Sensori-Motor Affections
78 Art. VI.?
I.?Recherches Cliniques et Therapeutiques sur V Epilepsie et VHysterie. Par M. Bourneville. 1876.
II.?Contributions a VEtude des Nevroses Extraordinaires. Par le Dr L. Billet. 1874.
III.?Louise Lateau. Rapport Medical sur la Stigmatisee de Bois d’Haine, fait a VAcademie de Medecine de Belgique. Par le Dr Warlomont. 1875.
I. This work may be regarded as naturally divided into three distinct treatises. Tlie first of these embraces the nominal subject of the book, the Status Epilepticus. The second is devoted to a Catalogue Kaisonne of the remedies which have been employed in epilepsy, whether occurring in solitary or serial attacks. The third diverges into cases and considerations illustrative of Hystero-Epilepsy, both as it is connected with epilepsy and as it may be regarded as a separate and indepen- dent affection of the Nervous System. Much of the experience, and all of the examples, of the maladies have been derived from the practice of M. Charcot in that wide and fertile field for observation, the wards for Chronic Epileptics in Salpetriere, and while the author acted as Assistant Physician there, and may be said to have sat at the feet of a scientific Gamaliel. Uetat de final epileptique is characterised as consisting of:?1st, Convul- sions occurring in rapid succession and almost without inter- mission ; 2nd, of unconsciousness of different degrees of intensity, passing into absolute coma, without any return of lucidity; 3rd, of imperfect and transitory hemiplegia; 4th, of the acceleration of the circulation and respiration; 5tli, of great elevation in the temperature of the body, which does not fall either between the attacks or even after they have ceased. The life-long history of a case is given in which, as in the majority of those recorded by other writers, the first stage, or petit mal, is gradually aggravated into the diagnostic fit where the interval between these well-marked periods presents attacks of stupor, partial paralysis,contractions of the muscles, and various forms of constitutional disturbance, the status consisted of 168 con- vulsions within twenty-four hours, although it continued for thirty hours, which is generally the duration of such attacks, and terminated fatally, as happens five out of eight times. The downward progress was marked by complete insensibility and loss of motion ; but, subsequently to the application of six leeches behind each ear, there occurred a brief remission of certain of the symptoms, when the patient moved the head, opened the eyes, uttered cries, and swallowed liquid food administered by the attendant, whom she seemed to recognise. Dissection revealed violet marbling of the convolutions where the congestion of the pia-mater was very intense ; blackening of the same membrane where it invests the bulb; asymetry of the encephalon in con- sequence of atrophy of the right hemisphere ; a large cavity in the occipital lobe, which did not communicate with the centre of the brain, and contained a dark-coloured serous fluid; thin- ning of the cortical substance, resembling a cicatrised softening.
The disorganisation of this hemisphere was such that the ganglia at the base could not be recognised, but on cutting into it there appeared notable malconformations, such as ” circon- volutions parfaitement formees dans l’epaisseur meme de la substance,” and so forth. In place of detecting in these appear- ances, as has been the tendency in modern pathology, the causes of the disease, they may be fairly attributed to the destructive effects of epileptic seizures occurring during a period of fifteen years, amounting in one year towards the close of her life to forty-six prolonged fits and to 749 attacks of ver- tigo ; and on the other side to arrested development and con- genital deformity.
In the second section there is a recapitulation of the failure, or very partial success, even in the hands of M. Charcot, of the drugs long resorted to in epilepsy, comprehending the ammo- niacal sulphate of copper, oxide of zinc, &c., and two additions to such therapeutic agents. These are the bromide of camphor and the nitrate of arnyl. M. Bourneville modestly attributes the limited success obtained from the use of the former to the confirmed character of the disease in the patients on whom it was tried; but, notwithstanding this obstacle, it would appear that in three of the nine cases in which it was tried no benefit was obtained, while in six the frequency of the recurrence of convulsions was diminished, and that of the vertigenous fits greatly so. This latter result is matter for congratulation, as, according to the opinion of most observers, the influence of vertigo in inducing mental deterioration is more disastrous than that of the confirmed malady. The power of the nitrate of amyl in arresting single attacks of epilepsy, especially where the premonition of an aura affords an opportunity for free inhalation, seems to be now established by the observations of Dr Weir Mitchell and of many other practitioners. The most recent testimony upon this point, and the more important property of the medicine in suspending the status epilepticus, is met with in the ” Annual Report of the New York City Lunatic Asylum,” by Dr Macdonald, who says: ” Nitrate of amyl has been employed not only in the status epilepticus, but in the condition resembling it observed in General Paresis. In all cases it has shown itself of value in interrupting the status during its exhibition; and in about two-thirds of the cases in cut- ting it short entirely.” This arrestment of a condition generally fatal to life seems to have been first recorded by Dr J. Crichton Browne in the “Wakefield Asylum Reports.” He details five cases in which, notwithstanding the extreme gravity of the symptoms, the inspiration of the amyl suspended the status, and the sufferers were restored to their ordinary bodily and mental health. Some- what similar success attended the exhibition of the remedy in the hands of Dr.M’Bride (see “Chicago Journal,” April 1875) and others. Its employment in the practice of M. Charcot in such circumstances was not so encouraging; but that he trusts to a certain degree of efficacy in the mean, or hopes that such may yet be demonstrated, is proved by his reliance upon its aid in hystero-epilepsy. In nine cases taken from his clinic, the agent is resorted to as supplementing other resources. Not only is the physiological action of the agent in the coloration of the face, lips, buccal mucous membrane, the eyes, in elevating the temperature and circulation, and perhaps in modifying the con- stitution of the blood carefully noted, but its influence in mitigating or temporarily postponing convulsion, is declared to be incontestable, although the progress of the disease may not be interfered with. The additional resources upon which M. Charcot and his pupil mainly depend in the treatment of hystero- epilepsy, are the application of ice, and especially of pressure, in the region of the ovaries, where there is almost invariably hvper-anaesthesia,with semi-ansethesia on the opposite side. These appliances, if resorted to contemporaneously with the aura, prevent the fit, and if during the attack, they arrest it. Two very long narratives of typical instances of the affection are given, occupying, in fact, more than one-third of the whole volume. But these pages are worthy of perusal, as detailing the various steps and stages of hystero-epilepsy terminating in recovery?in one after a course of fifty-three years, in another of forty-six years. The close of the disease in the latter was abrupt, almost sudden, and this coincides with the experience of M. Charcot in such complications. They are further deserving of consideration, inasmuch as either the neurose described has dis- appeared from this country with the Leaping Ague and Revival Excitement, or we are prone to confound with pure Hysteria what is in fact a complex affection. These histories include almost a nosology, and present not merely every phase of motor and sensory disease, but almost every form of constitutional ill to which flesh is heir. It would be vain to attempt to catch and record the proteiform conditions and casualties of these patients, or even to epitomise the essential characteristics of each ; but we would direct attention to that singular aspect of involuntary, or partially voluntary, muscular arrangement in which the attitude of crucifixion is assumed and maintained for hours. Of this grotesque position an engraving from a photo- graph is given. We know of the occurrence of this symptom in Theomania and Extatics, where volition was slightly, if at all, impaired; and where it constituted a link between mental de- rangement and paralysis; and in those accredited sane; but the prevailing religious opinions in Great Britain do not favour such imitations nor the emotions in which they originate. Of the transition of morbid mental impressions into the act of crucifixion, an illustration will be found in Dr Forbes Winslow’s book on Suicide,* while an equally striking example of the issue of criminal and religious excitement in the perpetration of the same form of suicide, in a person regarded as sane, is given in Dr L. S. Forbes Winslow’s recent brochure on Spiritualism.f II. This is no new and unnamed neurose. It is simply hys- teria, or,in order to embrace all the phenomena,real or imaginary, it may be styled hystero-epilepsy viewed under a transcendental aspect and through a pseudo-scientific medium. The magnify- ing power by which the author has examined the symptoms might have disclosed to him much self-deception, if not dis- simulation, and have impressed him with a clearer conviction of charlatanism than he appears to have arrived at. We venture upon this trenchant criticism thus early, although the narrative be stamped by the sanction of six physicians, three of whom are encomiaised as distinguished, and although the marvellous facts recounted are placed under the safeguard of the automatism of memory and somnambulism, as we feel well assured that the following exposition will justify this condemnation. Here we have a sensitive, susceptible, self-willed, and perhaps parentally indulged girl, subject, in early life, to convulsions which leave their trail in lameness; who is consigned to a convent, where she naturally prefers, to duties or devotion, solitude, secret reading, and reverie, taking little food and less sleep. The bite of a gnat was followed by erysipelas, and then by tosis of the left eye and immobility of the same cheek, and subsequently by progressive paralysis of the right leg and arm. At this stage the physician of the establishment., having more faith in religion than in medicine, hands over his patient to the influence of the Virgin and the Rosary. “When prevented from composing verses she is irritated, seized by syncope, which returns daily at the same hour. This unconsciousness resolved itself into violent hysteric paroxysms, during which death is anticipated ; but this painful event seems to have been averted by the occurrence of the vacation. During a second session at school similar symptoms reappear, complicated with hsematemesis; after which the fits cease, and temporary restoration is effected by a return home? in consequence of her mother’s death?and a trip to the south, which seems invariably to have been crowned with convalescence.
A relapse which happened about this time?ushered in by loss of consciousness so profound and prolonged that the last offices of the Church were administered?was subsequently characterised by the dominion of imagination, melancholia, and abstinence of two months’ duration. A second series of morbid phenomena exhibited irritability of temper, depression, wild speculations as to the mystery and object of her life, cerebral congestion, and fits, which were combated by blisters, leeches, and removing the patient into purer air, but without benefit. Iron, quinine, baths seemed to aggravate her condition, while a refusal of ordinary food ended in the adoption of a diet of plaster and roses, to which was sometimes added mustard as a condiment. Upon other occasions her delicacies were vinegar, chalk, salad, and a sort of tart. Her medical adviser enjoined a daily record of her thoughts and feelings. Her confessions consist of a grotesque mixture of delirious and despairing avowals ; specu- lations on her personal experience, on her desire to bite those around, and so forth. The protiform and chameleon-like changes during a single night often included fever, incoherence, convulsive crisis, unconsciousness; in short, all the characteristics marking the whole period of her indisposition. What appear to have been unequivocal epileptiform attacks ended in violent contractions of the muscles of the right side, erotic movements were associated with the hysteric paroxysms, and somnambulism passed into catalepsy, which could be evoked by the touch of the medical attendant. The external senses of smell, taste, and touch were suspended, the insensibility of the latter being so complete that blows were inflicted to the effusion of blood,?as in the Convulsionaries of St. Medard,?without producing response or complaint; sleep became so abnormal or imperfect that she obeyed the commands of her physician, but of no one else, during its continuance; and the peculiar manifestations of clair- voyance were developed. The tests or triumphs of this super- numerary sense or faculty were such as are now familiar in our public seances. She could divine what was contained in the pocket of a physician in consultation; she could see the hours on a watch placed on the epigastrium, the figure on a coin or the nature of a liquid touching the same region. But such experiments were likewise marked by failures. Prediction during somnambulism was added to this gift, and she announced the return of convulsions, the time of her cure. During this state she conversed freely, and obeyed the will or gestures of her special medical attendant. The muscular contractions, espe- cially of the thorax or throat, were occasionally so extreme as to threaten asphyxia; and dysphagia, except when roses were offered, existed even in the attacks. But a new feature pre- sented itself, and during the soliloquies of her sleeping consciousness she revealed her intention to commit suicide, enumerating the various modes and the objections to them, from carbonic acid to chloroform, and from precipitation to asphyxia, to which she had formerly fruitlessly resorted; but the salutary and opportune remonstrances of her physician, administered while she was still in trance-coma, effectually dissuaded her from this purpose. It is curious to note that her repugnance to death by carbonic acid was, that the features became hideous, and that she wished ” to remain beautiful,” even after ” the last scene of all.” On her own authority, obtained in the same way, magnetic passes relieved headache; she saw visions, such as her mother’s grave ; disclosed halluci- nations?but whether her detection of the presence of a holy medal and of its effects was one of these we shall not pretend to aver?and actually wrote down absurd or unintelligible philosophical propositions, declaring that, if not dictated by an internal voice, an unseen hand compelled her to trace the characters. After episodes of rhythmic and erotic movements, corresponding to the arterial pulsations, and mimicry of what was passing around; what is called ” transmission of thought” supervenes. This is defined by the somnambulist as the com- munication of thought and memory,by the nervous or electric fluid from the magnetiser to the person magnetised. A more startling phase marks the progress of this infirmity or inspira- tion. The hand which guided her in writing, and which she apostrophises as beautiful, imprints upon her wrist a red and, as if, a burning mark, which remains visible for a week, and thus raises her to the rank of a Stigmatic. Eelapses, created by fear and chequered by the usual concomitants of convulsions, som- nambulism, choreaic movements, and ultimately cured by mag- netism, occur; but the concluding scene, like that of other romances, reveals perfect recovery and marriage, after darkness and disease continuing for four years, perhaps from infancy. A second case follows, in which the subject, of the same age, differed materially from the first in that she did labour under amenorrhcea, that she was of goodly stature and strength, neither hysterical nor unhealthy; but agreed in so far that a slight nervous irritation inflames and involves the whole system and is succeeded by the following consequences. Toothache neces- sitates extraction, which is followed by convulsions and tetanus, temporarily relieved by the use of chloroform and the applica- tion of leeches to the thighs. In the course of a few hours trismus and rigidity of the lower extremities introduces clonic spasms of extreme violence, which are invariably reproduced by the touch of a cold finger. Hyperesthesia of touch leads her to believe that she walks on needles ; but the functions of the senses of taste and smell are suspended, and when the eyes are shut the power of co-ordination of the muscles is lost. After a period anaesthesia becomes the substitute of hyperesthesia, and the stomach becomes endowed with clairvoyance, so that she can dis- tinguish the nature of fluids without tasting them. Four severe attacks of hysteria give place to catalepsy and prediction during somnambulism of recovery on a certain day. She obeys all injunc- tions addressed to her by her medical attendant, but awakes insen- sible to pain. She is restored to sleep by a fixed look, sensation re- turns, she answers questions, and obeys the volitions of the operator.
Headache and paralysis are induced by his touch, while magnetic passes remove both. During a relapse, marked by such violent convulsions and erotic movements that two men were required to restrain her agitation, palsy is again produced by the will of the physician, and mutism by touching the patient’s tongue, a result which ensued even when the impression was made by others. Slight contraction of the right leg, which remained after all other symptoms had disappeared, gradually passed away, and the patient recovered, without any other than mesmeric medication, at the precise period she had prophesied, but was not, so far as we understand, married.
M. Billet adds a postcript, in which a sketch is given of the gradual development of the doctrines as to artificial and mag- netic sleep, animal magnetism, and hypnotism in the works of Puysegur, Dupotet,and in the Report of the French Academy; but by English psychologists these theories are either doubted, dis- believed, or only partially accredited, and nothing more is re- quired of us than to hint that these cases of hysteria have been drawn up by one who is a spiritualist, who believes in medicine much, but in magnetism more.
III. It is the blot and blemish on the present generation that even those of educated minds recoil from the admission of a super- natural element in the consideration of human affairs. Such disinclination is not the offspring of the humility of conscious ignorance, but of the arrogant presumption which craves universal knowledge. The Sceptic sees no limits to human capabilities; even the enlightened Orthodox?impressed with the vast extent of discovery?is blind to the facts that of the primary- origin or ultimate issue of every natural law, and of its appli- cation in the progress of our race, we are, and must ever remain, profoundly ignorant. There is a superstition and a recognition of illogical premises and half truths in unbelief as well as in belief. Even the scientific doubter will receive a superficial, a semi-solution, rather than obtain no explanation at all; he invents theories and remains satisfied; and wherever he fails to penetrate or comprehend a difficult3,he denounces it as an error, a mystery, a delusion. It might conduce to the advancement and precision of knowledge could a line of demarcation be drawn between the knowable and the unknowable, a region separating science from faith, a stage or stages beyond which inquiry should not be prosecuted. Such circumscription would still leave an almost boundless territory for investigation on both sides of the limit, and might prevent the vain and abortive speculations which close in disappointment, and, what is worse, expend and exhaust energies which might be profitably exerted in a different direction and on practicable subjects. The tendency to explain everything, to elect the intellect into a divining power, and to claim the manifestations of moral con- victions or of credulity as coming within the positivist category of what we can touch, taste, handle, may be traced even in that, land of sanctity and sacerdotalism, Belgium. What has until very recently been regarded as within sacred precincts, as in thf very shadow of the Church?the experiences and extasies of devotees, of many who are already or who may become cano- nised saints?has been submitted to public, or rather academic, scrutiny and criticism. It should be confessed that the examina- tion has been conducted, upon the whole, respectfully and re- verentially. Of the many medical observers whose opinions are introduced in the publication before us, one, M. Lefebvre, boldly contends ” II y manque tout, car il y manque Dieu,” and the author M. Warlomont, who attributes the phenomena inves- tigated to a corporeal orgin, admits that Toujours un peu de verite Se mele au plus grossier mensonge.
Of the class of extatics and stigmatics, for such it is, to which the subject of this memoir belongs, this is the first member submitted to scientific inspection. One hundred and sixty-four have been recorded ; of these four are mentioned by Lord Shrews- bury, and quoted by Dr Binns,* and seven are cursorily alluded to by Dr Hammond ;f but of the latter, although all living in modern and inquisitive times, none of them, except Louise Lateau, appear to have passed through a medical or analytic ordeal. All were members of the Church of Home, and this connection appears necessarily the first step along that path which con- ducted to the condition, whatever its nature might be, about to be described; but the allegation that the individuals affected were chiefly the outcome of Conventual Life, and the Mendicant Orders of that community, is erroneous. We shall first present the history, physiological and moral, of the extatic; then the peculiar, and, as it is asserted, pathological indications which followed and accompanied her religious impressions; and lastly, the approximative conclusions arrived at by the reporter, his collaborateur and correspondents.
A peasant girl, set. 24, lost her father when a few months old, receiving the contagion of variola from him. Her family was extremely poor, supported by their own labour; she acting as nurse, farm servant, and in other capacities by turns, and was,While a domestic drudge, well nourished. She was affected with chlorosis, eczema, tumour of axilla, and was wounded by a cow which she herded, but worked bravely, attended school for five months, and learned the Catechi’sm. Subsequently she laboured under hsematemesis and anaemia, and, although she abstained from food for a month, the catamenia were established. A rapid improvement in physical health was followed by a disposition to silence, solitude, religious meditations and utterances, daily communion and pious observances. At this stage she was conscious of the appearance of the Virgin and of Mediaeval Extatics, such as St. Ursula and St. Theresa.
After manifesting a modification of levation, or raising the body on the points of the fingers and toes, she passed, periodically, especially during her constitutional change, into a state of unconsciousness, attitudinisation, or extasy, previous to and during which appeared stigmata, or wounds corresponding tj those inflicted under crucifixion, which dis- charged blood and serum for eighteen hours, but invariably on Thursday and Friday, healing up during the intervening week, and leaving no cicatrix nor mark of the supposed solution of continuity. The wound in the left side was first noticed, then those on the feet and hands, and lastly the bloody points representing the injuries inflicted by the crown of thorns. Notwithstanding these marvellous occurrences L. L. engaged in her ordinary avocations in the house and garden, and while her sisters pursued their occupation as seamstresses. This com- pressed analysis of what was patent to all around exhausts what may be called the natural and explicable life of Louise Lateau. The pathological or supernatural attributes or acts, as they may be differently viewed, fall now to be enumerated. It is affirmed that she has swallowed no food for three years and a half; that the stomach rejected by vomiting all save the sacred elements when she endeavoured to comply with the wishes of her friends, the act being attended by retelling and haematemesis ; that neither the bowels, skin, nor bladder had acted for years ; that the functions of the uterus were regular; but that, notwithstanding this protracted unnatural condition, her body continued robust or plump. A bruit de souffle was generally heard when the heart was examined; the pulse was undisturbed?generally about 70?except during the extatic paroxysm, when it rose to 100 or 120; a rise of tem- perature and fever invariably preceding and marking the suspension of consciousness and the discharge from the stigmata. She never slept; but intervals of absence of mind occurred during insomnia. She suffered exquisite pain, amounting to agony, but most intense around the wounds and during her abnor- mal state, and it was aggravated by the touch of a bystander. There was, notwithstanding, anaesthesia, tested by electricity; but while the sense of touch was excited, smell and taste were abolished, although the tongue continued moist; vision was my- opic; and hearing unimpaired. The prodromes of the impending somnambulic excitement?which continued for eighteen hours? were pain, the appearance of bullae in the site of the surfaces about to bleed, and the assumption of a peculiar position. Vh3n fully established, the fits consisted of three stages : in the first, while seated in a chair, the movements of the body followed those of the open but insensible eye; in the second the patient knelt; in the third she prostrated herself. During all of these, although unconscious, she obeyed the voice and will of the priest, not merely in protruding the tongue for the reception of the Host, but in the performance of common acts; but was not aroused or awakened by the presence of curious strangers, although upon one occasion twenty-five crowded into her small apartment. While flowing from the open surfaces the blood seemed to consist of the usual constituents coagulated; but, on the ces- sation of the haemorrhage, no true cicatrice remained, although the site and size of the breach could be traced, both on the feet and hands, by a crevice remaining between the bones; while, when the brown spots were washed from the forehead, nothing but the pores of the skin could be detected. The sore upon the shoulder, supposed to shadow forth an abrasion produced by the cross, and the opening on the left side, did not engage much attention. When the anomalous features of the case are kept in mind almost every vigil, test, theory was, as might have been expected, dictated by a preconceived notion, or inspired by the expectation of detecting fraud or fanaticism. The clumsiness, inapplicability, and inefficacy of many of these experiments may be judged of from what follows. The reality of the pro- fessed long protracted abstinence depends for proof on the averments of L. L. herself, of her friends, on the evidence of certain men of science, who watched beside her for three days and two nights; while the disproof hinges upon the robustness, unvarying weight, and general health of the body while these were not maintained by any nitrogenous element or by any increment save the Eucharist and cold water, and while a certain amount of debility must have resulted from weekly haemorrhages, from the suspension of those functions upon the equilibrium of which health depends, and by the pervigliam, the excitement and perverted sensibility, as to the recurrence of which there could be but little doubt; but the daring hypothesis of Chabonnier that nitrogen might be introduced into the system by the lungs is summarily rejected. The expiration of carbonic acid was several times unequivocally established. That there was no hypertrophy, either of the epidermis or the lung tissue, as advanced by one authority, as explanatory of determination of blood to those organs, is, we think, very clear. The qualitative and quantitative elements of the blood were determined, micro- scopically, to be such as would exist under ansemia. When the point from which the fluid exuded was examined, red turgescent papillae of the epidermis were discovered at the bottom of the wound, resembling fleshy granulations. These were not removable by washing. But the inquiry arose, did blood actually flow on Friday, or at any other time, from these spots or orifices. That either a current or, at all events, clpts of blood did appear on or in the vicinity of the stigmata on the days specified could not well be disputed ; but as gloves, which were the first means adopted in order to frustrate external interference, could not prevent friction and irritation, the right arm was enclosed in an ample glass cylinder, attached and sealed to the patient’s dress in such a manner that it could not be removed nor even dis- turbed, and did not restrain the change of posture. This apparatus, the contrivance of M. Warlomont, the narrator, was applied to the arm on Thursday, and allowed to remain for twenty hours, or two beyond the usual duration of the crisis.
When the arm was exposed there were found to be clots of blood on or in both wounds of the hand, while a smaller quan- tity in a state of fluidity had passed into the glass vessel; in fact, the appearances resembled those repeatedly noticed when no pre- cautions had been resorted to. The majority of the phenomena recorded having been detailed, we proceed to give a few of the many explanations which have been attempted. M. Chabonnier, who first excited public and professional attention upon the sub- ject, conceives that all extatics are diseased, that fasting is a prodrome or preparation for succeeding stages in the chain of causation. These are very numerous, but are common to all other forms of religious mental depression or exaltation, as well as to extasy and mysticism. He conceives that specimens of this class are never found in large cities, where the atmosphere does not contain ozone, rarely in temperate, but frequently in warm, latitudes. The affection is confined chiefly to females and adults. Insisting strongly on the influence of waste of tissue and debility, commenting upon the fallacy of attributing to spiritual what is due to natural causes, he finds in constitutional disorder, hallucinations, syncope, and so forth, morbid elements which are incompatible with life by determining haemorrhages from the lungs and skin, or with the normal states of the nervous system. He then details the manifestation of certain latent faculties roused by the stimulus of necessity, and under certain abnormal states of the system, such as the instinct of traversing the desert; the development of such a degree of animal electri- city as is often emitted from the hair sometimes in the forma- tion of an aureole ; the escape from drowning during lethargy; the penetration into the thoughts of others by facial expression; and associated these with that nervous constitution which originates illusions and hallucinations. He then delivers the opinion that pious contemplation, fostered by fastings that the feelings of compassion, reverence, love, and the disposition to dwell upon the most perfect example of the moral and religious character, induce the desire and the effort to imitate and re- semble the model constantly before the mind; and he then asserts that these internal impressions, which produce first a san- guineous, and then a nervous, fluxion towards the skin, and ultimately, by great concentration, htemorrhage, in other words, stigmatisation, profound reverie or extasy, with a modification of volition, are invariably conjoined in this process. The mystic is a clairvoyant or somnambulist, as if under animal mag- netism, beholds nothing but the object of her adoration, and obeys no orders except those given by persons in spiritual relation to her.
M. Warlomont, the reporter of the views of the Commission appointed by the Academy, opens the discussion by repeating the interrogatory which has been addressed by every reflecting man to himself when contemplating the acts of extatics and the vast body of hysterics : ” If this be deception, what motive or object can actuate the impostor ?” He then passes in review the most interesting and notorious instances of simu- lation : double-consciousness or automatism; alternate palsy and perfect muscular control without consciousness or recol- lection, liynoptism ; somnambulism, spontaneous or induced; effects of imagination, when directed to particular organs; by interference with nutrition; by the creation of pain, and by the inducing ecchymosis and enlargement of capillaries. But supposing that these analogues to extasy and its concomi- tants, remote although many of them are, were admitted, it is difficult to understand in what way they affect the subject under consideration, or, indeed, approach it; except that the faculty of attention, or the concentration of the mind upon one object, seems to be powerfully, if not morbidly, exalted in all. M. Warlomont is fully alive to this objection; for while he places fixity of thought and emotion in the first rank of causes, he seeks support from many subordinate and obscure mental physiological and pathological laws, or in disobedience to these, in his solution of the complex problem before him. He fails, we think, in affording a satisfactory explanation, but is modest and moderate in propounding substitutes for what he has sought. It is quite obvious that, in the instance of Louise Latenu, there is but one concept or class of concepts; that this is the Mission, Passion, or bodily injuries and sufferings of the Saviour; that she portrays and personifies these intently and incessantly in her consciousness, probably transferring them locally to her own body, and this to the exclusion of every other impression, idea, and feeling. It is highly probable that this poor girl had heard from the legends of her Church of stigmata, and believed in them as marks of Divine favour; it is further in perfect accordance with the course of introspection, that she might have connected that which she saw with its repetition in her own person; but it is expressly asserted in the recital, that she neither willed, wished, nor anticipated such a sign. What passed through her mind during the weekly rapture was en- tirely subjective, except in so far as her confessions could be trusted. The complications in the muscular and nervous systems might have been hysterical, although we are told that she never experienced the epigastric or dorsal pain, or other characteristics of the disease: but the state of the circulation set at naught such a supposition. In dealing with the transu- dation of blood from the surface in different places without discernible rupture of the skin or capillaries, terminating spon- taneously, and without leaving any, or very slight, indication of what had happened, M. Warlomont takes refuge in the inchoate hypothesis of Diaped&se, which represents, according to M. Cohnheim, the transmission of the blood corpuscles through the walls of the extreme capillaries, which consist of flattened cells of extreme tenuity, and which are connected either by a fusion of the protoplasm or by an animal cement, the orifice of the tubes thus constructed being separated from the lymphatic sheaths by a vacant space, into which may be poured their solid contents, the blood globules floating in serum, without any destruction of their integrity or continuity, an escape or error loce, more fre- quent, it is presumable, during acceleration of the circulation than at other times. The stomata created by such an irruption may, it is intelligible, disappear and leave no trace behind. But our essayist does not abandon altogether the effort to localise the precise spot in the brain upon which this and similar neuroses depend. This region, according to what he designates “une remarquable puissance d’induction ” on the part of MM. Demar- quay and Griraud Teulon, is to be found between the corpora quadrigemina and the peduncules cerebri, but may comprehend that part of the bulb which is connected with nervous sleep, and even the point of the calamus scriptorius, which is supposed to preside over the duplicate action of the vaso-motor nerves. In these latter paragraphs there have been embodied the views of M. Warlomont, in a great measure speculative, of the nature and relations of the extraordinary conditions which he was called upon by the Academy to describe and define; and these may be epitomised still further, as comprehending (1) profound pious meditation, abstraction, and image-picturing deep; (2) emotion attended by excitation and cerebral changes in the bulb and sur- rounding parts, involving unconsciousness, insensibility, and it may be illusion ; (3) these molecular disturbances provoke a discharge of surplus nervous energy to certain points in the extremities idealised by the patient. The vaso-motor nerves first causing the dilatation and then the contraction of the arteries and capillaries, educe a determination of blood to the points previously selected, and a consequent overflow of the con- tents through epithelial films, which cannot be said to be either broken down or repaired.
That these ingenious, though barely concatenated, proposi- tions fully or fairly account for all, or many, of the manifesta- tions, physical or psychical, in Louise Lateau we cannot admit. It has been said that when Virchow read the memoir, his exclamation was, ” Either a trick or a miracle.” We are not inclined to embrace either alternative in totality; but we candidly confess that rather than receive ” the internal light, the growth of thought that is to say, the initial molecular vivification, which at first slowly, but at length by hyper-activity, is transformed into the ideogenous molecules, which then cohere and constitute the mechanism of the marvellous faculty attention ” (p. 142), or ” the repeated junction of these congeries of molecules, as a reproductive of sensation or memory” (p. 140), as affording the faintest or most fanciful solution of the difficulties presented in extatic stigmatisation, we should prefer to regard the phenomena as miraculous.
But, although untrustworthy in his premises and philosophical deductions, we conceive M. Warlomont to be cautious and sound in his practical conclusions.
I. ” The extasies and stigmata of Louise Lateau are real but we protest against the second division of the sentence, that ” they have been physiologically explained.” If. ” That the malady of Louise Lateau (if malady it be) may be arranged under the class neurose, and named neuropathie stigmatique.”
III. ” As Louise Lateau works, gives off heat, as her breath contains water and carbonic acid, which must be derived from some external source; as her weight has not diminished while under observation, and as she loses blood weekly; so, unless her complete abstinence be better established than it is, she must be believed to take food.”
N.B.?Somewhat in contrast to the portrait of Louise Lateau is added that of another Belgian extatic. She was a strong, healthy girl, working and eating like her fellow-labourers, some- what pale, but neither chlorotic, neuralgic, nor subject to haemorrhage; at first hilarious, then somewhat depressed, but at all times inclined to dwell upon the sufferings of our Saviour. From the age of twenty she daily trod the Via Dolorosa; but not until nine years afterwards did she experience extasies which continued for twenty-four hours. During these crises she was altogether unconscious of what passed around, and took no nourishment. About two months before her death stigmata appeared in all the usual places ; that in the side resembling the wound from a spear, those in the hands and feet seemed to have been inflicted by a nail; and all discharged blood. The first discharge took place on Friday, reappeared on the same day every succeeding week, and was attended by great physical suffering. Although the blood ceased to flow towards the close of the paroxysm, the wounds never closed. Hiematemesis preceded her death, which occurred in 1874, when she was thirty years of age. Latterly the patient fed sparingly on bread and legumes, but for the last two months partook of no solid food.
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