rush, Schenck, and Velschius mention deaths from
cold drinks. Aventii, Fabricius Hildanus, the Ephemerides, and Curry
relate instances of a fatal issue following the ingestion of cold water
by an individual in a superheated condition. Cridland describes a case
of sudden insensibility following the drinking of a cold fluid. It is
said that Alexander the Great narrowly escaped death from a
constrictive spasm, due to the fact that while in a copious sweat he
plunged into the river Cydnus. Tissot gives an instance of a man dying
at a fountain after a long draught on a hot day. Hippocrates mentions
a similar fact, and there are many modern instances.
The ordinary effects of cold on the skin locally and the system
generally will not be mentioned here, except to add the remark of
Captain Wood that in Greenland, among his party, could be seen
ulcerations, blisters, and other painful lesions of the skin. In
Siberia the Russian soldiers cover their noses and ears with greased
paper to protect them against the cold. The Laplanders and Samoiedes,
to avoid the dermal lesions caused by cold (possibly augmented by the
friction of the wind and beating of snow), anoint their skins with
rancid fish oil, and are able to endure temperatures as low as -40
degrees F. In the retreat of the 10,000 Xenophon ordered all his
soldiers to grease the parts exposed to the air.
Effects of Working in Compressed Air.--According to a writer in
Cassier's Magazine, the highest working pressures recorded have been
close to 50 pounds per square inch, but with extreme care in the
selection of men, and corresponding care on the part of the men, it is
very probable that this limit may be considerably exceeded. Under
average conditions the top limit may be placed at about 45 pounds, the
time of working, according to conditions, varying from four to six
hours per shift. In the cases in which higher pressures might be used,
the shifts for the men should be restricted to two of two hours each,
separated by a considerable interval. As an example of heavy pressure
work under favorable conditions as to ventilation, without very bad
effects on the men, Messrs. Sooysmith & Company had an experience with
a work on which men were engaged in six-hour shifts, separated into two
parts by half-hour intervals for lunch. This work was excavation in
open, seamy rock, carried on for several weeks under about 45 pounds
pressure. The character of the material through which the caisson is
being sunk or upon which it may be resting at any time bears quite
largely upon the ability of the men to stand the pressure necessary to
hold back the water at that point. If the material be so porous as to
permit a considerable leakage of air through it, there will naturally
result a continuous change of air in the working chamber, and a
corresponding relief of the men from the deleterious effects which are
nearly always produced by over-used air.
From Strasburg in 1861 Bucuoy reports that during the building of a
bridge at Kehl laborers had to work in compressed air, and it was found
that the respirations lost their regularity; there were sometimes
intense pains in the ears, which after a while ceased. It required a
great effort to speak at 2 1/2 atmospheres, and it was impossible to
whistle. Perspiration was very profuse. Those who had to work a long
time lost their appetites, became emaciated, and congestion of the lung
and brain was observed. The movements of the limbs were easier than in
normal air, though afterward muscular and rheumatic pains were often
observed.
The peculiar and extraordinary development of the remaining special
senses when one of the number is lost has always been a matter of great
interest. Deaf people have always been remarkable for their acuteness
of vision, touch, and smell. Blind persons, again, almost invariably
have the sense of hearing, touch, and what might be called the senses
of location and temperature exquisitely developed. This substitution of
the senses is but; an example of the great law of compensation which we
find throughout nature.
Jonston quotes a case in the seventeenth century of a blind man who, it
is said, could tell black from white by touch alone; several other
instances are mentioned in a chapter entitled "De compensatione naturae
monstris facta." It must, however, be held impossible that blind people
can thus distinguish colors in any proper sense of the words. Different
colored yarns, for example, may have other differences of texture,
etc., that would be manifest to the sense of touch. We know of one case
in which the different colors were accurately distinguished by a blind
girl, but only when located in customary and definite positions. Le Cat
speaks of a blind organist, a native of Holland, who still played the
organ as well as ever. He could distinguish money by touch, and it is
also said that he made himself familiar with colors. He was fond of
playing cards, but became such a dangerous opponent, because in
shuffling he could tell what cards and hands had been dealt, that he
was never allowed to handle any but his own cards.
It is not only in those who are congenitally deficient in any of the
senses that the remarkable examples of compensation are seen, but
sometimes late in life these are developed. The celebrated sculptor,
Daniel de Volterre, became blind after he had obtained fame, and
notwithstanding the deprivation of his chief sense he could, by touch
alone, make a statue in clay after a model. Le Cat also mentions a
woman, perfectly deaf, who without any instruction had learned to
comprehend anything said to her by the movements of the lips alone. It
was not necessary to articulate any sound, but only to give the labial
movements. When tried in a foreign language she was at a loss to
understand a single word.
Since the establishment of the modern high standard of blind asylums
and deaf-and-dumb institutions, where so many ingenious methods have
been developed and are practiced in the education of their inmates,
feats which were formerly considered marvelous are within the reach of
all those under tuition To-day, those born deaf-mutes are taught to
speak and to understand by the movements of the lips alone, and the
blind read, become expert workmen, musicians, and even draughtsmen. D.
D. Wood of Philadelphia, although one of the finest organists in the
country, has been totally blind for years. It is said that he acquires
new compositions with almost as great facility as one not afflicted
with his infirmity. "Blind Tom," a semi-idiot and blind negro achieved
world-wide notoriety by his skill upon the piano.
In some extraordinary cases in which both sight and hearing, and
sometimes even taste and smell, are wanting, the individuals in a most
wonderful way have developed the sense of touch to such a degree that
it almost replaces the absent senses. The extent of this compensation
is most beautifully illustrated in the cases of Laura Bridgman and
Helen Keller. No better examples could be found of the compensatory
ability of differentiated organs to replace absent or disabled ones.
Laura Dewey Bridgman was born December 21, 1829, at Hanover, N.H. Her
parents were farmers and healthy people. They were of average height,
regular habits, slender build, and of rather nervous dispositions.
Laura inherited the physical characteristics of her mother. In her
infancy she was subject to convulsions, but at twenty months had
improved, and at this time had learned to speak several words. At the
age of two years, in common with two of the other children of the
family, she had an attack of severe scarlet fever. Her sisters died,
and she only recovered after both eyes and ears had suppurated; taste
and smell were also markedly impaired. Sight in the left eye was
entirely abolished, but she had some sensation for large, bright
objects in the right eye up to her eighth year; after that time she
became totally blind. After her recovery it was two years before she
could sit up all day, and not until she was five years old had she
entirely regained her strength. Hearing being lost, she naturally never
developed any speech; however, she was taught to sew, knit, braid, and
perform several other minor household duties. In 1837 Dr. S. W. Howe,
the Director of the Massachusetts Asylum for the Blind, took Laura in
charge, and with her commenced the ordinary deaf-mute education. At
this time she was seven years and ten months old. Two years later she
had made such wonderful progress and shown such ability to learn that,
notwithstanding her infirmities, she surpassed any of the pupils of her
class. Her advancement was particularly noticed immediately after her
realization that an idea could be expressed by a succession of raised
letters. In fact, so rapid was her progress, that it was deemed
advisable by the authorities to hold her back. By her peculiar
sensibility to vibration she could distinguish the difference between a
whole and a half note in music, and she struck the notes on the piano
quite correctly. During the first years of her education she could not
smell at all, but later she could locate the kitchen by this sense.
Taste had developed to such an extent that at this time she could
distinguish the different degrees of acidity. The sense of touch,
however, was exceedingly delicate and acute. As to her moral habits,
cleanliness was the most marked. The slightest dirt or rent in her
clothes caused her much embarrassment and shame, and her sense of
order, neatness, and propriety was remarkable. She seemed quite at home
and enjoyed the society of her own sex, but was uncomfortable and
distant in the society of males. She quickly comprehended the
intellectual capacity of those with whom she was associated, and soon
showed an affiliation for the more intelligent of her friends. She was
quite jealous of any extra attention shown to her fellow scholars,
possibly arising from the fact that she had always been a favorite. She
cried only from grief, and partially ameliorated bodily pain by jumping
and by other excessive muscular movements. Like most mutes, she
articulated a number of noises,--50 or more, all monosyllabic; she
laughed heartily, and was quite noisy in her play. At this time it was
thought that she had been heard to utter the words doctor, pin, ship,
and others. She attached great importance to orientation, and seemed
quite ill at ease in finding her way about when not absolutely sure of
directions. She was always timid in the presence of animals, and by no
persuasion could she be induced to caress a domestic animal. In common
with most maidens, at sixteen she became more sedate, reserved and
thoughtful; at twenty she had finished her education. In 1878 she was
seen by G. Stanley Hall, who found that she located the approach and
departure of people through sensation in her feet, and seemed to have
substituted the cutaneous sense of vibration for that of hearing. At
this time she could distinguish the odors of various fragrant flowers
and had greater susceptibility to taste, particularly to sweet and
salty substances. She had written a journal for ten years, and had also
composed three autobiographic sketches, was the authoress of several
poems, and some remarkably clever letters. She died at the Perkins
Institute, May 24, 1889, after a life of sixty years, burdened with
infirmities such as few ever endure, and which, by her superior
development of the remnants of the original senses left her, she had
overcome in a degree nothing less than marvelous. According to a
well-known observer, in speaking of her mental development, although
she was eccentric she was not defective. She necessarily lacked
certain data of thought, but even this feet was not very marked, and
was almost counterbalanced by her exceptional power of using what
remained.
In the present day there is a girl as remarkable as Laura Bridgman, and
who bids fair to attain even greater fame by her superior development.
This girl, Helen Keller, is both deaf and blind; she has been seen in
all the principal cities of the United States, has been examined by
thousands of persons, and is famous for her victories over infirmities.
On account of her wonderful power of comprehension special efforts have
been made to educate Helen Keller, and for this reason her mind is far
more finely developed than in most girls of her age. It is true that
she has the advantage over Laura Bridgman in having the senses of taste
and smell, both of which she has developed to a most marvelous degree
of acuteness. It is said that by odor alone she is always conscious of
the presence of another person, no matter how noiseless his entrance
into the room in which she may be. She cannot be persuaded to take food
which she dislikes, and is never deceived in the taste. It is, however,
by the means of what might be called "touch-sight" that the most
miraculous of her feats are performed. By placing her hands on the face
of a visitor she is able to detect shades of emotion which the normal
human eye fails to distinguish, or, in the words of one of her lay
observers, "her sense of touch is developed to such an exquisite extent
as to form a better eye for her than are yours or mine for us; and what
is more, she forms judgments of character by this sight." According to
a recent report of a conversation with one of the principals of the
school in which her education is being completed, it is said that since
the girl has been under his care he has been teaching her to sing with
great success. Placing the fingers of her hands on the throat of a
singer, she is able to follow notes covering two octaves with her own
voice, and sings synchronously with her instructor. The only difference
between her voice and that of a normal person is in its resonant
qualities. So acute has this sense become, that by placing her hand
upon the frame of a piano she can distinguish two notes not more than
half a tone apart. Helen is expected to enter the preparatory school
for Radcliffe College in the fall of 1896.
At a meeting of the American Association to Promote the Teaching of
Speech to the Deaf, in Philadelphia, July, 1896, this child appeared,
and in a well-chosen and distinct speech told the interesting story of
her own progress. Miss Sarah Fuller, principal of the Horace Mann
School for the Deaf, Boston, is credited with the history of Helen
Keller, as follows:--
"Helen Keller's home is in Tuscumbia, Ala. At the age of nineteen
months she became deaf, dumb, and blind after convulsions lasting three
days. Up to the age of seven years she had received no instruction. Her
parents engaged Miss Sullivan of the Perkins Institute for the Blind,
South Boston, to go to Alabama as her teacher. She was familiar with
methods of teaching the blind, but knew nothing about instructing deaf
children. Miss Sullivan called upon Miss Fuller for some instruction on
the subject. Miss Fuller was at that time experimenting with two little
deaf girls to make them speak as hearing children do, and called Miss
Sullivan's attention to it. Miss Sullivan left for her charge, and from
time to time made reports to Dr. Anagnos the principal of the Perkins
School, which mentioned the remarkable mind which she found this little
Alabama child possessed. The following year Miss Sullivan brought the
child, then eight years old, to Boston, and Mrs. Keller came with her.
They visited Miss Fuller's school. Miss Sullivan had taught the child
the manual alphabet, and she had obtained much information by means of
it. Miss Fuller noticed how quickly she appreciated the ideas given to
her in that way.
"It is interesting to note that before any attempt had been made to
teach the child to speak or there had been any thought of it, her own
quickness of thought had suggested it to her as she talked by hand
alphabet to Miss Fuller. Her mother, however, did not approve Miss
Fuller's suggestion that an attempt should be made to teach her speech.
She remained at the Perkins School, under Miss Sullivan's charge,
another year, when the matter was brought up again, this time by little
Helen herself, who said she must speak. Miss Sullivan brought her to
Miss Fuller's school one day and she received her first lesson, of
about two hours' length.
"The child's hand was first passed over Miss Fuller's face, mouth, and
neck, then into her mouth, touching the tongue, teeth, lips, and hard
palate, to give her an idea of the organs of speech. Miss Fuller then
arranged her mouth, tongue, and teeth for the sound of i as in it. She
took the child's finger and placed it upon the windpipe so that she
might feel the vibration there, put her finger between her teeth to
show her how wide apart they were, and one finger in the mouth to feel
the tongue, and then sounded the vowel. The child grasped the idea at
once. Her fingers flew to her own mouth and throat, and she produced
the sound so nearly accurate that it sounded like an echo. Next the
sound of ah was made by dropping the jaw a little and letting the child
feel that the tongue was soft and lying in the bed of the jaw with the
teeth more widely separated. She in the same way arranged her own, but
was not so successful as at first, but soon produced the sound
perfectly."
"Eleven such lessons were given, at intervals of three or four days,
until she had acquired all the elements of speech, Miss Sullivan in the
meantime practicing with the child on the lessons received. The first
word spoken was arm, which was at once associated with her arm; this
gave her great delight. She soon learned to pronounce words by herself,
combining the elements she had learned, and used them to communicate
her simple wants. The first connected language she used was a
description she gave Miss Fuller of a visit she had made to Dr. Oliver
Wendell Holmes, in all over 200 words. They were, all but two or three,
pronounced correctly. She now, six years afterward, converses quite
fluently with people who know nothing of the manual alphabet by placing
a couple of fingers on the speaker's lips, her countenance showing
great intentness and brightening as she catches the meaning. Anybody
can understand her answers."
In a beautiful eulogy of Helen Keller in a recent number of Harper's
Magazine, Charles Dudley Warner expresses the opinion that she is the
purest-minded girl of her age in the world.
Edith Thomas, a little inmate of the Perkins Institute for the Blind,
at South Boston, is not only deaf and dumb but also blind. She was a
fellow-pupil with Helen Keller, and in a measure duplicated the rapid
progress of her former playmate. In commenting on progress in learning
to talk the Boston Herald says: "And as the teacher said the word
'Kitty' once or twice she placed the finger-tips of one hand upon the
teacher's lips and with the other hand clasped tightly the teacher's
throat; then, guided by the muscular action of the throat and the
position of the teeth, tongue, and lips, as interpreted by that
marvelous and delicate touch of hers, she said the word 'Kitty' over
and over again distinctly in a very pretty way. She can be called dumb
no longer, and before the summer vacation comes she will have mastered
quite a number of words, and such is her intelligence and patience, in
spite of the loss of three senses, she may yet speak quite readily.
"Her history is very interesting. She was born in Maplewood, and up to
the time of contracting diphtheria and scarlet fever, which occurred
when she was four years old, had been a very healthy child of more than
ordinary quickness and ability. She had attained a greater command of
language than most children of her age. What a contrast between these
'other days,' as she calls them, and the days which followed, when
hearing and sight were completely gone, and gradually the senses of
speech and smell went, too! After the varied instruction of the blind
school the little girl had advanced so far as to make the rest of her
study comparatively easy. The extent of her vocabulary is not
definitely known, but it numbers at least 700 words. Reading, which was
once an irksome task, has become a pleasure to her. Her ideas of
locality and the independence of movement are remarkable, and her
industry and patience are more noticeable from day to day. She has
great ability, and is in every respect a very wonderful child."
According to recent reports, in the vicinity of Rothesay, on the Clyde,
there resides a lady totally deaf and dumb, who, in point of
intelligence, scholarship, and skill in various ways, far excels many
who have all their faculties. Having been educated partly in Paris, she
is a good French scholar, and her general composition is really
wonderful. She has a shorthand system of her own, and when writing
letters, etc., she uses a peculiar machine, somewhat of the nature of a
typewriter.
Among the deaf persons who have acquired fame in literature and the
arts have been Dibil Alkoffay, an Arabian poet of the eighth century;
the tactician, Folard; the German poet, Engelshall; Le Sage; La
Condamine, who composed an epigram on his own infirmity; and Beethoven,
the famous musician. Fernandez, a Spanish painter of the sixteenth
century, was a deaf-mute.
All the world pities the blind, but despite their infirmities many have
achieved the highest glory in every profession. Since Homer there have
been numerous blind poets. Milton lost none of his poetic power after
he had become blind. The Argovienne, Louise Egloff, and Daniel Leopold,
who died in 1753, were blind from infancy. Blacklock, Avisse, Koslov,
and La Mott-Houdart are among other blind poets. Asconius Pedianus, a
grammarian of the first century; Didyme, the celebrated doctor of
Alexandria; the Florentine, Bandolini, so well versed in Latin poetry;
the celebrated Italian grammarian, Pontanus; the German, Griesinger,
who spoke seven languages; the philologist, Grassi, who died in 1831,
and many others have become blind at an age more or less advanced in
their working lives.
Probably the most remarkable of the blind scientists was the
Englishman, Saunderson, who in 1683, in his first year, was deprived of
sight after an attack of small-pox. In spite of his complete blindness
he assiduously studied the sciences, and graduated with honor at the
University of Cambridge in mathematics and optics. His sense of touch
was remarkable. He had a collection of old Roman medals, all of which,
without mistake, he could distinguish by their impressions. He also
seemed to have the ability to judge distance, and was said to have
known how far he had walked, and by the velocity he could even tell the
distance traversed in a vehicle. Among other blind mathematicians was
the Dutchman, Borghes (died in 1652); the French astronomer, the Count
de Pagan, who died in 1655; Galileo; the astronomer, Cassini, and
Berard, who became blind at twenty-three years, and was for a long time
Professor of Mathematics at the College of Briancon.
In the seventeenth century the sculptor, Jean Gonnelli, born in
Tuscany, became blind at twenty years; but in spite of his infirmity he
afterward executed what were regarded as his masterpieces. It is said
that he modeled a portrait of Pope Urban VIII, using as a guide his
hand, passed from time to time over the features. Lomazzo, the Italian
painter of the eighteenth century, is said to have continued his work
after becoming blind.
Several men distinguished for their bravery and ability in the art of
war have been blind. Jean de Troczow, most commonly known by the name
of Ziska, in 1420 lost his one remaining eye, and was afterward known
as the "old blind dog," but, nevertheless, led his troops to many
victories. Froissart beautifully describes the glorious death of the
blind King of Bohemia at the battle of Crecy in 1346. Louis III, King
of Provence; Boleslas III, Duke of Bohemia; Magnus IV, King of Norway,
and Bela II, King of Hungary, were blind. Nathaniel Price, a librarian
of Norwich in the last century, lost his sight in a voyage to America,
which, however, did not interfere in any degree with his duties, for
his books were in as good condition and their location as directly
under his knowledge, during his blindness as they were in his earlier
days. At the present day in New York there is a blind billiard expert
who occasionally gives exhibitions of his prowess.
Feats of Memory.--From time to time there have been individuals,
principally children, who gave wonderful exhibitions of memory, some
for dates, others for names, and some for rapid mental calculation.
Before the Anthropological Society in 1880 Broca exhibited a lad of
eleven, a Piedmontese, named Jacques Inaudi. This boy, with a trick
monkey, had been found earning his livelihood by begging and by solving
mentally in a few minutes the most difficult problems in arithmetic. A
gentleman residing in Marseilles had seen him while soliciting alms
perform most astonishing feats of memory, and brought him to Paris. In
the presence of the Society Broca gave him verbally a task in
multiplication, composed of some trillions to be multiplied by
billions. In the presence of all the members he accomplished his task
in less than ten minutes, and without the aid of pencil and paper,
solving the whole problem mentally. Although not looking intelligent,
and not being able to read or write, he perhaps could surpass any one
in the world in his particular feat. It was stated that he proceeded
from left to right in his calculations, instead of from right to left
in the usual manner. In his personal appearance the only thing
indicative of his wonderful abilities was his high forehead.
An infant prodigy named Oscar Moore was exhibited to the physicians of
Chicago at the Central Music Hall in 1888, and excited considerable
comment at the time. The child was born of mulatto parents at Waco,
Texas, on August 19, 1885, and when only thirteen months old manifested
remarkable mental ability and precocity. S. V. Clevenger, a physician
of Chicago, has described the child as follows:--
"Oscar was born blind and, as frequently occurs in such cases, the
touch-sense compensatingly developed extraordinarily. It was observed
that after touching a person once or twice with his stubby baby
fingers, he could thereafter unfailingly recognize and call by name the
one whose hand he again felt. The optic sense is the only one
defective, for tests reveal that his hearing, taste, and smell are
acute, and the tactile development surpasses in refinement. But his
memory is the most remarkable peculiarity, for when his sister conned
her lessons at home, baby Oscar, less than two years old, would recite
all he heard her read. Unlike some idiot savants, in which category he
is not to be included, who repeat parrot-like what they have once
heard, baby Oscar seems to digest what he hears, and requires at least
more than one repetition of what he is trying to remember, after which
he possesses the information imparted and is able to yield it at once
when questioned. It is not necessary for him to commence at the
beginning, as the possessors of some notable memories were compelled to
do, but he skips about to any required part of his repertoire.
"He sings a number of songs and counts in different languages, but it
is not supposable that he understands every word he utters. If,
however, his understanding develops as it promises to do, he will
become a decided polyglot. He has mastered an appalling array of
statistics, such as the areas in square miles of hundreds of countries,
the population of the world's principal cities, the birthdays of all
the Presidents, the names of all the cities of the United States of
over 10,000 inhabitants, and a lot of mathematical data. He is greatly
attracted by music, and this leads to the expectation that when more
mature he may rival Blind Tom.
"In disposition he is very amiable, but rather grave beyond his years.
He shows great affection for his father, and is as playful and as happy
as the ordinary child. He sleeps soundly, has a good childish appetite,
and appears to be in perfect health. His motions are quick but not
nervous, and are as well coordinated as in a child of ten. In fact, he
impresses one as having the intelligence of a much older child than
three years (now five years), but his height, dentition, and general
appearance indicate the truthfulness of the age assigned. An evidence
of his symmetrical mental development appears in his extreme
inquisitiveness. He wants to understand the meaning of what he is
taught, and some kind of an explanation must be given him for what he
learns. Were his memory alone abnormally great and other faculties
defective, this would hardly be the case; but if so, it cannot at
present be determined.
"His complexion is yellow, with African features, flat nose, thick lips
but not prognathous, superciliary ridges undeveloped, causing the
forehead to protrude a little. His head measures 19 inches in
circumference, on a line with the upper ear-tips, the forehead being
much narrower than the occipitoparietal portion, which is noticeably
very wide. The occiput protrudes backward, causing a forward sweep of
the back of the neck. From the nose-root to the nucha over the head he
measures 13 1/2 inches, and between upper ear-tips across and over the
head 11 inches, which is so close to the eight-and ten-inch standard
that he may be called mesocephalic. The bulging in the vicinity of the
parietal region accords remarkably with speculations upon the location
of the auditory memory in that region, such as those in the American
Naturalist, July, 1888, and the fact that injury of that part of the
brain may cause loss of memory of the meaning of words. It may be that
the premature death of the mother's children has some significance in
connection with Oscar's phenomenal development. There is certainly a
hypernutrition of the parietal brain with atrophy of the optic tract,
both of which conditions could arise from abnormal vascular causes, or
the extra growth of the auditory memory region may have deprived of
nutrition, by pressure, the adjacent optic centers in the occipital
brain. The otherwise normal motion of the eyes indicates the nystagmus
to be functional.
"Sudden exaltation of the memory is often the consequence of grave
brain disease, and in children this symptom is most frequent.
Pritchard, Rush, and other writers upon mental disorders record
interesting instances of remarkable memory-increase before death,
mainly in adults, and during fever and insanity. In simple mania the
memory is often very acute. Romberg tells of a young girl who lost her
sight after an attack of small-pox, but acquired an extraordinary
memory. He calls attention to the fact that the scrofulous and rachitic
diatheses in childhood are sometimes accompanied by this disorder.
Winslow notes that in the incipient state of the brain disease of early
life connected with fevers, disturbed conditions of the cerebral
circulation and vessels, and in affections of advanced life, there is
often witnessed a remarkable exaltation of the memory, which may herald
death by apoplexy.
"Not only has the institution of intelligence in idiots dated from
falls upon the head, but extra mentality has been conferred by such an
event Pritchard tells of three idiot brothers, one of whom, after a
severe head injury, brightened up and became a barrister, while his
brothers remained idiotic. 'Father Mabillon,' says Winslow, 'is said to
have been an idiot until twenty-six years of age, when he fractured his
skull against a stone staircase. He was trepanned. After recovering,
his intellect fully developed itself in a mind endowed with a lively
imagination, an amazing memory, and a zeal for study rarely equaled.'
Such instances can be accounted for by the brain having previously been
poorly nourished by a defective blood supply, which defect was remedied
by the increased circulation afforded by the head-injury.
"It is a commonly known fact that activity of the brain is attended
with a greater head-circulation than when the mind is dull, within
certain limits. Anomalous development of the brain through
blood-vessels, affording an extra nutritive supply to the mental
apparatus, can readily be conceived as occurring before birth, just as
aberrant nutrition elsewhere produces giants from parents of ordinary
size.
"There is but one sense-defect in the child Oscar, his
eyesight-absence, and that is atoned for by his hearing and
touch-acuteness, as it generally is in the blind. Spitzka and others
demonstrate that in such cases other parts of the brain enlarge to
compensate for the atrophic portion which is connected with the
functionless nerves. This, considered with his apparently perfect,
mental and physical health, leaves no reason to suppose that Oscar's
extravagant memory depends upon disease any more than we can suspect
all giants of being sickly, though the anomaly is doubtless due to
pathologic conditions. Of course, there is no predicting what may
develop later in his life, but in any event science will be benefited.
"It is a popular idea that great vigor of memory is often associated
with low-grade intelligence, and cases such as Blind Tom and other
'idiot savants,' who could repeat the contents of a newspaper after a
single reading, justify the supposition. Fearon, on 'Mental Vigor,'
tells of a man who could remember the day that every person had been
buried in the parish for thirty-five years, and could repeat with
unvarying accuracy the name and age of the deceased and the mourners at
the funeral. But he was a complete fool. Out of the line of burials he
had not one idea, could not give an intelligible reply to a single
question, nor be trusted even to feed himself. While memory-development
is thus apparent in some otherwise defective intellects, it has
probably as often or oftener been observed to occur in connection with
full or great intelligence. Edmund Burke, Clarendon, John Locke,
Archbishop Tillotson, and Dr. Johnson were all distinguished for having
great strength of memory. Sir W. Hamilton observed that Grotius,
Pascal, Leibnitz, and Euler were not less celebrated for their
intelligence than for their memory. Ben Jonson could repeat all that
he had written and whole books he had read. Themistocles could call by
name the 20,000 citizens of Athens. Cyrus is said to have known the
name of every soldier in his army. Hortensius, a great Roman orator,
and Seneca had also great memories. Niebuhr, the Danish historian, was
remarkable for his acuteness of memory. Sir James Mackintosh, Dugald
Stewart, and Dr. Gregory had similar reputations.
"Nor does great mental endowment entail physical enfeeblement; for,
with temperance, literary men have reached extreme old age, as in the
cases of Klopstock, Goethe, Chaucer, and the average age attained by
all the signers of the American Declaration of Independence was
sixty-four years, many of them being highly gifted men intellectually.
Thus, in the case of the phenomenal Oscar it cannot be predicted that
he will not develop, as he now promises to do, equal and extraordinary
powers of mind, even though it would be rare in one of his racial
descent, and in the face of the fact that precocity gives no assurance
of adult brightness, for it can be urged that John Stuart Mill read
Greek when four years of age.
"The child is strumous, however, and may die young. His exhibitors, who
are coining him into money, should seek the best medical care for him
and avoid surcharging his memory with rubbish. Proper cultivation of
his special senses, especially the tactile, by competent teachers, will
give Oscar the best chance of developing intellectually and acquiring
an education in the proper sense of the word."
By long custom many men of letters have developed wonderful feats of
memory; and among illiterate persons, by means of points of
association, the power of memory has been little short of marvelous. At
a large hotel in Saratoga there was at one time a negro whose duty was
to take charge of the hats and coats of the guests as they entered the
dining-room and return to each his hat after the meal. It was said
that, without checks or the assistance of the owners, he invariably
returned the right articles to the right persons on request, and no
matter how large the crowd, his limit of memory never seemed to be
reached. Many persons have seen expert players at draughts and chess
who, blindfolded, could carry on numerous games with many competitors
and win most of the matches. To realize what a wonderful feat of memory
this performance is, one need only see the absolute exhaustion of one
of these men after a match. In whist, some experts have been able to
detail the succession of the play of the cards so many hands back that
their competitors had long since forgotten it.
There is reported to be in Johnson County, Missouri, a mathematical
wonder by the name of Rube Fields. At the present day he is between
forty and fifty years of age, and his external appearance indicates
poverty as well as indifference. His temperament is most sluggish; he
rarely speaks unless spoken to, and his replies are erratic.
The boyhood of this strange character was that of an overgrown country
lout with boorish manners and silly mind. He did not and would not go
to school, and he asserts now that if he had done so he "would have
become as big a fool as other people." A shiftless fellow, left to his
own devices, he performed some wonderful feats, and among the many
stories connected with this period of his life is one which describes
how he actually ate up a good-sized patch of sugar cane, simply because
he found it good to his taste.
Yet from this clouded, illiterate mind a wonderful mathematical gift
shines. Just when he began to assert his powers is not known; but his
feats have been remembered for twenty years by his neighbors. A report
says:--
"Give Rube Fields the distance by rail between any two points, and the
dimensions of a car-wheel, and almost as soon as the statement has left
your lips he will tell you the number of revolutions the wheel will
make in traveling over the track. Call four or five or any number of
columns of figures down a page, and when you have reached the bottom he
will announce the sum. Given the number of yards or pounds of articles
and the price, and at once he will return the total cost--and this he
will do all day long, without apparent effort or fatigue.
"A gentleman relates an instance of Fields' knowledge of figures.
After having called several columns of figures for addition, he went
back to the first column, saying that it was wrong, and repeating it,
purposely miscalling the next to the last figure. At once Fields threw
up his hand, exclaiming: 'You didn't call it that way before.'
"Fields' answers come quick and sharp, seemingly by intuition.
Calculations which would require hours to perform are made in less time
than it takes to state the question. The size of the computations seems
to offer no bar to their rapid solution, and answers in which long
lines of figures are reeled off come with perfect ease. In watching the
effort put forth in reaching an answer, there would seem to be some
process going on in the mind, and an incoherent mumbling is often
indulged in, but it is highly probable that Fields does not himself
know how he derives his answers. Certain it is that he is unable to
explain the process, nor has any one ever been able to draw from him
anything concerning it. Almost the only thing he knows about the power
is that he possesses it, and, while he is not altogether averse to
receiving money for his work, he has steadily refused to allow himself
to be exhibited." In reviewing the peculiar endowment of Fields, the
Chicago Record says:--
"How this feat is performed is as much a mystery as the process by
which he solves a problem in arithmetic. He answers no questions. Rapid
mathematicians, men of study, who by intense application and short
methods have become expert, have sought to probe these two mysteries,
but without results. Indeed, the man's intelligence is of so low an
order as to prevent him from aiding those who seek to know. With age,
too, he grows more surly. Of what vast value this 'gift' might be to
the world of science, if coupled with average intelligence, is readily
imagined. That it will ever be understood is unlikely. As it is, the
power staggers belief and makes modern psychology, with its study of
brain-cells, stand aghast. As to poor Fields himself, he excites only
sympathy. Homeless, unkempt, and uncouth, traveling aimlessly on a
journey which he does not understand, he hugs to his heart a marvelous
power, which he declares to be a gift from God. To his weak mind it
lifts him above his fellow-men, and yet it is as useless to the world
as a diamond in a dead man's hand."
Wolf-Children.--It is interesting to know to what degree a human being
will resemble a beast when deprived of the association with man. We
seem to get some insight to this question in the investigation of so
called cases of "wolf-children."
Saxo Grammaticus speaks of a bear that kidnapped a child and kept it a
long time in his den. The tale of the Roman she-wolf is well known, and
may have been something more than a myth, as there have been several
apparently authentic cases reported in which a child has been rescued
from its associations with a wolf who had stolen it some time
previously. Most of the stories of wolf-children come from India.
According to Oswald in Ball's "Jungle Life in India," there is the
following curious account of two children in the Orphanage of Sekandra,
near Agra, who had been discovered among wolves: "A trooper sent by a
native Governor of Chandaur to demand payment of some revenue was
passing along the bank of the river about noon when he saw a large
female wolf leave her den, followed by three whelps and a little boy.
The boy went on all-fours, and when the trooper tried to catch him he
ran as fast as the whelps, and kept up with the old one. They all
entered the den, but were dug out by the people and the boy was
secured. He struggled hard to rush into every hole or gully they came
near. When he saw a grown-up person he became alarmed, but tried to fly
at children and bite them. He rejected cooked meat with disgust, but
delighted in raw flesh and bones, putting them under his paws like a
dog." The other case occurred at Chupra, in the Presidency of Bengal.
In March, 1843, a Hindoo mother went out to help her husband in the
field, and while she was cutting rice her little boy was carried off by
a wolf. About a year afterward a wolf, followed by several cubs and a
strange, ape-like creature, was seen about ten miles from Chupra. After
a lively chase the nondescript was caught and recognized (by the mark
of a burn on his knee) as the Hindoo boy that had disappeared in the
rice-field. This boy would not eat anything but raw flesh, and could
never be taught to speak, but expressed his emotions in an inarticulate
mutter. His elbows and the pans of his knees had become horny from
going on all-fours with his foster mother. In the winter of 1850 this
boy made several attempts to regain his freedom, and in the following
spring he escaped for good and disappeared in the jungle-forest of
Bhangapore.
The Zoologist for March, 1888, reproduced a remarkable pamphlet printed
at Plymouth in 1852, which had been epitomized in the Lancet. This
interesting paper gives an account of wolves nurturing small children
in their dens. Six cases are given of boys who have been rescued from
the maternal care of wolves. In one instance the lad was traced from
the moment of his being carried off by a lurking wolf while his parents
were working in the field, to the time when, after having been
recovered by his mother six years later, he escaped from her into the
jungle. In all these cases certain marked features reappear. In the
first, the boy was very inoffensive, except when teased, and then he
growled surlily. He would eat anything thrown to him, but preferred
meat, which he devoured with canine voracity. He drank a pitcher of
buttermilk at one gulp, and could not be induced to wear clothing even
in the coldest weather. He showed the greatest fondness for bones, and
gnawed them contentedly, after the manner of his adopted parents. This
child had coarse features, a repulsive countenance, was filthy in his
habits, and could not articulate a word.
In another case the child was kidnapped at three and recovered at nine.
He muttered, but could not articulate. As in the other case, he could
not be enticed to wear clothes. From constantly being on all-fours the
front of this child's knees and his elbows had become hardened. In the
third case the father identified a son who had been carried away at the
age of six, and was found four years afterward. The intellectual
deterioration was not so marked. The boy understood signs, and his
hearing was exceedingly acute; when directed by movements of the hands
to assist the cultivators in turning out cattle, he readily
comprehended what was asked of him; yet this lad, whose vulpine career
was so short, could neither talk nor utter any decidedly articulate
sound.
The author of the pamphlet expressed some surprise that there was no
case on record in which a grown man had been found in such association.
This curious collection of cases of wolf-children is attributed to
Colonel Sleeman, a well-known officer, who is known to have been
greatly interested in the subject, and who for a long time resided in
the forests of India. A copy, now a rarity, is in the South Kensington
Museum.
An interesting case of a wolf-child was reported many years ago in
Chambers' Journal. In the Etwah district, near the banks of the river
Jumna, a boy was captured from the wolves. After a time this child was
restored to his parents, who, however, "found him very difficult to
manage, for he was most fractious and troublesome--in fact, just a
caged wild beast. Often during the night for hours together he would
give vent to most unearthly yells and moans, destroying the rest and
irritating the tempers of his neighbors and generally making night
hideous. On one occasion his people chained him by the waist to a tree
on the outskirts of the village. Then a rather curious incident
occurred. It was a bright moonlight night, and two wolf cubs
(undoubtedly those in whose companionship he had been captured),
attracted by his cries while on the prowl, came to him, and were
distinctly seen to gambol around him with as much familiarity and
affection as if they considered him quite one of themselves. They only
left him on the approach of morning, when movement and stir again arose
in the village. This boy did not survive long. He never spoke, nor did
a single ray of human intelligence ever shed its refining light over
his debased features."
Recently a writer in the Badmington Magazine, in speaking of the
authenticity of wolf-children, says:--
"A jemidar told me that when he was a lad he remembered going, with
others, to see a wolf-child which had been netted. Some time after
this, while staying at an up-country place called Shaporeooundie, in
East Bengal, it was my fortune to meet an Anglo-Indian gentleman who
had been in the Indian civil service for upward of thirty years, and
had traveled about during most of that time; from him I learned all I
wanted to know of wolf-children, for he not only knew of several cases,
but had actually seen and examined, near Agra, a child which had been
recovered from the wolves. The story of Romulus and Remus, which all
schoolboys and the vast majority of grown people regard as a myth,
appears in a different light when one studies the question of
wolf-children, and ascertains how it comes to pass that boys are found
living on the very best terms with such treacherous and rapacious
animals as wolves, sleeping with them in their dens, sharing the raw
flesh of deer and kids which the she-wolf provides, and, in fact,
leading in all essentials the actual life of a wolf.
"A young she-wolf has a litter of cubs, and after a time her instinct
tells her that they will require fresh food. She steals out at night in
quest of prey. Soon she espies a weak place in the fence (generally
constructed of thatching grass and bamboos) which encloses the
compound, or 'unguah,' of a poor villager. She enters, doubtless, in
the hope of securing a kid; and while prowling about inside looks into
a hut where a woman and infant are soundly sleeping. In a moment she
has pounced on the child, and is out of reach before its cries can
attract the villagers. Arriving safely at her den under the rocks, she
drops the little one among her cubs. At this critical time the fate of
the child hangs in the balance. Either it will be immediately torn to
pieces and devoured, or in a most wonderful way remain in the cave
unharmed. In the event of escape, the fact may be accounted for in
several ways. Perhaps the cubs are already gorged when the child is
thrown before them, or are being supplied with solid food before their
carnivorous instinct is awakened, so they amuse themselves by simply
licking the sleek, oily body (Hindoo mothers daily rub their boy babies
with some native vegetable oil) of the infant, and thus it lies in the
nest, by degrees getting the odor of the wolf cubs, after which the
mother wolf will not molest it. In a little time the infant begins to
feel the pangs of hunger, and hearing the cubs sucking, soon follows
their example. Now the adoption is complete, all fear of harm to the
child from wolves has gone, and the foster-mother will guard and
protect it as though it were of her own flesh and blood.
"The mode of progression of these children is on all fours--not, as a
rule, on the hands and feet, but on the knees and elbows. The reason
the knees are used is to be accounted for by the fact that, owing to
the great length of the human leg and thigh in proportion to the length
of the arm, the knee would naturally be brought to the ground, and the
instep and top of the toes would be used instead of the sole and heel
of the almost inflexible foot. Why the elbow should be employed instead
of the hand is less easy to understand, but probably it is better
suited to give support to the head and fore-part of the body.
"Some of these poor waifs have been recovered after spending ten or
more years in the fellowship of wolves, and, though wild and savage at
first, have in time become tractable in some degree. They are rarely
seen to stand upright, unless to look around, and they gnaw bones in
the manner of a dog, holding one end between the forearms and hands,
while snarling and snapping at everybody who approaches too near. The
wolf-child has little except his outward form to show that it is a
human being with a soul. It is a fearful and terrible thing, and hard
to understand, that the mere fact of a child's complete isolation from
its own kind should bring it to such a state of absolute degradation.
Of course, they speak no language, though some, in time, have learned
to make known their wants by signs. When first taken they fear the
approach of adults, and, if possible, will slink out of sight; but
should a child of their own size, or smaller, come near, they will
growl, and even snap and bite at it. On the other hand, the close
proximity of "pariah" dogs or jackals is unresented, in some cases
welcomed; for I have heard of them sharing their food with these
animals, and even petting and fondling them. They have in time been
brought to a cooked-meat diet, but would always prefer raw flesh. Some
have been kept alive after being reclaimed for as long as two years,
but for some reason or other they all sicken and die, generally long
before that time. One would think, however, that, having undoubtedly
robust constitutions, they might be saved if treated in a scientific
manner and properly managed."
Rudyard Kipling, possibly inspired by accounts of these wolf-children
in India, has ingeniously constructed an interesting series of fabulous
stories of a child who was brought up by the beasts of the jungles and
taught their habits and their mode of communication. The ingenious way
in which the author has woven the facts together and interspersed them
with his intimate knowledge of animal-life commends his "Jungle-Book"
as a legitimate source of recreation to the scientific observer.
Among observers mentioned in the "Index Catalogue" who have studied
this subject are Giglioli, Mitra, and Ornstein.
The artificial manufacture of "wild men" or "wild boys" in the Chinese
Empire is shown by recent reports. Macgowan says the traders kidnap a
boy and skin him alive bit by bit, transplanting on the denuded
surfaces the hide of a bear or dog. This process is most tedious and is
by no means complete when the hide is completely transplanted, as the
subject must be rendered mute by destruction of the vocal cords, made
to use all fours in walking, and submitted to such degradation as to
completely blight all reason. It is said that the process is so severe
that only one in five survive. A "wild boy" exhibited in Kiangse had
the entire skin of a dog substituted and walked on all fours. It was
found that he had been kidnapped. His proprietor was decapitated on the
spot. Macgowan says that parasitic monsters are manufactured in China
by a similar process of transplantation. He adds that the deprivation
of light for several years renders the child a great curiosity, if in
conjunction its growth is dwarfed by means of food and drugs, and its
vocal apparatus destroyed. A certain priest subjected a kidnapped boy
to this treatment and exhibited him as a sacred deity. Macgowan
mentions that the child looked like wax, as though continually fed on
lardaceous substances. He squatted with his palms together and was a
driveling idiot. The monk was discovered and escaped, but his temple
was razed.
Equilibrists.--Many individuals have cultivated their senses so acutely
that by the eye and particularly by touch they are able to perform
almost incredible feats of maintaining equilibrium under the most
difficult circumstances Professional rope-walkers have been known in
all times. The Greeks had a particular passion for equilibrists, and
called them "neurobates," "oribates," and "staenobates." Blondin would
have been one of the latter. Antique medals showing equilibrists making
the ascent of an inclined cord have been found. The Romans had walkers
both of the slack-rope and tight-rope Many of the Fathers of the Church
have pronounced against the dangers of these exercises. Among others,
St. John Chrysostom speaks of men who execute movements on inclined
ropes at unheard-of heights. In the ruins of Herculaneum there is still
visible a picture representing an equilibrist executing several
different exercises, especially one in which he dances on a rope to the
tune of a double flute, played by himself. The Romans particularly
liked to witness ascensions on inclined ropes, and sometimes these were
attached to the summits of high hills, and while mounting them the
acrobats performed different pantomimes. It is said that under Charles
VI a Genoese acrobat, on the occasion of the arrival of the Queen of
France, carried in each hand an illuminated torch while descending a
rope stretched from the summit of the towers of Notre Dame to a house
on the Pont au Change. According to Guyot-Daubes, a similar performance
was seen in London in 1547. In this instance the rope was attached to
the highest pinnacle of St. Paul's Cathedral. Under Louis XII an
acrobat named Georges Menustre, during a passage of the King through
Macon, executed several performances on a rope stretched from the grand
tower of the Chateau and the clock of the Jacobins, at a height of 156
feet. A similar performance was given at Milan before the French
Ambassadors, and at Venice under the Doges and the Senate on each St.
Mark's Day, rope-walkers performed at high altitudes. In 1649 a man
attempted to traverse the Seine on a rope placed between the Tour de
Nesles and the Tour du Grand-Prevost. The performance, however, was
interrupted by the fall of the mountebank into the Seine. At subsequent
fairs in France other acrobats have appeared. At the commencement of
this century there was a person named Madame Saqui who astonished the
public with her nimbleness and extraordinary skill in rope walking. Her
specialty was military maneuvers. On a cord 20 meters from the ground
she executed all sorts of military pantomimes without assistance,
shooting off pistols, rockets, and various colored fires. Napoleon
awarded her the title of the first acrobat of France. She gave a
performance as late as 1861 at the Hippodrome of Paris.
In 1814 there was a woman called "La Malaga," who, in the presence of
the allied sovereigns at Versailles, made an ascension on a rope 200
feet above the Swiss Lake.
In the present generation probably the most famous of all the
equilibrists was Blondin. This person, whose real name was Emile
Gravelet, acquired a universal reputation; about 1860 he traversed the
Niagara Falls on a cable at an elevation of nearly 200 feet. Blondin
introduced many novelties in his performances. Sometimes he would
carry a man over on his shoulders; again he would eat a meal while on
his wire; cook and eat an omelet, using a table and ordinary cooking
utensils, all of which he kept balanced. In France Blondin was almost
the patron saint of the rope-walkers; and at the present day the
performers imitate his feats, but never with the same grace and
perfection.
In 1882 an acrobat bearing the natural name of Arsens Blondin traversed
one river after another in France on a wire stretched at high
altitudes. With the aid of a balancing-rod he walked the rope
blindfolded; with baskets on his feet; sometimes he wheeled persons
over in a wheelbarrow. He was a man of about thirty, short, but
wonderfully muscled and extremely supple.
It is said that a negro equilibrist named Malcom several times
traversed the Meuse at Sedan on a wire at about a height of 100 feet.
Once while attempting this feat, with his hands and feet shackled with
iron chains, allowing little movement, the support on one side fell,
after the cable had parted, and landed on the spectators, killing a
young girl and wounding many others. Malcom was precipitated into the
river, but with wonderful presence of mind and remarkable strength he
broke his bands and swam to the shore, none the worse for his high
fall; he immediately helped in attention to his wounded spectators. A
close inspection of all the exhibitionists of this class will show that
they are of superior physique and calm courage. They only acquire their
ability after long gymnastic exercise, as well as actual practice on
the rope. Most of these persons used means of balancing themselves,
generally a long and heavy pole; but some used nothing but their
outstretched arms. In 1895, at the Royal Aquarium in London, there was
an individual who slowly mounted a long wire reaching to the top of
this huge structure, and, after having made the ascent, without the aid
of any means of balancing but his arms, slid the whole length of the
wire, landing with enormous velocity into an outstretched net.
The equilibrists mentioned thus far have invariably used a tightly
stretched rope or wire; but there are a number of persons who perform
feats, of course not of such magnitude, on a slack wire, in which they
have to defy not only the force of gravity, but the to-and-fro motion
of the cable as well. It is particularly with the Oriental performers
that we see this exhibition. Some use open parasols, which, with their
Chinese or Japanese costumes, render the performance more picturesque;
while others seem to do equally well without such adjuncts. There have
been performers of this class who play with sharp daggers while
maintaining themselves on thin and swinging wires.
Another class of equilibrists are those who maintain the upright
position resting on their heads with their feet in the air. At the
Hippodrome in Paris some years since there was a man who remained in
this position seven minutes and ate a meal during the interval. There
were two clowns at the Cirque Franconi who duplicated this feat, and
the program called their dinner "Un dejouner en tete-a-tete." Some
other persons perform wonderful feats of a similar nature on an
oscillating trapeze, and many similar performances have been witnessed
by the spectators of our large circuses.
The "human pyramids" are interesting, combining, as they do, wonderful
power of maintaining equilibrium with agility and strength. The
rapidity with which they are formed and are tumbled to pieces is
marvelous they sometimes include as many as 16 persons men, women, and
children.
The exhibitions given by the class of persons commonly designated as
"jugglers" exemplify the perfect control that by continual practice one
may obtain over his various senses and muscles. The most wonderful
feats of dexterity are thus reduced into mere automatic movements.
Either standing, sitting, mounted on a horse, or even on a wire, they
are able to keep three four, five, and even six balls in continual
motion in the air. They use articles of the greatest difference in
specific gravity in the same manner. A juggler called "Kara," appearing
in London and Paris in the summer of 1895, juggled with an open
umbrella, an eye-glass, and a traveling satchel, and received each
after its course in the air with unerring precision. Another man called
"Paul Cinquevalli," well known in this country, does not hesitate to
juggle with lighted lamps or pointed knives. The tricks of the clowns
with their traditional pointed felt hats are well known. Recently
there appeared in Philadelphia a man who received six such hats on his
head, one on top of the other, thrown by his partner from the rear of
the first balcony of the theater. Others will place a number of rings
on their fingers, and with a swift and dexterous movement toss them all
in the air, catching them again all on one finger. Without resorting to
the fabulous method of Columbus, they balance eggs on a table, and in
extraordinary ways defy all the powers of gravity.
In India and China we see the most marvelous of the knife-jugglers.
With unerring skill they keep in motion many pointed knives, always
receiving them at their fall by the handles. They throw their
implements with such precision that one often sees men, who, placing
their partner against a soft board, will stand at some distance and so
pen him in with daggers that he cannot move until some are withdrawn,
marking a silhouette of his form on the board,--yet never once does one
as much as graze the skin. With these same people the foot-jugglers are
most common. These persons, both made and female, will with their feet
juggle substances and articles that it requires several assistants to
raise.
A curious trick is given by Rousselet in his magnificent work entitled
"L'Inde des Rajahs," and quoted by Guyot-Daubes. It is called in India
the "dance of the eggs." The dancer, dressed in a rather short skirt,
places on her head a large wheel made of light wood, and at regular
intervals having hanging from it pieces of thread, at the ends of which
are running knots kept open by beads of glass. She then brings forth a
basket of eggs, and passes them around for inspection to assure her
spectators of their genuineness. The monotonous music commences and the
dancer sets the wheel on her head in rapid motion; then, taking an egg,
with a quick movement she puts it on one of the running knots and
increases the velocity of the revolution of the wheel by gyrations
until the centrifugal force makes each cord stand out in an almost
horizontal line with the circumference of the wheel. Then one after
another she places the eggs on the knots of the cord, until all are
flying about her head in an almost horizontal position. At this moment
the dance begins, and it is almost impossible to distinguish the
features of the dancer. She continues her dance, apparently indifferent
to the revolving eggs. At the velocity with which they revolve the
slightest false movement would cause them to knock against one another
and surely break. Finally, with the same lightning-like movements, she
removes them one by one, certainly the most delicate part of the trick,
until they are all safely laid away in the basket from which they came,
and then she suddenly brings the wheel to a stop; after this wonderful
performance, lasting possibly thirty minutes, she bows herself out.
A unique Japanese feat is to tear pieces of paper into the form of
butterflies and launch them into the air about a vase full of flowers;
then with a fan to keep them in motion, making them light on the
flowers, fly away, and return, after the manner of several living
butterflies, without allowing one to fall to the ground.
Marksmen.--It would be an incomplete paper on the acute development of
the senses that did not pay tribute to the men who exhibit marvelous
skill with firearms. In the old frontier days in the Territories, the
woodsmen far eclipsed Tell with his bow or Robin Hood's famed band by
their unerring aim with their rifles. It is only lately that there
disappeared in this country the last of many woodsmen, who, though
standing many paces away and without the aid of the improved sights of
modern guns, could by means of a rifle-ball, with marvelous precision,
drive a nail "home" that had been placed partly in a board. The experts
who shoot at glass balls rarely miss, and when we consider the number
used each year, the proportion of inaccurate shots is surprisingly
small. Ira Paine, Doctor Carver, and others have been seen in their
marvelous performances by many people of the present generation. The
records made by many of the competitors of the modern army-shooting
matches are none the less wonderful, exemplifying as they do the degree
of precision that the eye may attain and the control which may be
developed over the nerves and muscles. The authors know of a countryman
who successfully hunted squirrels and small game by means of pebbles
thrown with his hand.
Physiologic wonders are to be found in all our modern sports and games.
In billiards, base-ball, cricket, tennis, etc., there are experts who
are really physiologic curiosities. In the trades and arts we see
development of the special senses that is little less than marvelous.
It is said that there are workmen in Krupp's gun factory in Germany who
have such control over the enormous trip hammers that they can place a
watch under one and let the hammer fall, stopping it with unerring
precision just on the crystal. An expert tool juggler in one of the
great English needle factories, in a recent test of skill, performed
one of the most delicate mechanical feats imaginable. He took a common
sewing needle of medium size (length 1 5/8 inches) and drilled a hole
through its entire length from eye to point--the opening being just
large enough to admit the passage of a very fine hair. Another workman
in a watch-factory of the United States drilled a hole through a hair
of his beard and ran a fiber of silk through it.
Ventriloquists, or "two-voiced men," are interesting anomalies of the
present day; it is common to see a person who possesses the power of
speaking with a voice apparently from the epigastrium. Some acquire
this faculty, while with others it is due to a natural resonance,
formed, according to Dupont, in the space between the third and fourth
ribs and their cartilaginous union and the middle of the first portion
of the sternum. Examination of many of these cases proves that the
vibration is greatest here. It is certain that ventriloquists have
existed for many centuries. It is quite possible that some of the old
Pagan oracles were simply the deceptions of priests by means of
ventriloquism.
Dupont, Surgeon-in-chief of the French Army about a century since,
examined minutely an individual professing to be a ventriloquist. With
a stuffed fox on his lap near his epigastrium, he imitated a
conversation with the fox. By lying on his belly, and calling to some
one supposed to be below the surface of the ground, he would imitate an
answer seeming to come from the depths of the earth. With his belly on
the ground he not only made the illusion more complete, but in this way
he smothered "the epigastric voice."
He was always noticed to place the inanimate objects with which he held
conversations near his umbilicus.
Ventriloquists must not be confounded with persons who by means of
skilful mechanisms, creatures with movable fauces, etc., imitate
ventriloquism. The latter class are in no sense of the word true
ventriloquists, but simulate the anomaly by quickly changing the tones
of their voice in rapid succession, and thus seem to make their puppets
talk in many different voices. After having acquired the ability to
suddenly change the tone of their voice, they practice imitations of
the voices of the aged, of children, dialects, and feminine tones, and,
with a set of mechanical puppets, are ready to appear as
ventriloquists. By contraction of the pharyngeal and laryngeal muscles
they also imitate tones from a distance. Some give their performance
with little labial movement, but close inspection of the ordinary
performer of this class shows visible movements of his lips. The true
ventriloquist pretends only to speak from the belly and needs no
mechanical assistance.
The wonderful powers of mimicry displayed by expert ventriloquists are
marvelous; they not only imitate individuals and animals, but do not
hesitate to imitate a conglomeration of familiar sounds and noises in
such a manner as to deceive their listeners into believing that they
hear the discussions of an assemblage of people. The following
description of an imitation of a domestic riot by a Chinese
ventriloquist is given by the author of "The Chinaman at Home" and well
illustrates the extent of their abilities: "The ventriloquist was
seated behind a screen, where there were only a chair, a table, a fan,
and a ruler. With this ruler he rapped on the table to enforce silence,
and when everybody had ceased speaking there was suddenly heard the
barking of a dog. Then we heard the movements of a woman. She had been
waked by the dog and was shaking her husband. We were just expecting to
hear the man and wife talking together when a child began to cry. To
pacify it the mother gave it food; we could hear it drinking and crying
at the same time. The mother spoke to it soothingly and then rose to
change its clothes. Meanwhile another child had wakened and was
beginning to make a noise. The father scolded it, while the baby
continued crying. By-and-by the whole family went back to bed and fell
asleep. The patter of a mouse was heard. It climbed up some vase and
upset it. We heard the clatter of the vase as it fell. The woman
coughed in her sleep. Then cries of "Fire! fire!" were heard. The mouse
had upset the lamp; the bed curtains were on fire. The husband and wife
waked up, shouted, and screamed, the children cried, people came
running and shouting. Children cried, dogs barked, squibs and crackers
exploded. The fire brigade came racing up. Water was pumped up in
torrents and hissed in the flames. The representation was so true to
life that every one rose to his feet and was starting away when a
second blow of the ruler on the table commanded silence. We rushed
behind the screen, but there was nothing there except the
ventriloquist, his table, his chair, and his ruler."
Athletic Feats.--The ancients called athletes those who were noted for
their extraordinary agility, force, and endurance. The history of
athletics is not foreign to that of medicine, but, on the contrary, the
two are in many ways intimately blended. The instances of feats of
agility and endurance are in every sense of the word examples of
physiologic and functional anomalies, and have in all times excited the
interest and investigation of capable physicians.
The Greeks were famous for their love of athletic pastimes; and
classical study serves powerfully to strengthen the belief that no
institution exercised greater influence than the public contests of
Greece in molding national character and producing that admirable type
of personal and intellectual beauty that we see reflected in her art
and literature. These contests were held at four national festivals,
the Olympian, the Pythian, the Nemean, and the Isthmean games. On these
occasions every one stopped labor, truce was declared between the
States, and the whole country paid tribute to the contestants for the
highly-prized laurels of these games. Perhaps the enthusiasm shown in
athletics and interest in physical development among the Greeks has
never been equaled by any other people. Herodotus and all the Greek
writers to Plutarch have elaborated on the glories of the Greek
athlete, and tell us of the honors rendered to the victors by the
spectators and the vanquished, dwelling with complacency on the fact
that in accepting the laurel they cared for nothing but honor. The
Romans in "ludi publici," as they called their games, were from first
to last only spectators; but in Greece every eligible person was an
active participant. In the regimen of diet and training the physicians
from the time of Hippocrates, and even before, have been the
originators and professional advisers of the athlete. The change in the
manner of living of athletes, if we can judge from the writings of
Hippocrates, was anterior to his time; for in Book V of the "Epidemics"
we read of Bias, who, "suapte nature vorax, in choleram-morbum incidit
ex carnium esu, praecipueque suillarum crudarum, etc."
From the time of the well-known fable of the hero who, by practicing
daily from his birth, was able to lift a full-grown bull, thus
gradually accustoming himself to the increased weight, physiologists
and scientists have collaborated with the athlete in evolving the
present ideas and system of training. In his aphorisms Hippocrates
bears witness to the dangers of over-exercise and superabundant
training, and Galen is particularly averse to an art which so
preternaturally develops the constitution and nature of man; many
subsequent medical authorities believed that excessive development of
the human frame was necessarily followed by a compensatory shortening
of life.
The foot-race was the oldest of the Greek institutions, and in the
first of the Olympiads the "dromos," a course of about 200 yards, was
the only contest; but gradually the "dialos," in which the course was
double that of the dromos, was introduced, and, finally, tests of
endurance as well as speed were instituted in the long-distance races
and the contests of racing in heavy armor, which were so highly
commended by Plato as preparation for the arduous duties of a soldier.
Among the Greeks we read of Lasthenes the Theban, who vanquished a
horse in the course; of Polymnestor, who chased and caught a hare; and
Philonides, the courier of Alexander the Great, who in nine hours
traversed the distance between the Greek cities Sicyone and Elis, a
distance of over 150 miles. We read of the famous soldier of Marathon,
who ran to announce the victory to the Magistrates of Athens and fell
dead at their feet. In the Olympian games at Athens in 1896 this
distance (about 26 miles) was traversed in less than three hours.
It is said of Euchidas, who carried the fire necessary for the
sacrifices which were to replace those which the Persians had spoiled,
that he ran a thousand stadia (about 125 miles) and fell dead at the
end of his mission. The Roman historians have also recited the
extraordinary feats of the couriers of their times. Pliny speaks of an
athlete who ran 235 kilometers (almost 150 miles) without once
stopping. He also mentions a child who ran almost half this distance.
In the Middle Ages the Turks had couriers of almost supernatural
agility and endurance. It is said that the distance some of them would
traverse in twenty-four hours was 120 miles, and that it was common for
them to make the round trip from Constantinople to Adrianople, a
distance of 80 leagues, in two days. They were dressed very lightly,
and by constant usage the soles of their feet were transformed into a
leathery consistency. In the last century in the houses of the rich
there were couriers who preceded the carriages and were known as
"Basques," who could run for a very long time without apparent fatigue.
In France there is a common proverb, "Courir comme un Basque." Rabelais
says: "Grand-Gousier depeche le Basque son laquais pour querir
Gargantua en toute hate."
In the olden times the English nobility maintained running footmen who,
living under special regimen and training, were enabled to traverse
unusual distances without apparent fatigue. There is an anecdote of a
nobleman living in a castle not far from Edinburgh, who one evening
charged his courier to carry a letter to that city. The next morning
when he arose he found this valet sleeping in his antechamber. The
nobleman waxed wroth, but the courier gave him a response to the
letter. He had traveled 70 miles during the night. It is said that one
of the noblemen under Charles II in preparing for a great dinner
perceived that one of the indispensable pieces of his service was
missing. His courier was dispatched in great haste to another house in
his domain, 15 miles distant, and returned in two hours with the
necessary article, having traversed a distance of over 30 miles. It is
also said that a courier carrying a letter to a London physician
returned with the potion prescribed within twenty-four hours, having
traversed 148 miles. There is little doubt of the ability of these
couriers to tire out any horse. The couriers who accompany the
diligences in Spain often fatigue the animals who draw the vehicles.
At the present time in this country the Indians furnish examples of
marvelous feats of running. The Tauri-Mauri Indians, who live in the
heart of the Sierra Madre Mountains, are probably the most wonderful
long-distance runners in the world. Their name in the language of the
mountain Mexicans means foot-runners; and there is little doubt that
they perform athletic feats which equal the best in the days of the
Olympian games. They are possibly the remnants of the wonderful runners
among the Indian tribes in the beginning of this century. There is an
account of one of the Tauri-Mauri who was mail carrier between
Guarichic and San Jose de los Cruces, a distance of 50 miles of as
rough, mountainous road as ever tried a mountaineer's lungs and limbs.
Bareheaded and barelegged, with almost no clothing, this man made this
trip each day, and, carrying on his back a mail-pouch weighing 40
pounds, moved gracefully and easily over his path, from time to time
increasing his speed as though practicing, and then again more slowly
to smoke a cigarette. The Tauri-Mauri are long-limbed and slender,
giving the impression of being above the average height. There is
scarcely any flesh on their puny arms, but their legs are as muscular
as those of a greyhound. In short running they have the genuine
professional stride, something rarely seen in other Indian racers. In
traversing long distances they leap and bound like deer.
"Deerfoot," the famous Indian long-distance runner, died on the
Cattaraugus Reservation in January, 1896. His proper name was Louis
Bennett, the name "Deerfoot" having been given to him for his prowess
in running. He was born on the reservation in 1828. In 1861 he went to
England, where he defeated the English champion runners. In April,
1863, he ran 11 miles in London in fifty-six minutes fifty-two seconds,
and 12 miles in one hour two minutes and two and one-half seconds, both
of which have stood as world's records ever since.
In Japan, at the present day, the popular method of conveyance, both in
cities and in rural districts, is the two-wheeled vehicle, looking like
a baby-carriage, known to foreigners as the jinrickisha, and to the
natives as the kuruma. In the city of Tokio there is estimated to be
38,000 of these little carriages in use. They are drawn by coolies, of
whose endurance remarkable stories are told. These men wear light
cotton breeches and a blue cotton jacket bearing the license number,
and the indispensable umbrella hat. In the course of a journey in hot
weather the jinrickisha man will gradually remove most of his raiment
and stuff it into the carriage. In the rural sections he is covered
with only two strips of cloth, one wrapped about his head and the other
about his loins. It is said that when the roadway is good, these "human
horses" prefer to travel bare-footed; when working in the mud they wrap
a piece of straw about each big toe, to prevent slipping and to give
them a firmer grip. For any of these men a five-mile spurt on a good
road without a breathing spell is a small affair. A pair of them will
roll a jinrickisha along a country road at the rate of four miles an
hour, and they will do this eight hours a day. The general average of
the distance traversed in a day is 25 miles. Cockerill, who has
recently described these men, says that the majority of them die early.
The terrible physical strain brings on hypertrophy and valvular
diseases of the heart, and many of them suffer from hernia.
Occasionally one sees a veteran jinrickisha man, and it is interesting
to note how tenderly he is helped by his confreres. They give him
preference as regards wages, help push his vehicle up heavy grades, and
show him all manner of consideration.
Figure 180 represents two Japanese porters and their usual load, which
is much more difficult to transport than a jinrickisha carriage. In
other Eastern countries, palanquins and other means of conveyance are
still borne on the shoulders of couriers, and it is not so long since
our ancestors made their calls in Sedan-chairs borne by sturdy porters.
Some of the letter-carriers of India make a daily journey of 30 miles.
They carry in one hand a stick, at the extremity of which is a ring
containing several little plates of iron, which, agitated during the
course, produce a loud noise designed to keep off ferocious beasts and
serpents. In the other hand they carry a wet cloth, with which they
frequently refresh themselves by wiping the countenance. It is said
that a regular Hindustanee carrier, with a weight of 80 pounds on his
shoulder,--carried, of course, in two divisions, hung on his neck by a
yoke,--will, if properly paid, lope along over 100 miles in twenty-four
hours--a feat which would exhaust any but the best trained runners.
The "go-as-you-please" pedestrians, whose powers during the past years
have been exhibited in this country and in England, have given us
marvelous examples of endurance, over 600 miles having been
accomplished in a six-days' contest. Hazael, the professional
pedestrian, has run over 450 miles in ninety-nine hours, and Albert has
traveled over 500 miles in one hundred and ten hours. Rowell, Hughes,
and Fitzgerald have astonishingly high records for long-distance
running, comparing favorably with the older, and presumably mythical,
feats of this nature. In California, C. A. Harriman of Truckee in
April, 1883, walked twenty-six hours without once resting, traversing
122 miles.
For the purpose of comparison we give the best modern records for
running:--
100 Yards.--9 3/5 seconds, made by Edward Donavan, at Natick, Mass.,
September 2, 1895.
220 Yards.--21 3/5 seconds, made by Harry Jewett, at Montreal,
September 24, 1892.
Quarter-Mile.--47 3/4 seconds, made by W. Baker, at Boston, Mass., July
1, 1886.
Half-Mile.--1 minute 53 2/3 seconds, made by C. J. Kirkpatrick, at
Manhattan Field, New York, September 21, 1895.
1 Mile.--4 minutes 12 3/4 seconds, made by W. G. George, at London,
England, August 23, 1886.
5 Miles.--24 minutes 40 seconds, made by J. White, in England, May 11,
1863.
10 Miles.--51 minutes 6 3/5 seconds, made by William Cummings, at
London, England, September 18,1895.
25 Miles.--2 hours 33 minutes 44 seconds, made by G. A. Dunning, at
London, England, December 26, 1881.
50 Miles.--5 hours 55 minutes 4 1/2 seconds, made by George Cartwright,
at London, England, February 21, 1887.
75 Miles.--8 hours 48 minutes 30 seconds, made by George Littlewood, at
London, England, November 24, 1884.
100 Miles.--13 hours 26 minutes 30 seconds, made by Charles Rowell at
New York, February 27, 1882.
In instances of long-distance traversing, rapidity is only a secondary
consideration, the remarkable fact being in the endurance of fatigue
and the continuity of the exercise. William Gale walked 1500 miles in a
thousand consecutive hours, and then walked 60 miles every twenty-four
hours for six weeks on the Lillie Bridge cinder path. He was five feet
five inches tall, forty-nine years of age, and weighed 121 pounds, and
was but little developed muscularly. He was in good health during his
feat; his diet for the twenty-four hours was 16 pounds of meat, five or
six eggs, some cocoa, two quarts of milk, a quart of tea, and
occasionally a glass of bitter ale, but never wine nor spirits. Strange
to say, he suffered from constipation, and took daily a compound
rhubarb pill. He was examined at the end of his feat by Gant. His pulse
was 75, strong, regular, and his heart was normal. His temperature was
97.25 degrees F., and his hands and feet warm; respirations were deep
and averaged 15 a minute. He suffered from frontal headache and was
drowsy. During the six weeks he had lost only seven pounds, and his
appetite maintained its normal state.
Zeuner of Cincinnati refers to John Snyder of Dunkirk, whose
walking-feats were marvelous. He was not an impostor. During
forty-eight hours he was watched by the students of the Ohio Medical
College, who stated that he walked constantly; he assured them that it
did not rest him to sit down, but made him uncomfortable. The
celebrated Weston walked 5000 miles in one hundred days, but Snyder was
said to have traveled 25,000 miles in five hundred days and was
apparently no more tired than when he began.
Recently there was a person who pushed a wheelbarrow from San Francisco
to New York in one hundred and eighteen days. In 1809 the celebrated
Captain Barclay wagered that he could walk 1000 miles in one thousand
consecutive hours, and gained his bet with some hours to spare. In 1834
Ernest Mensen astonished all Europe by his pedestrian exploits. He was
a Norwegian sailor, who wagered that he could walk from Paris to Moscow
in fifteen days. On June 25, 1834, at ten o'clock A.M., he entered the
Kremlin, after having traversed 2500 kilometers (1550 miles) in
fourteen days and eighteen hours. His performances all over Europe were
so marvelous as to be almost incredible. In 1836, in the service of the
East India Company, he was dispatched from Calcutta to Constantinople,
across Central Asia. He traversed the distance in fifty-nine days,
accomplishing 9000 kilometers (5580 miles) in one-third less time than
the most rapid caravan. He died while attempting to discover the source
of the Nile, having reached the village of Syang.
A most marvelous feat of endurance is recorded in England in the first
part of this century. It is said that on a wager Sir Andrew Leith Hay
and Lord Kennedy walked two days and a night under pouring rain, over
the Grampian range of mountains, wading all one day in a bog. The
distance traversed was from a village called Banchory on the river Dee
to Inverness. This feat was accomplished without any previous
preparation, both men starting shortly after the time of the wager.
Riders.--The feats of endurance accomplished by the couriers who ride
great distances with many changes of horses are noteworthy. According
to a contemporary medical journal there is, in the Friend of India, an
account of the Thibetan couriers who ride for three weeks with
intervals of only half an hour to eat and change horses. It is the duty
of the officials at the Dak bungalows to see that the courier makes no
delay, and even if dying he is tied to his horse and sent to the next
station. The celebrated English huntsman, "Squire" Osbaldistone, on a
wager rode 200 miles in seven hours ten minutes and four seconds. He
used 28 horses; and as one hour twenty-two minutes and fifty-six
seconds were allowed for stoppages, the whole time, changes and all,
occupied in accomplishing this wonderful feat was eight hours and
forty-two minutes. The race was ridden at the Newmarket Houghton
Meeting over a four-mile course. It is said that a Captain Horne of the
Madras Horse Artillery rode 200 miles on Arab horses in less than ten
hours along the road between Madras and Bangalore. When we consider the
slower speed of the Arab horses and the roads and climate of India,
this performance equals the 200 miles in the shorter time about an
English race track and on thoroughbreds. It is said that this wonderful
horseman lost his life in riding a horse named "Jumping Jenny" 100
miles a day for eight days. The heat was excessive, and although the
horse was none the worse for the performance, the Captain died from the
exposure he encountered. There is a record of a Mr. Bacon of the Bombay
Civil Service, who rode one camel from Bombay to Allygur (perhaps 800
miles) in eight days.
As regards the physiology of the runners and walkers, it is quite
interesting to follow the effects of training on the respiration,
whereby in a measure is explained the ability of these persons to
maintain their respiratory function, although excessively exercising. A
curious discussion, persisted in since antiquity, is as to the supposed
influence of the spleen on the ability of couriers. For ages runners
have believed that the spleen was a hindrance to their vocation, and
that its reduction was followed by greater agility on the course. With
some, this opinion is perpetuated to the present day. In France there
is a proverb, "Courir comme un derate." To reduce the size of the
spleen, the Greek athletes used certain beverages, the composition of
which was not generally known; the Romans had a similar belief and
habit Pliny speaks of a plant called equisetum, a decoction of which
taken for three days after a fast of twenty-four hours would effect
absorption of the spleen. The modern pharmacopeia does not possess any
substance having a similar virtue, although quinin has been noticed to
diminish the size of the spleen when engorged in malarial fevers.
Strictly speaking, however, the facts are not analogous. Hippocrates
advises a moxa of mushrooms applied over the spleen for melting or
dissolving it. Godefroy Moebius is said to have seen in the village of
Halberstadt a courier whose spleen had been cauterized after incision;
and about the same epoch (seventeenth century) some men pretended to be
able to successfully extirpate the spleen for those who desired to be
couriers. This operation we know to be one of the most delicate in
modern surgery, and as we are progressing with our physiologic
knowledge of the spleen we see nothing to justify the old theory in
regard to its relations to agility and coursing.
Swimming.--The instances of endurance that we see in the aquatic sports
are equally as remarkable as those that we find among the runners and
walkers. In the ancient days the Greeks, living on their various
islands and being in a mild climate, were celebrated for their prowess
as swimmers. Socrates relates the feats of swimming among the
inhabitants of Delos. The journeys of Leander across the Hellespont are
well celebrated in verse and prose, but this feat has been easily
accomplished many times since, and is hardly to be classed as
extraordinary. Herodotus says that the Macedonians were skilful
swimmers; and all the savage tribes about the borders of waterways are
found possessed of remarkable dexterity and endurance in swimming.
In 1875 the celebrated Captain Webb swam from Dover to Calais. On
landing he felt extremely cold, but his body was as warm as when he
started. He was exhausted and very sleepy, falling in deep slumber on
his way to the hotel. On getting into bed his temperature was 98
degrees F. and his pulse normal. In five hours he was feverish, his
temperature rising to 101 degrees F. During the passage he was blinded
from the salt water in his eyes and the spray beating against his face.
He strongly denied the newspaper reports that he was delirious, and
after a good rest was apparently none the worse for the task. In 1876
he again traversed this passage with the happiest issue. In 1883 he was
engaged by speculators to swim the rapids at Niagara, and in attempting
this was overcome by the powerful currents, and his body was not
recovered for some days after. The passage from Dover to Calais has
been duplicated.
In 1877 Cavill, another Englishman, swam from Cape Griz-Nez to South
Forland in less than thirteen hours. In 1880 Webb swam and floated at
Scarborough for seventy-four consecutive hours--of course, having no
current to contend with and no point to reach. This was merely a feat
of staying in the water. In London in 1881, Beckwith, swimming ten
hours a day over a 32-lap course for six days, traversed 94 miles.
Since the time of Captain Webb, who was the pioneer of modern
long-distance swimming, many men have attempted and some have
duplicated his feats; but these foolhardy performances have in late
years been diminishing, and many of the older feats are forbidden by
law.
Jumpers and acrobatic tumblers have been popular from the earliest
time. By the aid of springing boards and weights in their hands, the
old jumpers covered great distances. Phayllus of Croton is accredited
with jumping the incredible distance of 55 feet, and we have the
authority of Eustache and Tzetzes that this jump is genuine. In the
writings of many Greek and Roman historians are chronicled jumps of
about 50 feet by the athletes; if they are true, the modern jumpers
have greatly degenerated. A jump of over 20 feet to-day is considered
very clever, the record being 29 feet seven inches with weights, and 23
feet eight inches without weights, although much greater distances have
been jumped with the aid of apparatus, but never an approximation to 50
feet. The most surprising of all these athletes are the tumblers, who
turn somersaults over several animals arranged in a row. Such feats are
not only the most amusing sights of a modern circus, but also the most
interesting as well. The agility of these men is marvelous, and the
force with which they throw themselves in the air apparently enables
them to defy gravity. In London, Paris, or New York one may see these
wonderful tumblers and marvel at the capabilities of human physical
development.
In September, 1895, M. F. Sweeney, an American amateur, at Manhattan
Field in New York jumped six feet 5 5/8 inches high in the running high
jump without weights. With weights, J. H. Fitzpatrick at Oak Island,
Mass., jumped six feet six inches high. The record for the running high
kick is nine feet eight inches, a marvelous performance, made by C. C.
Lee at New Haven, Conn., March 19, 1887.
Extraordinary physical development and strength has been a grand means
of natural selection in the human species. As Guyot-Daubes remarks, in
prehistoric times, when our ancestors had to battle against hunger,
savage beasts, and their neighbors, and when the struggle for existence
was so extremely hard, the strong man alone resisted and the weak
succumbed. This natural selection has been perpetuated almost to our
day; during the long succession of centuries, the chief or the master
was selected on account of his being the strongest, or the most valiant
in the combat. Originally, the cavaliers, the members of the nobility,
were those who were noted for their courage and strength, and to them
were given the lands of the vanquished. Even in times other than those
of war, disputes of succession were settled by jousts and tourneys.
This fact is seen in the present day among the lower animals, who in
their natural state live in tribes; the leader is usually the
strongest, the wisest, and the most courageous.
The strong men of all times have excited the admiration of their
fellows and have always been objects of popular interest. The Bible
celebrates the exploits of Samson of the tribe of Dan. During his
youth he, single handed, strangled a lion; with the jaw-bone of an ass
he is said to have killed 1000 Philistines and put the rest to flight.
At another time during the night he transported from the village of
Gaza enormous burdens and placed them on the top of a mountain.
Betrayed by Delilah, he was delivered into the hands of his enemies and
employed in the most servile labors. When old and blind he was attached
to the columns of an edifice to serve as an object of public ridicule;
with a violent effort he overturned the columns, destroying himself and
3000 Philistines.
In the Greek mythology we find a great number of heroes, celebrated for
their feats of strength and endurance. Many of them have received the
name of Hercules; but the most common of these is the hero who was
supposed to be the son of Jupiter and Alemena. He was endowed with
prodigious strength by his father, and was pursued with unrelenting
hatred by Juno. In his infancy he killed with his hands the serpents
which were sent to devour him. The legends about him are innumerable.
He was said to have been armed with a massive club, which only he was
able to carry. The most famous of his feats were the twelve labors,
with which all readers of mythology are familiar. Hercules,
personified, meant to the Greeks physical force as well as strength,
generosity, and bravery, and was equivalent to the Assyrian Hercules.
The Gauls had a Hercules-Pantopage, who, in addition to the ordinary
qualities attributed to Hercules, had an enormous appetite.
As late as the sixteenth century, and in a most amusing and picturesque
manner, Rabelais has given us the history of Gargantua, and even to
this day, in some regions, there are groups of stones which are
believed by ignorant people to have been thrown about by Gargantua in
his play. In their citations the older authors often speak of battles,
and in epic ballads of heroes with marvelous strength. In the army of
Charlemagne, after Camerarius, and quoted by Guyot-Daubes (who has made
an extensive collection of the literature on this subject and to whom
the authors are indebted for much information), there was found a giant
named Oenother, a native of a village in Suabia, who performed
marvelous feats of strength. In his history of Bavaria Aventin speaks
of this monster. To Roland, the nephew of Charlemagne, the legends
attributed prodigious strength; and, dying in the valley of
Roncesveaux, he broke his good sword "Durandal" by striking it against
a rock, making a breach, which is stilled called the "Breche de
Roland." Three years before his death, on his return from Palestine,
Christopher, Duke of Bavaria, was said to have lifted to his shoulders
a stone which weighed more than 340 pounds. Louis de Boufflers,
surnamed the "Robust," who lived in 1534, was noted for his strength
and agility. When he placed his feet together, one against the other,
he could find no one able to disturb them. He could easily bend and
break a horseshoe with his hands, and could seize an ox by the tail and
drag it against its will. More than once he was said to have carried a
horse on his shoulders. According to Guyot-Daubes there was, in the
last century, a Major Barsaba who could seize the limb of a horse and
fracture its bone. There was a tale of his lifting an iron anvil, in a
blacksmith's forge, and placing it under his coat.
To the Emperor Maximilian I was ascribed enormous strength; even in his
youth, when but a simple patriot, he vanquished, at the games given by
Severus, 16 of the most vigorous wrestlers, and accomplished this feat
without stopping for breath. It is said that this feat was the origin
of his fortune. Among other celebrated persons in history endowed with
uncommon strength were Edmund "Ironsides," King of England; the Caliph
Mostasem-Billah; Baudouin, "Bras-de-Fer," Count of Flanders; William
IV, called by the French "Fier-a-Bras," Duke of Aquitaine; Christopher,
son of Albert the Pious, Duke of Bavaria; Godefroy of Bouillon; the
Emperor Charles IV; Scanderbeg; Leonardo da Vinci; Marshal Saxe; and
the recently deceased Czar of Russia, Alexander III.
Turning now to the authentic modern Hercules, we have a man by the name
of Eckeberg, born in Anhalt, and who traveled under the name of
"Samson." He was exhibited in London, and performed remarkable feats of
strength. He was observed by the celebrated Desaguliers (a pupil of
Newton) in the commencement of the last century, who at that time was
interested in the physiologic experiments of strength and agility.
Desaguliers believed that the feats of this new Samson were more due to
agility than strength. One day, accompanied by two of his confreres,
although a man of ordinary strength, he duplicated some of Samson's
feats, and followed his performance by a communication to the Royal
Society. One of his tricks was to resist the strength of five or six
men or of two horses. Desaguliers claimed that this was entirely due to
the position taken. This person would lift a man by one foot, and bear
a heavy weight on his chest when resting with his head and two feet on
two chairs. By supporting himself with his arms he could lift a piece
of cannon attached to his feet.
A little later Desaguliers studied an individual in London named Thomas
Topham, who used no ruse in his feats and was not the skilful
equilibrist that the German Samson was, his performances being merely
the results of abnormal physical force. He was about thirty years old,
five feet ten inches in height and well proportioned, and his muscles
well developed, the strong ligaments showing under the skin. He ignored
entirely the art of appearing supernaturally strong, and some of his
feats were rendered difficult by disadvantageous positions. In the feat
of the German--resisting the force of several men or horses--Topham
exhibited no knowledge of the principles of physics, like that of his
predecessor, but, seated on the ground and putting his feet against two
stirrups, he was able to resist the traction of a single horse; when he
attempted the same feat against two horses he was severely strained and
wounded about the knees. According to Desaguliers, if Topham had taken
the advantageous positions of the German Samson, he could have resisted
not only two, but four horses. On another occasion, with the aid of a
bridle passed about his neck, he lifted three hogsheads full of water,
weighing 1386 pounds. If he had utilized the force of his limbs and his
loins, like the German, he would have been able to perform far more
difficult feats. With his teeth he could lift and maintain in a
horizontal position a table over six feet long, at the extremity of
which he would put some weight. Two of the feet of the table he rested
on his knees. He broke a cord five cm. in diameter, one part of which
was attached to a post and the other to a strap passed under his
shoulder. He was able to carry in his hands a rolling-pin weighing 800
pounds, about twice the weight a strong man is considered able to lift.
Tom Johnson was another strong man who lived in London in the last
century, but he was not an exhibitionist, like his predecessors. He was
a porter on the banks of the Thames, his duty being to carry sacks of
wheat and corn from the wharves to the warehouses. It was said that
when one of his comrades was ill, and could not provide support for his
wife and children, Johnson assumed double duty, carrying twice the
load. He could seize a sack of wheat, and with it execute the movements
of a club-swinger, and with as great facility. He became quite a
celebrated boxer, and, besides his strength, he soon demonstrated his
powers of endurance, never seeming fatigued after a lively bout. The
porters of Paris were accustomed to lift and carry on their shoulders
bags of flour weighing 159 kilograms (350 pounds) and to mount stairs
with them. Johnson, on hearing this, duplicated the feat with three
sacks, and on one occasion attempted to carry four, and resisted this
load some little time. These four sacks weighed 1400 pounds.
Some years since there was a female Hercules who would get on her hands
and knees under a carriage containing six people, and, forming an arch
with her body, she would lift it off the ground, an attendant turning
the wheels while in the air to prove that they were clear from the
ground.
Guyot-Daubes considers that one of the most remarkable of all the men
noted for their strength was a butcher living in the mountains of
Margeride, known as Lapiada (the extraordinary). This man, whose
strength was legendary in the neighboring country, one day seized a mad
bull that had escaped from his stall and held him by the horns until
his attendants could bind him. For amusement he would lie on his belly
and allow several men to get on his back; with this human load he would
rise to the erect position. One of Lapiada's great feats was to get
under a cart loaded with hay and, forming an arch with his body, raise
it from the ground, then little by little he would mount to his
haunches, still holding the cart and hay. Lapiada terminated his
Herculean existence in attempting a mighty effort. Having charged
himself alone with the task of placing a heavy tree-trunk in a cart, he
seized it, his muscles stiffened, but the blood gushed from his mouth
and nostrils, and he fell, overcome at last. The end of Lapiada
presents an analogue to that of the celebrated athlete, Polydamas, who
was equally the victim of too great confidence in his muscular force,
and who died crushed by the force that he hoped to maintain. Figures
181 and 183 portray the muscular development of an individual noted for
his feats of strength, and who exhibited not long since.
In recent years we have had Sebastian Miller, whose specialty was
wrestling and stone-breaking; Samson, a recent English exhibitionist,
Louis Cyr, and Sandow, who, in addition to his remarkable strength and
control over his muscles, is a very clever gymnast. Sandow gives an
excellent exposition of the so-called "checkerboard" arrangement of the
muscular fibers of the lower thoracic and abdominal regions, and in a
brilliant light demonstrates his extraordinary power over his muscles,
contracting muscles ordinarily involuntary in time with music, a feat
really more remarkable than his exhibition of strength. Figures 182
and 184 show the beautiful muscular development of this remarkable man.
Joseph Pospischilli, a convict recently imprisoned in the Austrian
fortress of Olen, surprised the whole Empire by his wonderful feats of
strength. One of his tricks was to add a fifth leg to a common table
(placing the useless addition in the exact center) and then balance it
with his teeth while two full-grown gipsies danced on it, the music
being furnished by a violinist seated in the middle of the
well-balanced platform. One day when the prison in which this Hercules
was confined was undergoing repairs, he picked up a large carpenter's
bench with his teeth and held it balanced aloft for nearly a minute.
Since being released from the Olen prison, Pospischilli and his cousin,
another local "strong man" named Martenstine, have formed a combination
and are now starring Southern Europe, performing all kinds of startling
feats of strength. Among other things they have had a 30-foot bridge
made of strong timbers, which is used in one of their great muscle
acts. This bridge has two living piers--Pospischilli acting as one and
Martenstine the other. Besides supporting this monstrous structure
(weight, 1866 pounds) upon their shoulders, these freaks of superhuman
strength allow a team of horses and a wagon loaded with a ton of
cobble-stones to be driven across it.
It is said that Selig Whitman, known as "Ajax," a New York policeman,
has lifted 2000 pounds with his hands and has maintained 450 pounds
with his teeth. This man is five feet 8 1/2 inches tall and weighs 162
pounds. His chest measurement is 40 inches, the biceps 17 inches, that
of his neck 16 1/2 inches, the forearm 11, the wrist 9 1/2, the thigh
23, and the calf 17.
One of the strongest of the "strong women" is Madame Elise, a
Frenchwoman, who performs with her husband. Her greatest feat is the
lifting of eight men weighing altogether about 1700 pounds. At her
performances she supports across her shoulders a 700-pound dumb-bell,
on each side of which a person is suspended.
Miss Darnett, the "singing strong lady," extends herself upon her hands
and feet, face uppermost, while a stout platform, with a semicircular
groove for her neck, is fixed upon her chest, abdomen, and thighs by
means of a waist-belt which passes through brass receivers on the under
side of the board. An ordinary upright piano is then placed on the
platform by four men; a performer mounts the platform and plays while
the "strong lady" sings a love song while supporting possibly half a
ton.
Strength of the Jaws.--There are some persons who exhibit extraordinary
power of the jaw. In the curious experiments of Regnard and Blanchard
at the Sorbonne, it was found that a crocodile weighing about 120
pounds exerted a force between its jaws at a point corresponding to the
insertion of the masseter muscles of 1540 pounds; a dog of 44 pounds
exerted a similar force of 363 pounds.
It is quite possible that in animals like the tiger and lion the force
would equal 1700 or 1800 pounds. The anthropoid apes can easily break a
cocoanut with their teeth, and Guyot-Daubes thinks that possibly a
gorilla has a jaw-force of 200 pounds. A human adult is said to exert a
force of from 45 to 65 pounds between his teeth, and some individuals
exceed this average as much as 100 pounds. In Buffon's experiments he
once found a Frenchman who could exert a force of 534 pounds with his
jaws.
In several American circuses there have been seen women who hold
themselves by a strap between their teeth while they are being hauled
up to a trapeze some distance from the ground. A young mulatto girl by
the name of "Miss Kerra" exhibited in the Winter Circus in Paris;
suspended from a trapeze, she supported a man at the end of a strap
held between her teeth, and even permitted herself to be turned round
and round.
She also held a cannon in her teeth while it was fired. This feat has
been done by several others. According to Guyot-Daubes, at Epernay in
1882, while a man named Bucholtz, called "the human cannon," was
performing this feat, the cannon, which was over a yard long and
weighed nearly 200 pounds, burst and wounded several of the spectators.
There was another Hercules in Paris, who with his teeth lifted and held
a heavy cask of water on which was seated a man and varying weights,
according to the size of his audience, at the same time keeping his
hands occupied with other weights. Figure 185 represents a well-known
modern exhibitionist lifting with his teeth a cask on which are seated
four men. The celebrated Mlle. Gauthier, an actress of the
Comedie-Francais, had marvelous power of her hands, bending coins,
rolling up silver plate, and performing divers other feats. Major
Barsaba had enormous powers of hand and fingers. He could roll a silver
plate into the shape of a goblet. Being challenged by a Gascon, he
seized the hand of his unsuspecting adversary in the ordinary manner of
salutation and crushed all the bones of the fingers, thus rendering
unnecessary any further trial of strength.
It is said that Marshal Saxe once visited a blacksmith ostensibly to
have his horse shod, and seeing no shoe ready he took a bar of iron,
and with his hands fashioned it into a horseshoe. There are Japanese
dentists who extract teeth with their wonderfully developed fingers.
There are stories of a man living in the village of Cantal who received
the sobriquet of "La Coupia" (The Brutal). He would exercise his
function as a butcher by strangling with his fingers the calves and
sheep, instead of killing them in the ordinary manner. It is said that
one day, by placing his hands on the shoulders of the strong man of a
local fair, he made him faint by the pressure exerted by his fingers.
Manual strangulation is a well-known crime and is quite popular in some
countries. The Thugs of India sometimes murdered their victims in this
way. Often such force is exerted by the murderer's fingers as to
completely fracture the cricoid cartilage.
In viewing the feats of strength of the exhibitionist we must bear in
consideration the numerous frauds perpetrated. A man of extraordinary
strength sometimes finds peculiar stone, so stratified that he is able
to break it with the force he can exert by a blow from the hand alone,
although a man of ordinary strength would try in vain. In most of these
instances, if one were to take a piece of the exhibitionist's stone, he
would find that a slight tap of the hammer would break it. Again, there
are many instances in which the stone has been found already separated
and fixed quite firmly together, placing it out of the power of an
ordinary man to break, but which the exhibitionist finds within his
ability. This has been the solution of the feats of many of the
individuals who invite persons to send them marked stones to use at
their performances. By skilfully arranging stout twine on the hands, it
is surprising how easily it is broken, and there are many devices and
tricks to deceive the public, all of which are more or less used by
"strong men."
The recent officially recorded feats of strength that stand unequaled
in the last decade are as follows:--
Weight-lifting.--Hands alone 1571 1/4 pounds, done by C. G. Jefferson,
an amateur, at Clinton, Mass December 10, 1890; with harness, 3239
pounds, by W B. Curtis, at New York December 20 1868; Louis Cyr, at
Berthierville, Can., October 1, 1888, pushed up 3536 pounds of pig-iron
with his back, arms, and legs.
Dumb-bells.--H. Pennock, in New York, 1870, put up a 10-pound dumb-bell
8431 times in four hours thirty-four minutes; by using both hands to
raise it to the shoulder, and then using one hand alone, R. A. Pennell,
in New York, January 31, 1874, managed to put up a bell weighing 201
pounds 5 ounces; and Eugene Sandow, at London, February 11, 1891,
surpassed this feat with a 250-pound bell.
Throwing 16-pound hammer.--J. S. Mitchell, at Travers Island, N. Y.,
October 8, 1892, made a record-throw of 145 feet 3/4 inch.
Putting 16-pound Shot.--George R. Gray, at Chicago, September 16, 1893,
made the record of 47 feet.
Throwing 50-pound Weight.--J. S. Mitchell, at New York, September 22,
1894, made the distance record of 35 feet 10 inches; and at Chicago,
September 16, 1893, made the height record of 15 feet 4 1/2 inches.
The class of people commonly known as contortionists by the laxity of
their muscles and ligaments are able to dislocate or preternaturally
bend their joints. In entertainments of an arena type and even in what
are now called "variety performances" are to be seen individuals of
this class. These persons can completely straddle two chairs, and do
what they call "the split;" they can place their foot about their neck
while maintaining the upright position; they can bend almost double at
the waist in such a manner that the back of the head will touch the
calves, while the legs are perpendicular with the ground; they can
bring the popliteal region over their shoulders and in this position
walk on their hands; they can put themselves in a narrow barrel; eat
with a fork attached to a heel while standing on their hands, and
perform divers other remarkable and almost incredible feats. Their
performances are genuine, and they are real physiologic curiosities.
Plate 6 represents two well-known contortionists in their favorite
feats.
Wentworth, the oldest living contortionist, is about seventy years of
age, but seems to have lost none of his earlier sinuosity. His chief
feat is to stow himself away in a box 23 X 29 X 16 inches. When inside,
six dozen wooden bottles of the same size and shape as those which
ordinarily contain English soda water are carefully stowed away, packed
in with him, and the lid slammed down. He bestows upon this act the
curious and suggestive name of "Packanatomicalization."
Another class of individuals are those who can either partially or
completely dislocate the major articulations of the body. Many persons
exhibit this capacity in their fingers. Persons vulgarly called "double
jointed" are quite common.
Charles Warren, an American contortionist, has been examined by several
medical men of prominence and descriptions of him have appeared from
time to time in prominent medical journals. When he was but a child he
was constantly tumbling down, due to the heads of the femurs slipping
from the acetabula, but reduction was always easy. When eight years old
he joined a company of acrobats and strolling performers, and was
called by the euphonious title of "the Yankee dish-rag." His muscular
system was well-developed, and, like Sandow, he could make muscles act
in concert or separately.
He could throw into energetic single action the biceps, the supinator
longus, the radial extensors, the platysma myoides, and many other
muscles. When he "strings," as he called it, the sartorius, that ribbon
muscle shows itself as a tight cord, extending from the front of the
iliac spine to the inner side of the knee. Another trick was to leave
flaccid that part of the serratus magnus which is attached to the
inferior angle of the scapula whilst he roused energetic contraction in
the rhomboids. He could displace his muscles so that the lower angles
of the scapulae projected and presented the appearance historically
attributed to luxation of the scapula.
Warren was well informed on surgical landmarks and had evidently been a
close student of Sir Astley Cooper's classical illustrations of
dislocations. He was able so to contract his abdominal muscles that the
aorta could be distinctly felt with the fingers. In this feat nearly
all the abdominal contents were crowded beneath the diaphragm. On the
other hand, he could produce a phantom abdominal tumor by driving the
coils of the intestine within a peculiar grasp of the rectus and
oblique muscles. The "growth" was rounded, dull on percussion, and
looked as if an exploratory incision or puncture would be advisable for
diagnosis.
By extraordinary muscular power and extreme laxity of his ligaments, he
simulated all the dislocations about the hip joint. Sometimes he
produced actual dislocation, but usually he said he could so distort
his muscles as to imitate in the closest degree the dislocations. He
could imitate the various forms of talipes, in such a way as to deceive
an expert. He dislocated nearly every joint in the body with great
facility. It was said that he could contract at will both pillars of
the fauces. He could contract his chest to 34 inches and expand it to
41 inches.
Warren weighed 150 pounds, was a total abstainer, and was the father of
two children, both of whom could readily dislocate their hips.
In France in 1886 there was shown a man who was called "l'homme
protee," or protean man. He had an exceptional power over his muscles.
Even those muscles ordinarily involuntary he could exercise at will. He
could produce such rigidity of stature that a blow by a hammer on his
body fell as though on a block of stone. By his power over his
abdominal muscles he could give himself different shapes, from the
portly alderman to the lean and haggard student, and he was even
accredited with assuming the shape of a "living skeleton." Quatrefages,
the celebrated French scientist, examined him, and said that he could
shut off the blood from the right side and then from the left side of
the body, which feat he ascribed to unilateral muscular action.
In 1893 there appeared in Washington, giving exhibitions at the
colleges there and at the Emergency Hospital, a man named Fitzgerald,
claiming to reside in Harrisburg, Pa., who made his living by
exhibiting at medical colleges over the country. He simulated all the
dislocations, claiming that they were complete, using manual force to
produce and reduce them. He exhibited a thorough knowledge of the
pathology of dislocations and of the anatomy of the articulations. He
produced the different forms of talipes, as well as all the major
hip-dislocations. When interrogated as to the cause of his enormous
saphenous veins, which stood out like huge twisted cords under the skin
and were associated with venous varicosity on the leg, he said he
presumed they were caused by his constantly compressing the saphenous
vein at the hip in giving his exhibitions, which in some large cities
were repeated several times a day.
Endurance of Pain.--The question of the endurance of pain is,
necessarily, one of comparison. There is little doubt that in the lower
classes the sensation of pain is felt in a much less degree than in
those of a highly intellectual and nervous temperament. If we
eliminate the element of fear, which always predominates in the lower
classes, the result of general hospital observation will show this
distinction. There are many circumstances which have a marked influence
on pain. Patriotism, enthusiasm, and general excitement, together with
pride and natural obstinacy, prove the power of the mind over the body.
The tortures endured by prisoners of war, religious martyrs and
victims, exemplify the power of a strong will excited by deep emotion
over the sensation of pain. The flagellants, persons who expiated their
sins by voluntarily flaying themselves to the point of exhaustion, are
modern examples of persons who in religious enthusiasm inflict pain on
themselves. In the ancient times in India the frenzied zealots
struggled for positions from which they could throw themselves under
the car of the Juggernaut, and their intense emotions turned the pains
of their wounds into a pleasure. According to the reports of her
Majesty's surgeons, there are at the present time in India native
Brahmins who hang themselves on sharp hooks placed in the flesh between
the scapulae, and remain in this position without the least visible
show of pain. In a similar manner they pierce the lips and cheeks with
long pins and bore the tongue with a hot iron. From a reliable source
the authors have an account of a man in Northern India who as a means
of self-inflicted penance held his arm aloft for the greater part of
each day, bending the fingers tightly on the palms. After a
considerable time the nails had grown or been forced through the palms
of the hands, making their exit on the dorsal surfaces. There are many
savage rites and ceremonies calling for the severe infliction of pain
on the participants which have been described from time to time by
travelers. The Aztecs willingly sacrificed even their lives in the
worship of their Sun-god.
By means of singing and dancing the Aissaoui, in the Algerian town of
Constantine, throw themselves into an ecstatic state in which their
bodies seem to be insensible even to severe wounds. Hellwald says they
run sharp-pointed irons into their heads, eyes, necks, and breasts
without apparent pain or injury to themselves. Some observers claim
they are rendered insensible to pain by self-induced hypnotism.
An account by Carpenter of the Algerian Aissaoui contained the
following lucid description of the performances of these people:--
"The center of the court was given up to the Aissaoui. These were 12
hollow-checked men, some old and some young, who sat cross-legged in an
irregular semicircle on the floor. Six of them had immense flat drums
or tambours, which they presently began to beat noisily. In front of
them a charcoal fire burned in a brazier, and into it one of them from
time to time threw bits of some sort of incense, which gradually filled
the place with a thin smoke and a mildly pungent odor.
"For a long time--it seemed a long time--this went on with nothing to
break the silence but the rhythmical beat of the drums. Gradually,
however, this had become quicker, and now grew wild and almost
deafening, and the men began a monotonous chant which soon was
increased to shouting. Suddenly one of the men threw himself with a
howl to the ground, when he was seized by another, who stripped him of
part of his garments and led him in front of the fire. Here, while the
pounding of the drums and the shouts of the men became more and more
frantic, he stood swaying his body backward and forward, almost
touching the ground in his fearful contortions, and wagging his head
until it seemed as if he must dislocate it from his shoulders. All at
once he drew from the fire a red-hot bar of iron, and with a yell of
horror, which sent a shiver down one's back, held it up before his
eyes. More violently than ever he swayed his body and wagged his head,
until he had worked himself up to a climax of excitement, when he
passed the glowing iron several times over the palm of each hand and
then licked it repeatedly with his tongue. He next took a burning coal
from the fire, and, placing it between his teeth, fanned it by his
breath into a white heat. He ended his part of the performance by
treading on red-hot coals scattered on the floor after which he resumed
his place with the rest. Then the next performer with a yell as before,
suddenly sprang to his feet and began again the same frantic
contortions, in the midst of which he snatched from the fire an iron
rod with a ball on one end, and after winding one of his eyelids around
it until the eyeball was completely exposed, he thrust its point in
behind the eye, which was forced far out on his cheek. It was held
there for a moment when it was withdrawn, the eye released, and then
rubbed vigorously a few times with the balled end of the rod.
"The drums all the time had been beaten lustily, and the men had kept
up their chant, which still went unceasingly on. Again a man sprang to
his feet and went through the same horrid motions. This time the
performer took from the fire a sharp nail and, with a piece of the
sandy limestone common to this region, proceeded with a series of
blood-curdling howls to hammer it down into the top of his head, where
it presently stuck upright, while he tottered dizzily around until it
was pulled out with apparent effort and with a hollow snap by one of
the other men.
"The performance had now fairly begun, and, with short intervals and
always in the same manner, the frenzied contortions first, another ate
up a glass lamp-chimney, which he first broke in pieces in his hands
and then crunched loudly with his teeth. He then produced from a tin
box a live scorpion, which ran across the floor with tail erect, and
was then allowed to attach itself to the back of his hand and his face,
and was finally taken into his mouth, where it hung suspended from the
inside of his cheek and was finally chewed and swallowed. A sword was
next produced, and after the usual preliminaries it was drawn by the
same man who had just given the scorpion such unusual opportunities
several times back and forth across his throat and neck, apparently
deeply imbedded in the flesh. Not content with this, he bared his body
at his waist, and while one man held the sword, edge upward, by the
hilt and another by the point, about which a turban had been wrapped,
he first stood upon it with his bare feet and then balanced himself
across it on his naked stomach, while still another of the performers
stood upon his back, whither he had sprung without any attempt to
mollify the violence of the action. With more yells and genuflections,
another now drew from the fire several iron skewers, some of which he
thrust into the inner side of his cheeks and others into his throat at
the larynx, where they were left for a while to hang.
"The last of the actors in this singular entertainment was a stout man
with a careworn face, who apparently regarded his share as a melancholy
duty which he was bound to perform, and the last part of it, I have no
doubt, was particularly painful. He first took a handful of hay, and,
having bared the whole upper part of his body, lighted the wisp at the
brazier and then passed the blazing mass across his chest and body and
over his arms and face. This was but a preliminary, and presently he
began to sway backward and forward until one grew dazed with watching
him. The drums grew noisier and noisier and the chant louder and
wilder. The man himself had become maudlin, his tongue hung from his
mouth, and now and then he ejaculated a sound like the inarticulate cry
of an animal. He could only totter to the fire, out of which he
snatched the balled instrument already described, which he thereupon
thrust with a vicious stab into the pit of his stomach, where it was
left to hang. A moment after he pulled it out again, and, picking up
the piece of stone used before, he drove it with a series of resounding
blows into a new place, where it hung, drawing the skin downward with
its weight, until a companion pulled it out and the man fell in a heap
on the floor."
To-day it is only through the intervention of the United States troops
that some of the barbarous ceremonies of the North American Indians are
suppressed. The episode of the "Ghost-dance" is fresh in every mind.
Instances of self-mutilation, although illustrating this subject, will
be discussed at length in Chapter XIV.
Malingerers often endure without flinching the most arduous tests.
Supraorbital pressure is generally of little avail, and pinching,
pricking, and even incision are useless with these hospital impostors.
It is reported that in the City Hospital of St. Louis a negro submitted
to the ammonia-test, inhaling this vapor for several hours without
showing any signs of sensibility, and made his escape the moment his
guard was absent. A contemporary journal says:--
"The obstinacy of resolute impostors seems, indeed, capable of
emulating the torture-proof perseverance of religious enthusiasts and
such martyrs of patriotism as Mueius Scaevola or Grand Master Ruediger
of the Teutonic Knights, who refused to reveal the hiding place of his
companion even when his captors belabored him with red-hot irons.
"One Basil Rohatzek, suspected of fraudulent enlistment
(bounty-jumping, as our volunteers called it), pretended to have been
thrown by his horse and to have been permanently disabled by a
paralysis of the lower extremities. He dragged himself along in a
pitiful manner, and his knees looked somewhat bruised, but he was known
to have boasted his ability to procure his discharge somehow or other.
One of his tent mates had also seen him fling himself violently and
repeatedly on his knees (to procure those questionable bruises), and on
the whole there seemed little doubt that the fellow was shamming. All
the surgeons who had examined him concurred in that view, and the case
was finally referred to his commanding officer, General Colloredo. The
impostor was carried to a field hospital in a little Bohemian border
town and watched for a couple of weeks, during which he had been twice
seen moving his feet in his sleep. Still, the witnesses were not
prepared to swear that those changes of position might not have been
effected by a movement of the whole body. The suspect stuck to his
assertion, and Colloredo, in a fit of irritation, finally summoned a
surgeon, who actually placed the feet of the professed paralytic in
"aqua fortis," but even this rigorous method availed the cruel surgeon
nothing, and he was compelled to advise dismissal from the service.
"The martyrdom of Rohatzek, however, was a mere trifle compared with
the ordeal by which the tribunal of Paris tried in vain to extort a
confession of the would-be regicide, Damiens. Robert Damiens, a native
of Arras, had been exiled as an habitual criminal, and returning in
disguise made an attempt upon the life of Louis XV, January 5, 1757.
His dagger pierced the mantle of the King, but merely grazed his neck.
Damiens, who had stumbled, was instantly seized and dragged to prison,
where a convocation of expert torturers exhausted their ingenuity in
the attempt to extort a confession implicating the Jesuits, a
conspiracy of Huguenots, etc. But Damiens refused to speak. He could
have pleaded his inability to name accomplices who did not exist, but
he stuck to his resolution of absolute silence. They singed off his
skin by shreds, they wrenched out his teeth and finger-joints, they
dragged him about at the end of a rope hitched to a team of stout
horses, they sprinkled him from head to foot with acids and seething
oil, but Damiens never uttered a sound till his dying groan announced
the conclusion of the tragedy."
The apparent indifference to the pain of a major operation is sometimes
marvelous, and there are many interesting instances on record. When at
the battle of Dresden in 1813 Moreau, seated beside the Emperor
Alexander, had both limbs shattered by a French cannon-ball, he did not
utter a groan, but asked for a cigar and smoked leisurely while a
surgeon amputated one of his members. In a short time his medical
attendants expressed the danger and questionability of saving his other
limb, and consulted him. In the calmest way the heroic General
instructed them to amputate it, again remaining unmoved throughout the
operation.
Crompton records a case in which during an amputation of the leg not a
sound escaped from the patient's lips, and in three weeks, when it was
found necessary to amputate the other leg, the patient endured the
operation without an anesthetic, making no show of pain, and only
remarking that he thought the saw did not cut well. Crompton quotes
another case, in which the patient held a candle with one hand while
the operator amputated his other arm at the shoulder-joint. Several
instances of self-performed major operations are mentioned in Chapter
XIV.
Supersensitiveness to Pain.--Quite opposite to the foregoing instances
are those cases in which such influences as expectation, naturally
inherited nervousness, and genuine supersensitiveness make the
slightest pain almost unendurable. In many of these instances the state
of the mind and occasionally the time of day have a marked influence.
Men noted for their sagacity and courage have been prostrated by fear
of pain. Sir Robert Peel, a man of acknowledged superior physical and
intellectual power, could not even bear the touch of Brodie's finger to
his fractured clavicle. The authors know of an instance of a pugilist
who had elicited admiration by his ability to stand punishment and his
indomitable courage in his combats, but who fainted from the puncture
of a small boil on his neck.
The relation of pain to shock has been noticed by many writers. Before
the days of anesthesia, such cases as the following, reported by Sir
Astley Cooper, seem to have been not unusual: A brewer's servant, a man
of middle age and robust frame, suffered much agony for several days
from a thecal abscess, occasioned by a splinter of wood beneath the
thumb. A few seconds after the matter was discharged by an incision,
the man raised himself by a convulsive effort from his bed and
instantly expired.
It is a well-known fact that powerful nerve-irritation, such as
produces shock, is painless, and this accounts for the fact that wounds
received during battle are not painful.
Leyden of Berlin showed to his class at the Charite Hospital a number
of hysteric women with a morbid desire for operation without an
anesthetic. Such persons do not seem to experience pain, and, on the
contrary, appear to have genuine pleasure in pain. In illustration,
Leyden showed a young lady who during a hysteric paroxysm had suffered
a serious fracture of the jaw, injuring the facial artery, and
necessitating quite an extensive operation. The facial and carotid
arteries had to be ligated and part of the inferior maxilla removed,
but the patient insisted upon having the operations performed without
an anesthetic, and afterward informed the operator that she had
experienced great pleasure throughout the whole procedure.
Pain as a Means of Sexual Enjoyment.--There is a form of sexual
perversion in which the pervert takes delight in being subjected to
degrading, humiliating, and cruel acts on the part of his or her
associate. It was named masochism from Sacher-Masoch, an Austrian
novelist, whose works describe this form of perversion. The victims
are said to experience peculiar pleasure at the sight of a rival who
has obtained the favor of their mistress, and will even receive blows
and lashes from the rival with a voluptuous mixture of pain and
pleasure. Masochism corresponds to the passivism of Stefanowski, and is
the opposite of sadism, in which the pleasure is derived from
inflicting pain on the object of affection. Krafft-Ebing cites several
instances of masochism.
Although the enjoyment and frenzy of flagellation are well known, its
pleasures are not derived from the pain but by the undoubted
stimulation offered to the sexual centers by the castigation. The
delight of the heroines of flagellation, Maria Magdalena of Pazzi and
Elizabeth of Genton, in being whipped on the naked loins, and thus
calling up sensual and lascivious fancies, clearly shows the
significance of flagellation as a sexual excitant. It is said that when
Elizabeth of Genton was being whipped she believed herself united with
her ideal and would cry out in the loudest tones of the joys of love.
There is undoubtedly a sympathetic communication between the ramifying
nerves of the skin of the loins and the lower portion of the spinal
cord which contains the sexual centers. Recently, in cases of
dysmenorrhea, amenorrhea dysmenorrhagia, and like sexual disorders,
massage or gentle flagellation of the parts contiguous with the
genitalia and pelvic viscera has been recommended. Taxil is the
authority for the statement that just before the sexual act rakes
sometimes have themselves flagellated or pricked until the blood flows
in order to stimulate their diminished sexual power. Rhodiginus,
Bartholinus, and other older physicians mention individuals in whom
severe castigation was a prerequisite of copulation. As a ritual custom
flagellation is preserved to the present day by some sects.
Before leaving the subject of flagellation it should be stated that
among the serious after-results of this practice as a disciplinary
means, fatal emphysema, severe hemorrhage, and shock have been noticed.
There are many cases of death from corporal punishment by flogging.
Ballingal records the death of a soldier from flogging; Davidson has
reported a similar case, and there is a death from the same cause cited
in the Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal for 1846.
Idiosyncrasy is a peculiarity of constitution whereby an individual is
affected by external agents in a different manner from others. Begin
defines idiosyncrasy as the predominance of an organ, of a viscus, or a
system of organs. This definition does not entirely grasp the subject.
An idiosyncrasy is something inherent in the organization of the
individual, of which we only see the manifestation when proper causes
are set in action. We do not attempt to explain the susceptibility of
certain persons to certain foods and certain exposures. We know that
such is the fact. According to Begin's idea, there is scarcely any
separation between idiosyncrasy and temperament, whereas from what
would appear to be sound reasoning, based on the physiology of the
subject, a very material difference exists.
Idiosyncrasies may be congenital, hereditary, or acquired, and, if
acquired, may be only temporary. Some, purely of mental origin, are
often readily cured. One individual may synchronously possess an
idiosyncrasy of the digestive, circulatory, and nervous systems.
Striking examples of transitory or temporary idiosyncrasies are seen in
pregnant women.
There are certain so-called antipathies that in reality are
idiosyncrasies, and which are due to peculiarities of the ideal and
emotional centers. The organ of sense in question and the center that
takes cognizance of the image brought to it are in no way disordered.
In some cases the antipathy or the idiosyncrasy develops to such an
extent as to be in itself a species of monomania. The fear-maladies, or
"phobias," as they are called, are examples of this class, and,
belonging properly under temporary mental derangements, the same as
hallucinations or delusions, will be spoken of in another chapter.
Possibly the most satisfactory divisions under which to group the
material on this subject collected from literature are into examples of
idiosyncrasies in which, although the effect is a mystery, the sense is
perceptible and the cause distinctly defined and known, and those in
which sensibility is latent. The former class includes all the peculiar
antipathies which are brought about through the special senses, while
the latter groups all those strange instances in which, without the
slightest antipathy on the part of the subject, a certain food or drug,
after ingestion, produces an untoward effect.
The first examples of idiosyncrasies to be noticed will be those
manifested through the sense of smell. On the authority of Spigelius,
whose name still survives in the nomenclature of the anatomy of the
liver, Mackeuzie quotes an extraordinary case in a Roman Cardinal,
Oliver Caraffa, who could not endure the smell of a rose. This is
confirmed from personal observation by another writer, Pierius, who
adds that the Cardinal was obliged every year to shut himself up during
the rose season, and guards were stationed at the gates of his palace
to stop any visitors who might be wearing the dreadful flower. It is,
of course, possible that in this case the rose may not have caused the
disturbance, and as it is distinctly stated that it was the smell to
which the Cardinal objected, we may fairly conclude that what annoyed
him was simply a manifestation of rose-fever excited by the pollen.
There is also an instance of a noble Venetian who was always confined
to his palace during the rose season. However, in this connection Sir
Kenelm Digby relates that so obnoxious was a rose to Lady Heneage, that
she blistered her cheek while accidentally lying on one while she
slept. Ledelius records the description of a woman who fainted before a
red rose, although she was accustomed to wear white ones in her hair.
Cremer describes a Bishop who died of the smell of a rose from what
might be called "aromatic pain."
The organ of smell is in intimate relation with the brain and the
organs of taste and sight; and its action may thus disturb that of the
esophagus, the stomach, the diaphragm, the intestines, the organs of
generation, etc. Odorous substances have occasioned syncope, stupor,
nausea, vomiting, and sometimes death. It is said that the Hindoos, and
some classes who eat nothing but vegetables, are intensely nauseated by
the odors of European tables, and for this reason they are incapable of
serving as dining-room servants.
Fabricius Hildanus mentions a person who fainted from the odor of
vinegar. The Ephemerides contains an instance of a soldier who fell
insensible from the odor of a peony. Wagner knew a man who was made ill
by the odor of bouillon of crabs. The odors of blood, meat, and fat are
repugnant to herbivorous animals. It is a well-known fact that horses
detest the odor of blood.
Schneider, the father of rhinology, mentions a woman in whom the odor
of orange-flowers produced syncope. Odier has known a woman who was
affected with aphonia whenever exposed to the odor of musk, but who
immediately recovered after taking a cold bath. Dejean has mentioned a
man who could not tolerate an atmosphere of cherries. Highmore knew a
man in whom the slightest smell of musk caused headache followed by
epistaxis. Lanzonius gives an account of a valiant soldier who could
neither bear the sight nor smell of an ordinary pink. There is an
instance on record in which the odor coming from a walnut tree excited
epilepsy. It is said that one of the secretaries of Francis I was
forced to stop his nostrils with bread if apples were on the table. He
would faint if one was held near his nose Schenck says that the noble
family of Fystates in Aquitaine had a similar peculiarity--an innate
hatred of apples. Bruyerinus knew a girl of sixteen who could not bear
the smell of bread, the slightest particle of which she would detect by
its odor. She lived almost entirely on milk. Bierling mentions an
antipathy to the smell of musk, and there is a case on record in which
it caused convulsions. Boerhaave bears witness that the odor of cheese
caused nasal hemorrhage. Whytt mentions an instance in which tobacco
became repugnant to a woman each time she conceived, but after delivery
this aversion changed to almost an appetite for tobacco fumes.
Panaroli mentions an instance of sickness caused by the smell of
sassafras, and there is also a record of a person who fell helpless at
the smell of cinnamon. Wagner had a patient who detested the odor of
citron. Ignorant of this repugnance, he prescribed a potion in which
there was water of balm-mint, of an odor resembling citron. As soon as
the patient took the first dose he became greatly agitated and much
nauseated, and this did not cease until Wagner repressed the balm-mint.
There is reported the case of a young woman, rather robust, otherwise
normal, who always experienced a desire to go to stool after being
subjected to any nasal irritation sufficient to excite sneezing.
It has already been remarked that individuals and animals have their
special odors, certain of which are very agreeable to some people and
extremely unpleasant to others. Many persons are not able to endure the
emanations from cats, rats, mice, etc., and the mere fact of one of
these animals being in their vicinity is enough to provoke distressing
symptoms. Mlle. Contat, the celebrated French actress, was not able to
endure the odor of a hare. Stanislaus, King of Poland and Duke of
Lorraine, found it impossible to tolerate the smell of a cat. The
Ephemerides mentions the odor of a little garden-frog as causing
epilepsy. Ab Heers mentions a similar anomaly, fainting caused by the
smell of eels. Habit had rendered Haller insensible to the odor of
putrefying cadavers, but according to Zimmerman the odor of the
perspiration of old people, not perceptible to others, was intolerable
to him at a distance of ten or twelve paces. He also had an extreme
aversion for cheese. According to Dejan, Gaubius knew a man who was
unable to remain in a room with women, having a great repugnance to the
female odor. Strange as it may seem, some individuals are incapable of
appreciating certain odors. Blumenbach mentions an Englishman whose
sense of smell was otherwise very acute, but he was unable to perceive
the perfume of the mignonette.
The impressions which come to us through the sense of hearing cause
sensations agreeable or disagreeable, but even in this sense we see
marked examples of idiosyncrasies and antipathies to various sounds and
tones. In some individuals the sensations in one ear differ from those
of the other. Everard Home has cited several examples, and Heidmann of
Vienna has treated two musicians, one of whom always perceived in the
affected ear, during damp weather, tones an octave lower than in the
other ear. The other musician perceived tones an octave higher in the
affected ear. Cheyne is quoted as mentioning a case in which, when the
subject heard the noise of a drum, blood jetted from the veins with
considerable force. Sauvages has seen a young man in whom intense
headache and febrile paroxysm were only relieved by the noise from a
beaten drum. Esparron has mentioned an infant in whom an ataxic fever
was established by the noise of this instrument. Ephemerides contains
an account of a young man who became nervous and had the sense of
suffocation when he heard the noise made by sweeping. Zimmerman speaks
of a young girl who had convulsions when she heard the rustling of
oiled silk. Boyle, the father of chemistry, could not conquer an
aversion he had to the sound of water running through pipes. A
gentleman of the Court of the Emperor Ferdinand suffered epistaxis when
he heard a cat mew. La Mothe Le Vayer could not endure the sounds of
musical instruments, although he experienced pleasurable sensations
when he heard a clap of thunder. It is said that a chaplain in England
always had a sensation of cold at the top of his head when he read the
53d chapter of Isaiah and certain verses of the Kings. There was an
unhappy wight who could not hear his own name pronounced without being
thrown into convulsions. Marguerite of Valois, sister of Francis I,
could never utter the words "mort" or "petite verole," such a horrible
aversion had she to death and small-pox. According to Campani, the
Chevalier Alcantara could never say "lana," or words pertaining to
woolen clothing. Hippocrates says that a certain Nicanor had the
greatest horror of the sound of the flute at night, although it
delighted him in the daytime. Rousseau reports a Gascon in whom
incontinence of urine was produced by the sound of a bagpipe. Frisch,
Managetta, and Rousse speak of a man in whom the same effect was
produced by the sound of a hurdy-gurdy. Even Shakespeare alludes to the
effects of the sound of bagpipes. Tissot mentions a case in which music
caused epileptic convulsions, and Forestus mentions a beggar who had
convulsions at the sound of a wooden trumpet similar to those used by
children in play. Rousseau mentions music as causing convulsive
laughter in a woman. Bayle mentions a woman who fainted at the sound of
a bell. Paullini cites an instance of vomiting caused by music, and
Marcellus Donatus mentions swooning from the same cause. Many people
are unable to bear the noise caused by the grating of a pencil on a
slate, the filing of a saw, the squeak of a wheel turning about an
axle, the rubbing of pieces of paper together, and certain similar
sounds. Some persons find the tones of music very disagreeable, and
some animals, particularly dogs, are unable to endure it. In Albinus
the younger the slightest perceptible tones were sufficient to produce
an inexplicable anxiety. There was a certain woman of fifty who was
fond of the music of the clarionet and flute, but was not able to
listen to the sound of a bell or tambourine. Frank knew a man who ran
out of church at the beginning of the sounds of an organ, not being
able to tolerate them. Pope could not imagine music producing any
pleasure. The harmonica has been noticed to produce fainting in
females. Fischer says that music provokes sexual frenzy in elephants.
Gutfeldt speaks of a peculiar idiosyncrasy of sleep produced by hearing
music. Delisle mentions a young person who during a whole year passed
pieces of ascarides and tenia, during which time he could not endure
music.
Autenreith mentions the vibrations of a loud noise tickling the fauces
to such an extent as to provoke vomiting. There are some emotional
people who are particularly susceptible to certain expressions. The
widow of Jean Calas always fell in a faint when she heard the words of
the death-decree sounded on the street. There was a Hanoverian officer
in the Indian war against Typoo-Saib, a good and brave soldier, who
would feel sick if he heard the word "tiger" pronounced. It was said
that he had experienced the ravages of this beast.
The therapeutic value of music has long been known. For ages warriors
have been led to battle to the sounds of martial strains. David charmed
away Saul's evil spirit with his harp. Horace in his 32d Ode Book 1,
concludes his address to the lyre:--
"O laborum
Dulce lenimen mihicumque calve,
Rite vocanti;"
Or, as Kiessling of Berlin interprets:--
"O laborum,
Dulce lenimen medieumque, salve,
Rite vocanti."
--"O, of our troubles the sweet, the healing sedative, etc."
Homer, Plutarch, Theophrastus, and Galen say that music cures
rheumatism, the pests, and stings of reptiles, etc. Diemerbroeck,
Bonet, Baglivi, Kercher, and Desault mention the efficacy of melody in
phthisis, gout, hydrophobia, the bites of venomous reptiles, etc. There
is a case in the Lancet of a patient in convulsions who was cured in
the paroxysm by hearing the tones of music. Before the French Academy
of Sciences in 1708, and again in 1718, there was an instance of a
dancing-master stricken with violent fever and in a condition of
delirium, who recovered his senses and health on hearing melodious
music. There is little doubt of the therapeutic value of music, but
particularly do we find its value in instances of neuroses. The
inspiration offered by music is well-known, and it is doubtless a
stimulant to the intellectual work. Bacon, Milton, Warburton, and
Alfieri needed music to stimulate them in their labors, and it is said
that Bourdaloue always played an air on the violin before preparing to
write.
According to the American Medico-Surgical Bulletin, "Professor
Tarchanoff of Saint Petersburg has been investigating the influence of
music upon man and other animals. The subject is by no means a new one.
In recent times Dagiel and Fere have investigated the effect of music
upon the respirations, the pulse, and the muscular system in man.
Professor Tarchanoff made use of the ergograph of Mosso, and found that
if the fingers were completely fatigued, either by voluntary efforts or
by electric excitation, to the point of being incapable of making any
mark except a straight line on the registering cylinder, music had the
power of making the fatigue disappear, and the finger placed in the
ergograph again commenced to mark lines of different heights, according
to the amount of excitation. It was also found that music of a sad and
lugubrious character had the opposite effect, and could check or
entirely inhibit the contractions. Professor Tarchanoff does not
profess to give any positive explanation of these facts, but he
inclines to the view that 'the voluntary muscles, being furnished with
excitomotor and depressant fibers, act in relation to the music
similarly to the heart--that is to say, that joyful music resounds
along the excitomotor fibers, and sad music along the depressant or
inhibitory fibers.' Experiments on dogs showed that music was capable
of increasing the elimination of carbonic acid by 16.7 per cent, and of
increasing the consumption of oxygen by 20.1 per cent. It was also
found that music increased the functional activity of the skin.
Professor Tarchanoff claims as the result of these experiments that
music may fairly be regarded as a serious therapeutic agent, and that
it exercises a genuine and considerable influence over the functions of
the body. Facts of this kind are in no way surprising, and are chiefly
of interest as presenting some physiologic basis for phenomena that are
sufficiently obvious. The influence of the war-chant upon the warrior
is known even to savage tribes. We are accustomed to regard this
influence simply as an ordinary case of psychic stimuli producing
physiologic effects.
"Professor Tarchanoff evidently prefers to regard the phenomena as
being all upon the same plane, namely, that of physiology; and until we
know the difference between mind and body, and the principles of their
interaction, it is obviously impossible to controvert this view
successfully. From the immediately practical point of view we should
not ignore the possible value of music in some states of disease. In
melancholia and hysteria it is probably capable of being used with
benefit, and it is worth bearing in mind in dealing with insomnia.
Classical scholars will not forget that the singing of birds was tried
as a remedy to overcome the insomnia of Maecenas. Music is certainly a
good antidote to the pernicious habit of introspection and
self-analysis, which is often a curse both of the hysteric and of the
highly cultured. It would seem obviously preferable to have recourse to
music of a lively and cheerful character."
Idiosyncrasies of the visual organs are generally quite rare. It is
well-known that among some of the lower animals, e.g., the
turkey-cocks, buffaloes, and elephants, the color red is unendurable.
Buchner and Tissot mention a young boy who had a paroxysm if he viewed
anything red. Certain individuals become nauseated when they look for a
long time on irregular lines or curves, as, for examples, in
caricatures. Many of the older examples of idiosyncrasies of color are
nothing more than instances of color-blindness, which in those times
was unrecognized. Prochaska knew a woman who in her youth became
unconscious at the sight of beet-root, although in her later years she
managed to conquer this antipathy, but was never able to eat the
vegetable in question. One of the most remarkable forms of idiosyncrasy
on record is that of a student who was deprived of his senses by the
very sight of an old woman. On one occasion he was carried out from a
party in a dying state, caused, presumably, by the abhorred aspect of
the chaperons The Count of Caylus was always horror-stricken at the
sight of a Capuchin friar. He cured himself by a wooden image dressed
in the costume of this order placed in his room and constantly before
his view. It is common to see persons who faint at the sight of blood.
Analogous are the individuals who feel nausea in an hospital ward.
All Robert Boyle's philosophy could not make him endure the sight of a
spider, although he had no such aversion to toads, venomous snakes,
etc. Pare mentions a man who fainted at the sight of an eel, and
another who had convulsions at the sight of a carp. There is a record
of a young lady in France who fainted on seeing a boiled lobster.
Millingen cites the case of a man who fell into convulsions whenever he
saw a spider. A waxen one was made, which equally terrified him. When
he recovered, his error was pointed out to him, and the wax figure was
placed in his hand without causing dread, and henceforth the living
insect no longer disturbed him. Amatus Lusitanus relates the case of a
monk who fainted when he beheld a rose, and never quitted his cell when
that flower was in bloom. Scaliger, the great scholar, who had been a
soldier a considerable portion of his life, confesses that he could not
look on a water-cress without shuddering, and remarks: "I, who despise
not only iron, but even thunderbolts, who in two sieges (in one of
which I commanded) was the only one who did not complain of the food as
unfit and horrible to eat, am seized with such a shuddering horror at
the sight of a water-cress that I am forced to go away." One of his
children was in the same plight as regards the inoffensive vegetable,
cabbage. Scaliger also speaks of one of his kinsmen who fainted at the
sight of a lily. Vaughheim, a great huntsman of Hanover, would faint at
the sight of a roasted pig. Some individuals have been disgusted at the
sight of eggs. There is an account of a sensible man who was terrified
at the sight of a hedgehog, and for two years was tormented by a
sensation as though one was gnawing at his bowels. According to Boyle,
Lord Barrymore, a veteran warrior and a person of strong mind, swooned
at the sight of tansy. The Duke d'Epernon swooned on beholding a
leveret, although a hare did not produce the same effect. Schenck tells
of a man who swooned at the sight of pork. The Ephemerides contains an
account of a person who lost his voice at the sight of a crab, and also
cites cases of antipathy to partridges, a white hen, to a serpent, and
to a toad. Lehman speaks of an antipathy to horses; and in his
observations Lyser has noticed aversion to the color purple. It is a
strange fact that the three greatest generals of recent years,
Wellington, Napoleon, and Roberts, could never tolerate the sight of a
cat, and Henry III of France could not bear this animal in his room. We
learn of a Dane of herculean frame who had a horror of cats. He was
asked to a supper at which, by way of a practical joke, a live cat was
put on the table in a covered dish. The man began to sweat and shudder
without knowing why, and when the cat was shown he killed his host in a
paroxysm of terror. Another man could not even see the hated form even
in a picture without breaking into a cold sweat and feeling a sense of
oppression about the heart. Quercetanus and Smetius mention fainting at
the sight of cats. Marshal d'Abret was supposed to be in violent fear
of a pig.
As to idiosyncrasies of the sense of touch, it is well known that some
people cannot handle velvet or touch the velvety skin of a peach
without having disagreeable and chilly sensations come over them.
Prochaska knew a man who vomited the moment he touched a peach, and
many people, otherwise very fond of this fruit, are unable to touch it.
The Ephemerides speaks of a peculiar idiosyncrasy of skin in the axilla
of a certain person, which if tickled would provoke vomiting. It is
occasionally stated in the older writings that some persons have an
idiosyncrasy as regards the phases of the sun and moon. Baillou speaks
of a woman who fell unconscious at sunset and did not recover till it
reappeared on the horizon. The celebrated Chancellor Bacon, according
to Mead, was very delicate, and was accustomed to fall into a state of
great feebleness at every moon-set without any other imaginable cause.
He never recovered from his swooning until the moon reappeared.
Nothing is more common than the idiosyncrasy which certain people
display for certain foods. The trite proverb, "What is one man's meat
is another man's poison," is a genuine truth, and is exemplified by
hundreds of instances. Many people are unable to eat fish without
subsequent disagreeable symptoms. Prominent among the causes of
urticaria are oysters, crabs, and other shell fish, strawberries,
raspberries, and other fruits. The abundance of literature on this
subject makes an exhaustive collection of data impossible, and only a
few of the prominent and striking instances can be reported.
Amatus Lusitanus speaks of vomiting and diarrhea occurring each time a
certain Spaniard ate meat. Haller knew a person who was purged
violently by syrup of roses. The son of one of the friends of Wagner
would vomit immediately after the ingestion of any substance containing
honey. Bayle has mentioned a person so susceptible to honey that by a
plaster of this substance placed upon the skin this untoward effect was
produced. Whytt knew a woman who was made sick by the slightest bit of
nutmeg. Tissot observed vomiting in one of his friends after the
ingestion of the slightest amount of sugar. Ritte mentions a similar
instance. Roose has seen vomiting produced in a woman by the slightest
dose of distilled water of linden. There is also mentioned a person in
whom orange-flower water produced the same effect. Dejean cites a case
in which honey taken internally or applied externally acted like
poison. It is said that the celebrated Haen would always have
convulsions after eating half a dozen strawberries. Earle and Halifax
attended a child for kidney-irritation produced by strawberries, and
this was the invariable result of the ingestion of this fruit. The
authors personally know of a family the male members of which for
several generations could not eat strawberries without symptoms of
poisoning. The female members were exempt from the idiosyncrasy. A
little boy of this family was killed by eating a single berry. Whytt
mentions a woman of delicate constitution and great sensibility of the
digestive tract in whom foods difficult of digestion provoked spasms,
which were often followed by syncopes. Bayle describes a man who
vomited violently after taking coffee. Wagner mentions a person in whom
a most insignificant dose of manna had the same effect. Preslin speaks
of a woman who invariably had a hemorrhage after swallowing a small
quantity of vinegar. According to Zimmerman, some people are unable to
wash their faces on account of untoward symptoms. According to Ganbius,
the juice of a citron applied to the skin of one of his acquaintances
produced violent rigors.
Brasavolus says that Julia, wife of Frederick, King of Naples, had such
an aversion to meat that she could not carry it to her mouth without
fainting. The anatomist Gavard was not able to eat apples without
convulsions and vomiting. It is said that Erasmus was made ill by the
ingestion of fish; but this same philosopher, who was cured of a malady
by laughter, expressed his appreciation by an elegy on the folly. There
is a record of a person who could not eat almonds without a scarlet
rash immediately appearing upon the face. Marcellus Donatus knew a
young man who could not eat an egg without his lips swelling and purple
spots appearing on his face. Smetius mentions a person in whom the
ingestion of fried eggs was often followed by syncope. Brunton has seen
a case of violent vomiting and purging after the slightest bit of egg.
On one occasion this person was induced to eat a small morsel of cake
on the statement that it contained no egg, and, although fully
believing the words of his host, he subsequently developed prominent
symptoms, due to the trace of egg that was really in the cake. A letter
from a distinguished litterateur to Sir Morell Mackenzie gives a
striking example of the idiosyncrasy to eggs transmitted through four
generations. Being from such a reliable source, it has been deemed
advisable to quote the account in full: "My daughter tells me that you
are interested in the ill-effects which the eating of eggs has upon
her, upon me, and upon my father before us. I believe my grandfather,
as well as my father, could not eat eggs with impunity. As to my father
himself, he is nearly eighty years old; he has not touched an egg since
he was a young man; he can, therefore, give no precise or reliable
account of the symptoms the eating of eggs produce in him. But it was
not the mere 'stomach-ache' that ensued, but much more immediate and
alarming disturbances. As for me, the peculiarity was discovered when I
was a spoon-fed child. On several occasions it was noticed (that is my
mother's account) that I felt ill without apparent cause; afterward it
was recollected that a small part of a yolk of an egg had been given to
me. Eclaircissement came immediately after taking a single spoonful of
egg. I fell into such an alarming state that the doctor was sent for.
The effect seems to have been just the same that it produces upon my
daughter now,--something that suggested brain-congestion and
convulsions. From time to time, as a boy and a young man, I have eaten
an egg by way of trying it again, but always with the same result--a
feeling that I had been poisoned; and yet all the while I liked eggs.
Then I never touched them for years. Later I tried again, and I find
the ill-effects are gradually wearing off. With my daughter it is
different; she, I think, becomes more susceptible as time goes on, and
the effect upon her is more violent than in my case at any time.
Sometimes an egg has been put with coffee unknown to her, and she has
been seen immediately afterward with her face alarmingly changed--eyes
swollen and wild, the face crimson, the look of apoplexy. This is her
own account: 'An egg in any form causes within a few minutes great
uneasiness and restlessness, the throat becomes contracted and painful,
the face crimson, and the veins swollen. These symptoms have been so
severe as to suggest that serious consequences might follow.' To this I
may add that in her experience and my own, the newer the egg, the worse
the consequences."
Hutchinson speaks of a Member of Parliament who had an idiosyncrasy as
regards parsley. After the ingestion of this herb in food he always had
alarming attacks of sickness and pain in the abdomen, attended by
swelling of the tongue and lips and lividity of the face. This same man
could not take the smallest quantity of honey, and certain kinds of
fruit always poisoned him. There was a collection of instances of
idiosyncrasy in the British Medical Journal, 1859, which will be
briefly given in the following lines: One patient could not eat rice in
any shape without extreme distress. From the description given of his
symptoms, spasmodic asthma seemed to be the cause of his discomfort. On
one occasion when at a dinner-party he felt the symptoms of
rice-poisoning come on, and, although he had partaken of no dish
ostensibly containing rice, was, as usual, obliged to retire from the
table. Upon investigation it appeared that some white soup with which
he had commenced his meal had been thickened with ground rice. As in
the preceding case there was another gentleman who could not eat rice
without a sense of suffocation. On one occasion he took lunch with a
friend in chambers, partaking only of simple bread and cheese and
bottled beer. On being seized with the usual symptoms of rice-poisoning
he informed his friend of his peculiarity of constitution, and the
symptoms were explained by the fact that a few grains of rice had been
put into each bottle of beer for the purpose of exciting a secondary
fermentation. The same author speaks of a gentleman under treatment for
stricture who could not eat figs without experiencing the most
unpleasant formication of the palate and fauces. The fine dust from
split peas caused the same sensation, accompanied with running at the
nose; it was found that the father of the patient suffered from
hay-fever in certain seasons. He also says a certain young lady after
eating eggs suffered from swelling of the tongue and throat,
accompanied by "alarming illness," and there is recorded in the same
paragraph a history of another young girl in whom the ingestion of
honey, and especially honey-comb, produced swelling of the tongue,
frothing of the mouth, and blueness of the fingers. The authors know of
a gentleman in whom sneezing is provoked on the ingestion of chocolate
in any form. There was another instance--in a member of the medical
profession--who suffered from urticaria after eating veal. Veal has the
reputation of being particularly indigestible, and the foregoing
instance of the production of urticaria from its use is doubtless not
an uncommon one.
Overton cites a striking case of constitutional peculiarity or
idiosyncrasy in which wheat flour in any form, the staff of life, an
article hourly prayed for by all Christian nations as the first and
most indispensable of earthly blessings, proved to one unfortunate
individual a prompt and dreadful poison. The patient's name was David
Waller, and he was born in Pittsylvania County, Va., about the year
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