Transference of Special Sense
37 Art. III.? BY J, G. DAVEY, M.D.r Bristol.
The annexed case I have cliosen to name “Transference of Sense.” It will be seen to be one in which the phenomena of clairvoyance are plainly demonstrated; and these are shown by the antecedents of the patient to have occurred spontaneously, and to exist independently of the employment of any prior and artificial means, to which such are, as a general rule, to be referred. Clairvoyance is now known as the outcome of a rare condition of the nervous system?a condition which may have a spontaneous origin, or be induced in the ordinary way by the successful manipulator or ” mesmeriser ” : it may be, in other words, either subjective or objective. In Mrs. Croad, as her medical history shows, or her antecedents reveal, the condition is simply subjective. The cause of her ” transference of sense”?or, what is the same thing, her clairvoyance?is altogether within herself; and this cause, like any other cause, produces its special effects ; such are described in the following recital.
Dr William Gregory, in the second edition of his ” Animal Magnetism,” confesses to have once doubted the existence of ” spontaneous clairvoyance ” in others than the somnambule; but his opinion in regard to this matter underwent, as it appears, a material change. In chapter 5 of the book just named, he has treated of spontaneous clairvoyance as an undoubted fact; as one occurring from time to time, and not as a sequence of ” the process for causing mesmeric sleep.” The case of Mrs. Croad is very closely allied to ” animal magnetism,” or ” mesmerism” (so-called), whether or not artificially induced. I would add that, in spite of the weigiit of evidence in favour of the facts reported, not a few of the younger medical men in this good city of Bristol declare that ” mesmerism ” and ” clairvoyance ” exist not in a morbid imagination?but in the minds of the credulous ; and this much in spite of the asserted and practical conclusions to the contrary of some ten or twelve of their more experienced and larger-minded seniors, let alone many more outside the profession, who have kindly accepted my invitations to see Mrs. Croad when tested in the severest manner. A few medical and other friends are content to include my patient with the ordinary blind, and to affirm (what is in no sense true) ” that some clever
Read before the Bath and Bristol branch of the British Medical Association,
January 20, 1881.
blind people have the power of detecting colours by the touch.” The officials at the Bristol Blind Asylum tell me that ” after an experience of the blind, extending’ over some twenty and thirty years, they have not been able to find the remotest trace of any such power ” as that so plainly demonstrated in this present case. It was in the year 1857 that the late Dr Gr. Wilson, of Edinburgh, gave to the world a small book known as ” The Five Gateways of Knowledge.” To these he, following the example of the famous John Bunyan, gave the names Ear-gate, Eye-gate, Mouth-gate, Nose-gate, and Feel-gate. These gateways we recognise as the ” organs of the senses,” and call them by the several names of the eye, the ear, the nose, the mouth, and the skin. Such are the instruments by which we see, hear, smell, taste, and touch. ” Such,” writes Dr Gr. Wilson, ” are at once loopholes through which the spirit”?whatever that may be?” gazes out upon the world, and the world gazes in upon the spirit.”
Now these several instruments or loopholes are liable to accidents and to various diseased conditions, the effects of which we see realised in the blind, the deaf, and the paralysed. However, it is with the eye?”the light of the body,” “the most honoured of the organs of the senses,” so called by the poet? that this paper deals. It concerns me, this evening, to call your attention to the rare, the very remarkable case of a female who for many years past has been recognised as sightless, as blind, whilst in the possession of a sense of touch so exceptional and intensified as to enable her to perceive? and, perceiving, to describe with more or less accuracy?pictures of various kinds and photographs when placed in her right hand. In Mrs. Croad we have an instance of the sense of touch standing largely in the place of vision?a case wherein ” wisdom, though at one entrance is quite shut out,” has found a substitute, the particulars of which must claim from us a careful and painstaking consideration. The antecedents of this muchafflicted person are these. Born in 1840, she is said to have passed through the greater part of childhood with fair health. On the occurrence of puberty she had attacks from time to time of syncope?very probably of the hysterical kind. At the early age of 19 she married. Five years afterwards she had a fall, when the spine was said to be injured. To this accident succeeded epilepsy, attacks of which occurred almost daily during four months. It was at this time, or near to it, that she lost a child?it was scalded to death. The shock then sustained by her appears to have been unusually severe and protracted. The lower extremities gave signs of great weakness, and became, at length, powerless or paralytic; whilst, as a conTRANSFERENCE OF SPECIAL SENSE. 39 sequence or attendant on a chronic gastric affection, she is said to have lost ” all power to partake of or digest solid food.” Her condition in 1866 is described as pitiable in the extreme. The frequent fits, the lost motive power, and the impairment of the general health led to her becoming ” bedridden.” So she has remained to this time (1880), a period of fourteen years. In 1870, it is stated, “she became totally blind “; in the following year deaf, and in 1874 speechless. The pai’alysis, which was limited to the lower extremities, involved, in 1879, the upper limbs; but at this time the loss of sensation and motion is limited to the left arm, the fingers and thumb of the left hand being but partially affected. The right hand and arm have recovered their once-lost functions. She is now able to articulate, though with difficulty, from, as it appears to me, a tetanic rigidity of the temporal and masseter muscles, by which the mouth is kept, to a large extent, fixed and closed. It was in October last that I was asked to see Mrs. Croad. I found her sitting in a semi-recumbent position on a small bedstead, her head and shoulders resting on pillows. The eyelids were fast closed, and the left arm and hand resting by the side. The knees I found then, as they are still, bent at an acute angle, the heels closely pressed to the under and upper parts of the thighs. As she was suffering from a cold and general indisposition, I delayed then any particular investigation of her case, other than that associated with her temporary indisposition? that is to say, I preferred not to go into those matters, so rare and peculiar, and with which her name has become so famous in Clifton and elsewhere. Since October, and through the months of November and December, 1880, I have subjected Mrs. Croad to many and various tests with the view of satisfying myself as to the truth or otherwise of the statements given to the world of her blindness, sense of touchT and marvellous sympathies.
To my near neighbours?Dr Andrews and Elliot?I am much indebted. The various tests referred to were witnessed by them in my presence, and with the effect of assuring us that she (Mrs. Croad) was and is enabled to perceive, through the aid only of touch, the various objects, both large and small, on any given card or photograph. After an experience extending over some nine or ten weeks, during which the ” tests ” were many times repeated, and, now and then, in the presence of several medical and non-medical (ladies and gentlemen) friends, there remained (I believe) not the least doubt of this ” transference of sense” from the eyes of Mrs. Croad to her fingers and the palm of her right hand. It need not to be supposed that I and others were content to believe in Mrs. Croad’s blind40 TRANSFERENCE OF SPECIAL SENSE. ness and to take 110 specific precautions against any possible trick or deception?far from this. On solicitation, she very kindly assented to be blindfolded, after a very decided fashion; and so blindfolded that neither deception on her part nor prejudice nor false judgment on ours were?either the one or the other?possible. The blindfolding was accomplished thus: a pad of cotton wool being placed on each orbit; the face was then covered by a large and thickly-folded neckerchief; this was tied securely at the back part of the head, and?even more than this?more cotton wool was pushed up towards the eyes, on either side of the nose. Not content, however, the aid of two fingers of a bystander were called into requisition, and with these a continued pressure was kept up, during the “testing” outside and over the neckerchief and wool and above the closed eyes. At this stage of the proceedings the room was, on two different occasions, very thoroughly darkened. Under such circumstances it was the testing commenced, and continued to the end; the result being, as theretofore, in the highest degree, conclusive and satisfactory. The transference of sense from one organ to another as an acquired and spontaneous condition of being must, on the evidence here adduced, be accepted as a demonstrated and certain fact. I would state here, that on receiving a picture card or a photo’ from a bystander she (Mrs. Croad) places it on and about the chin or mouth, and perhaps draws it across the forehead, but the minute examination of the card is, apparently, the work of the fingers of the right hand. These several acts are, for the most part, followed by a quiet and intense thought, a well-marked concentration of mind on the picture or whatever it may be, when, after a short time, she writes on a slate kept near her, a description?sometimes a full and detailed one?of the card, its colouring and the several objects thereon. I have seen some forty or fifty picture-cards and photographs described by Mrs. Croad at different times with various degrees of accuracy, during the whole period I have known her. Occasionally her rapid and precise perception, or, if you prefer the word, conception, of the picture, and of the many yet minute and trifling objects going to form its entirety, is really startling. I have but seldom seen her wholly at fault, though she has met with her failures.
So far I have dwelt only on one, but that one the principal, as I conceive, of Mrs. Croad’s rare powers ; yet do there remain other facts of her case to which I must now draw your attention. The description of the mode in which she is communicated with?she being blind or blindfolded, as already described?is thus given in the words of her biographer (Mr. Westlake): ” It is done simply by writing with the finger on her face, which is so sensitive that it receives and transmits to the brain the slightest movements of the finger, whether moved up or down, across, or in any direction. If circumstances are favourable it appears impossible to write too fast for her to understand.” Now in this there is not, as I conceive, very much remarkable; a small measure of experience proves the easy acquirement of this same ” sensitiveness ” of the nerves of the face and its transmission to the brain ; but much remains to be said in connexion with this, as a mode of communication between Mrs. Croad and her daughter. Sitting quietly by or near to Mrs. Croad, my attention has been again and again riveted on the manner in which Miss Croad holds communion with her mother. Miss Croad does very certainly move her fingers over and about the face of her mother, but few, if any, letters or words are formed by her. Watching her very narrowly on several occasions, I felt at length assured that Miss Croad’s communications were altogether unlike those made by either visitors or friends. The latter named formed letters, and with these words, and so conversed?if the expression be allowed?with Mrs. Croad ; but it is not so with her daughter. Impressed with the fact as above stated, I spoke to Miss Croad of it, when she told me that as the rule it was requisite simply that she put herself in a close or personal contact with her mother to convey to her what was wished, or to give her a knowledge of this or that, as the case may be. Now so marked a mental sympathy or concordance as this is altogether without or outside the experience of most of us; and it is therefore well worthy the attention of those present who have the courage to investigate, what I may well call, unorthodox medicine. But to this matter I must again refer farther on, or in the remarks to follow on the whole case.
Further, Mrs. Croad is said to have the additional power to detect as it were by sympathy, or by a community of ideas and feeling, any letter written by a friend of hers and put into her hands by a third party. This I know, on receiving a letter some weeks since from Dr Maclean, of Swindon, I took it forthwith to her. On receiving it from me she exclaimed, ” Oh, from my dear Doctor Maclean ! “
It is said also by those near and dear to her that such is Mrs. Croad’s prevision that she has been known to have foretold my own visits to her; what I mean is, that on my approach to the house she occupies and when at a distance from it, and unseen by anyone about her?in fact, not within sight?she has said, ” Dr Davey is coming; he will be here directly.” I confess to a difficulty in either believing or comprehending this. If such prevision or prescience is really within the capacity of the human organism, we, of all others, have much to learn in respect to the nervous system in man and animals. However, I learn by letter from my friend Dr Maclean, that in the early part of his medical career he had a patient of the hysterical type who displayed a like lucidity.
So much then for the main or principal facts of a singular case. It remains for me to offer for your consideration remarks on these facts. Now, I shall treat the subject in hand from a Physiological stand-point. Of matters supernatural, or of forces outside nature, I know nothing. If any one here expects me to discourse or speculate on the immaterial, the metaphysical, he will be disappointed : for this single and sufficient reason, I believe in nothing of the kind. As a materialist I hold that’ to degrade matter as is now done, to regard matter as else than the main-spring?the only direct and sufficient cause of each one and all the vital phenomena?else than the ever-potent force at work in and through both the organic and inorganic worlds: and as such doomed, in virtue of natural law, to realise, ever and anon, that sublime adaptation of means to the end, at once sustaining, perfecting, and all-wise: so, I say, to degrade matter, is to stem the tide of truth, of progress, and humanity. Matter and force stand now, as they have ever done and will continue to stand, in the near relation to eachi other of cause and effect, and so it is they cannot be separated from each other. It is for us to duly appreciate this fact. Now the condition of Mrs. Croad is one in which we see in operation a principal of our common organism; that one known as the ” law of compensation.” In a state of health the various organs of this body of ours may be said to realise a state of equilibrium. In the exercise of the many functions?which, united in the individual, constitute his life?each one function aids every other, and with the effect of securing both health and comfort 4 o man. If from any cause (subjective or objective) this same equilibrium is disturbed or, what is the same thing, this mutual aid is interfered with, then does ill-health and discomfort follow. In this case are seen to arise certain salutary efforts of our nature, the outcome only of our material composition, i.e. the organism designed to establish or to ensure the required relief by the law of compensation. Those of you who have resided in a tropical country will remember the effect on the kidneys of removal to the colder atmospheres of the hill-tops from the high temperature of the valley or seaside. The skin is then rendered pretty nearly inactive whilst the kidneys may be said to be in a state of hyperesthesia. We all know the effects of meredis-use, of accident and disease, confined to one side of the body, or to one limb, or to one eye, on the other the normal side of the body?the other limb or ‘eye, and so on. These are, very evidently, to increase the functional power of the used limbs and the sound eye, &c. Here, again, we recognise the ” law of compensations.” But the same law is ever active in man and animals; and not only so, but it runs through the whole of the vegetable kingdom. Standing at the bedside, the really practical man can scarcely fail to see it in operation day by day. Dr Budd, of Clifton, the inheritor of a lost father’s genius, has very recently called the attention of the medical world to the law just named. He is said to have propounded a new pathological doctrine resting on this law as a basis sure and true. It is asserted that, by tying the ureters, uric acid and its compounds may be demonstrated ” in the connective tissue corpuscles.” Certainly this fact favours Dr. Budd’s views in so far as it affords evidence of ” the law of compensation ; ” and as such I accept it, and in connection, too, with the case now being considered. In the lower animals, as the horse and dog, we see this famous law operate. The careful stepping of the horse when not duly shod, or when not roughed, is to the point, and indicates the extra demands or strain put, upon the sense of sight. The conduct of a blind horse or dog, the mode in which such are led to seek their food, and to perform other sundry acts of their kind, are evidence clear and undoubted of the higher claims made on the senses of smell and touch. Truly, indeed, does the poet affirm?
Nothing in this world is single; All things by a law divine In one another’s being mingle.
It has been suggested that Plato had some dim forecast of this when he taught that the world was a huge animal; and others, since Plato, when they conceived the universe to be the manifestation of some transcendent life, with which each separate individual life was related, “as parts are to the whole.” However, in the 21st Eeport of the Directors of Hartford Asylum are seen the particulars of one Julia Brace, who became both blind and deaf at the age of five, and in whom it was observed that in proportion as her sight and hearing were lost, so her sense of smell became ” wonderfully acute.” In the said report we read that: ” She has been frequently known to select her own clothes from a mass of dresses belonging to 140 persons… . Her manner is to examine each article by feeling, but to decide upon it by the sense of smell; and in regard to her own things she never errs… . She has been frequently known to discriminate, merely by smelling them, the recently-washed stockings of the boys from those of the girls at the asylum.”
The ” law of compensation,” though an accepted fact, leaves us very much in the dark in so far as the transference of sense in Mrs. Croad is concerned. Strange, that the loss of sight in her, the consequence of disease?or, if you will, the mere blindfolding of her?as already described, should beget or involve so very exalted a condition of the sensory nerves of the right upper extremity as to beget a state of things in any way equivalent to vision. What is there in the eye itself, or in its evolution through the lower forms of animal life, to help us to a conclusion at all satisfactory ? Is it true, as asserted by an eminent and modern writer, that ” we see very much by the aid of our fingers ” ? Let us examine the basis or grounds of this very bold assertion. Can these elucidate in any degree the case of Mrs. Croad ?
Now, it is known that, in the words of the late Dr GTeorge Wilson, many living creatures have no eyes. The star-fishes have, he affirms, ” mere sensitive points, by means of which they perceive neither colours nor forms, but are dimly conscious of light and darkness.” In the sea-side studies of the late Gr. H. Lewes we are told much of deep interest concerning the eyes of marine animals. ” The molluscs,” he says, ” like the heathen idols, have eyes for the most part, yet see not; nevertheless, unlike the heathen idols, they are endowed with these organs for no make-believe, but for specific purposes… . Molluscular vision is not human vision, nor, in accurate knowledge, is it vision at all; it is not seeing, but feeling… . It is not a perception of objects, but a sensation of light and darkness.” Lewes declares that in the doris, eolis, and in the pleurobranchus the eyes are underneath the skin and rest on the brain (ccsophogeal ganglia), attached thereto by a microscopic nerve.” The same skin, bear in mind, is without an aperture, as in man, and through which, in him, the rays of light fall directly on the eye; ” so that,” says Lewes, ” in spite of pigment, lens, and nerve, the essential parts of a visual organ, vision is utterly impossible ; as you may conceive yourself,” he playfully adds, ” even with your own admirable eyes, if the lids are obstinately closed over them.” Now, although these eyes of the doris, &c., are incompetent to vision, must they not be regarded as the ” early stages of that marvellous and complex function ” ? Bear in mind, that for a period of many years the eyelids of Mrs. Croad have been persistently closed by, as it would seem, a spasmodic or involuntary action of the muscular structures thereto attached. In her there is no aperture or apertures?unless you make such by your own act, i.e. unless you pull the eyelids apart. The eyes of the molluscs named above may be said to be in a state of evolution?to have reached a stage, though a low one, of development. Such eyes are indeed special organs for the reception of luminous influences?enabling the animal to distinguish light from darkness, not only in the general way, like a blind man conscious of a change in temperature in passing from sunlight into shade, but also in the special way of minute local variations, such as are caused by the shadows of near objects. If, then, the position taken by Lewes be accepted, ” the eye is a tactile organ, and that what we call vision is,” as he has affirmed, ” a combination of sensations of touch; and of temperature of a certain kind.” Those acquainted with these recent investigations in regard to the eye and its functions, know well that the opinion is gaining ground that ” images are not formed on the retina and cannot, therefore, be transmitted as ” images ” to the brain. It is affirmed that the thing transmitted is simply a sensation, or a group of sensations, excited by what is called the ” image.” After a very elaborate argument ” against the retina as the receiving screen of images, and in favour of the pigment layer,” upon which Lewes asserts ” the varied images of external objects are painted, the effect being to raise its temperature, whilst at the same time they (the varied images) become extinguished, but not before such a local disturbance of temperature lias arisen as to cause the act of vision to commence,” Lewes concludes his argument by declaring that, in the words before quoted, ” ive see very much by the aid of our fingers:” words which, if put in a milder form, would mean that light or vision is the product of ” a sensation or a group of sensations.” In connexion with the preceding remarks it may be stated here that, as it is with the lower forms of animal life, so it is with the genus homo. Even to this time the law of evolution is not infrequently arrested in its onward march ; and evidences of the same are seen in the eye itself, including, of course, the whole organism of man and beast. It was in 1836 that I saw a child which was born with no eyes; but in the orbits I found (post mortem) some loose cellular tissue, in the centre of which was seen what was considered as the rudiments, or beginnings, of eyes. The case is to be seen in the Lancet at the period named. Not unlikely the orbits of this poor child contained the eyes?so to call them?of some mollusc or star-fish; or, it may be, of some unknown or even extinct form of life. Now, arrests of development are common enough; no single organ of the body can be held as exempt from such “monstrosities”; it is equally true that each organ, although duly evolved or perfected, may slowly, yet surely, degenerate or fall away from its original perfectibility, and so realise, step by step, the lower organism of an invertebrate, or even of the mollusc. Have not the eyes of Mrs. Croacl so degenerated or fallen away from their once original or normal condition ? Have they not within these several years gone passed through a degenerative process?one which may be even now in progress ? It should be known that during the early years of her blindness it is recorded that her eyes remained open; the eyelids were wide apart, but they are now closed and fixed, as are those of the doris, eolis, &c. Assuming Mrs. Croad’s blindness to be at this time complete, may it not be concluded that the requisite “sensations or group of sensations” (Lewes) are not transmitted onwards to her brain; and because only the ” necessary combination of tactile sensations with sensations of light” is absent, or non-existent; to use the words of Lewes. But I confess to be unable to unravel satisfactorily the large amount of mystery attaching to this case; and therefore it is I desire?as I really do?your co-operation or assistance.
It was said, ycu know, by Empedocles, that when matter assumed shape there were many irregular forms which could only partially sustain themselves, and which only slowly attained forms adapted to certain ends. The application of these words to the eye will directly occur to you, and when taken in conjunction with the following sentence from Darwin’s great work ” On the Origin of Species,” will add greatly to their interest, if nothing more. ” The most perfect organ in the body,” writes Darwin, “is the eye; it is the gradual development of a simple sensitive nerve, which having arrived at its actual condition by numerous imperfect gradations, is yet susceptible of a much greater development before arriving at the greatest perfection ” in man. That which Empedocles thought some 2,000 years since, and Darwin has taught and is yet teaching, appears certain ; what has been and is will ever be. Who ventures to doubt that?in the words of Dr Louis Biichner?” what is at this time existing in the world are the remains of an infinite number of beginnings.”
All nature widens upward. Evermore The simpler essence lower lies; More complex is more perfect, owning more Discourse, more widely wise.?Tennyson. To revert to the immediate subject of this paper, and to get at the real condition of the nervous system of Mrs. Croad, or such parts of it as beget the rare transference of sense witnessed in her, I would refer you to the experiments of Spallanzani, made on the bat. ” How,” Spallanzani asked himself, ” do these creatures make their nests here in the pitchy darkness, and how do they move here so swiftly, and with perfect self-possession. It cannot be by eyesight. Their very small eyes may be of some service to them when they are catching the small soft insects in the open air in the dusk of the evening, but can be of no use to them here.” Spallanzani had several of these bats caught, and on examining them carefully he found that the thin membranous structure constituting their wings was ” full of small streaks or threads,” or nerves of extreme sensitiveness. The next step he took was the destruction of the eyes of the animals; and having placed a number of strings across a room, and suspended many more from the ceiling?”he then introduced a swarm of flies, and let the mutilated bats loose in the same apartment, and watched them.” The result of the experiment is told in these words : ? ” The bats caught the flies rapidly, shunning every string with the utmost dexterity never touching a single string, because aware of their whereabouts by the nerves in their wings. They felt but without touching?as you and I feel?only their sense or power of perception is more intensified,” and so much so as to be independent of anything like vision. Without eyes the bats felt, and feeling, perceived the flies ; and bear in mind it is without the sight, or blindfolded, that Mrs. Croad perceives or conceives the objects on the picture-cards and photographs.
These appended remarks?designed to explain or account, in some slight measure, for the preceding facts?in a rare and abnormal form of suffering, or in a case altogether exceptional?would be wanting in completeness if I failed to allude yet again to what I have in a preceding page called ” a marked mental sympathy or concordance ” as between Mrs. and Miss Croad as shown or realised in the mode of communication practised by Miss Croad, and the results thereof. We have the authority of Miss Croad thus far?she affirms that, as the rule, it is requisite simply that she put herself in a close or personal contact with her mother, to convey to her what she wished, or to give her a knowledge of this or that, as the case may be. Can we well doubt that this fact?if it be a fact?is to be explained only by the occurrence, at certain times, and under circumstances more or less rare, of what is called ” thought reading,” or ” community of ideas and sensations,” as between the mother and daughter? Now, the question arises?What relation, if any, does the said “thought reading,” or ” sympathy,” or ” community of ideas and sensations,” hold to the ” transference of special sense,” from the blinded eyes of Mrs. Croad to her fingers and her thumb of the right hand ? It should be borne in mind that during the use of the tests, as already described?i.e. the blindfolding and padding, &c.?Miss Croad stood or sat, as a very general rule, on the left of her mother and very close to her; in fact, the head of Mrs. Croad reclined on the right shoulder of her daughter, to say nothing of the frequent, though temporary, contact of the fingers of Miss Croad with the cheek of her mother. In what relationship, if any, did such close and personal contact of these two persons stand to the strange perceptive power already explained in regard to the picturecards and photographs, &c. ? Was the said contact the cause or source in any degree of the lucidity or clairvoyance manifested by Mrs. Croad, -and witnessed over and over again by so many ? It has been suggested that Miss Croad did, in some strange way, convey to her mother during the testing a knowledge of the cards &c., the objects represented on them, their colours, &c. Well, the suggestion was acted on: the same testing, on being again and again repeated, and in the absence of Miss Croad from the room occupied by her mother, proved altogether and conclusively in favour of Mrs. Croad. The same evidence of the same ” transference of special sense ” from the eyes to the digits was always forthcoming.
We are bound, then, to conclude that the “transference” was, or is, altogether independent of any kind of influence imparted by Miss Croad to her mother, and that the existence of the same in Mrs. Croad is due to what is called ” clairvoyance.” To her being in the same condition must be referred, also, the detection of the letter?already mentioned? sent by Dr Maclean to myself, as well as the strange prevision occurring occasionally in her, and whereby she anticipates my own approach to her residence.
As a further illustration of Mrs. Croad’s peculiar and clairvoyant gifts, it should he stated that at my second interview with Mrs. Croad, and in the presence of Dr Andrews and others, certain of my own personal and private convictions on a particular subject became, as it would seem, in a strange and exceptional manner, known to Mrs. Croad. She asked me if I would allow her to tell me a secret in my own life history, and would I be offended if she wrote it on her slate. I replied ” No.” That written on the slate was and is a fact, than which nothing could or can be more truthful and to the point. Dr. Andrews is prepared to verify this; the others present on this occasion were but little known to me.
By the above personal experience I am reminded of the very remarkable case of Lschokke, the celebrated Swiss novelist. In him the spontaneous occurrence of what the late Dr W. Gregory (Professor of Chemistry in the University of Edinburgh) has called “sympathetic retrovision,” was well known. He frequently found himself, as he has described in his works, possessed of a perfect memory of the past life of the person he was speaking to; and it is on record that on one occasion he confounded a sceptic who defied him, by declaring to him certain passages of his past life known to himself alone, and such as he could not have wished to be known to others. This was done in a large company.
In strict connection with the foregoing, and withal the outcome, I should say of “sympathy,” of a specific kind, is the effect of music on Mrs. Croad. Her biographer (Mr. Westlake) writes, at page 22 of the ” Service of Suffering,” that ” though quite deaf she (Mrs. Croad) can perceive and appreciate harmony; no greater pleasure can be given her than for some friend or friends to take her hand and sing to her. She will whistle a second treble most accurately as the tune is being sung, and at other times she will join in the air.” The fact is of value, inasmuch as it goes to show that the general condition of Mrs. Croad is one not unlike that manifested by many persons when under the influence of mesmerism?so-called?or when hypnotised. Dr W. Stirling (Professor of the Institutes of Medicine of the University of Aberdeen) tells us in a pamphlet but very recently published, entitled ” On Animal Magnetism,” that Mesmer played on the harmonica, an instrument invented by himself, and ” it is curious,” writes Dr Stirling, ” to note that persons in the so-called magnetic or hypnotic condition are more early influenced by music than when in their ordinary state.” To complete the case under consideration, it should be added, but on the authority of Mr. Westlake, that ” Mrs. Croad asked his wife whether there was a room beyond, pointing where there was a passage. Being told 4 Yes, two,’ she said, 4 What does the servant do down there at night when you are all in bed ?’ She was told that the servant had no business there, and the reply was, ‘ Well, she does go down there; I have known her to do it more than once. She takes off her boots first.’ ” It is added: ” We made inquiries, and found that when she thought we were all asleep, the girl went into these rooms and helped herself to what was not hers, the result being that the kleptomaniac had to be discharged.” What are we to think of the foregoing facts and of the above statements of Mrs. Croad’s biographer ? Evidence of the truth of cases parallel to this case is to be had for the asking. Does it not behove us to let no opportunity slip to investigate such in view of their right comprehension ? ” In this dark corner of nerve physiology,” writes Dr W. Sterling of the University of Aberdeen, at page 12 of his ” Animal Magnetism,” ” much has to be done.”?” The study of hypnotism,” to which Mrs. Croad’s case bears a close affinity, ” is,” he affirms, ” important, because it must tend to approximate the sciences of physiology and psychology.”
I know not how to avoid a still further reference to the clairvoyant faculty evidenced by Mrs. Croad; but this paper would be incomplete were I to omit some additional reference to it. The case, though of a mixed character, is clearly one of ” spontaneous clairvoyance,” being the exception to a rule. So far as I have gone into this matter, I feel justified in this assertion. Dr W. Gregory?who follows, or did follow, in the wake of Drs. Elliotson and Ashburner and of Mr. Atkinson? Dr W. Gregory, I say, affirmed that that particular condition of the nervous system held as the cause or starting point of this strange faculty or power (clairvoyance) is one induced or created artificially, i.e., by Mesmerism or by Braidism, so-called. The general or waking state of Mrs. Croad may be held to negative its spontaneity, but it does no such thing. Clairvoyance does not belong only to the higher stages of the mesmeric sleep ; it now appears, writes Gregory, ” That it may in certain cases be produced without the sleep, and, moreover, when the subject of it is in a state of ordinary consciousness. Indeed,” he continues, ” if we are to regard clairvoyance as simply the power of noticing or observing certain very fine or subtle impressions conveyed from all objects to the sensorium by the medium of a very subtle agent or influence, which we may call vital mesmerism, the impressions caused by which are usually overpowered by the coarser impressions conveyed to the sensorium through the external organs of the senses, it is evident that the essential condition of clairvoyance is not the sleep, but the shutting out of the impressions of the senses. This occurs, no doubt, in the sleep ; but it also occurs in the state of reverie and abstraction, and may, in some eases, be effected at pleasure by voluntary concentration.” Now, such ” voluntary concentration ” is very plainly seen from time to time in Mrs. Croad, and when she is doing her best to describe any given picture-card or photograph.
It is indeed not easy to believe that such things can be, and yet not overcome us like a summer cloud ; but they are, and probably ever were, and will be. The transference of the senses, even clairvoyance, is now a fact well known and duly attested by men eminent in our profession. Such phenomena, it is said, are not common?and even when present, are not uniformly so ?in a marked form. Gregory believes that the power is the outcome of emanations of a peculiar kind, and that these emanations reaching the sensorium by a special path, become substitutes for the eyes, and hence the fact of sense-transference or clairvoyance. In all these instances, as the late Dr Gregory tells us, ” it is not that the part acquires the peculiar properties of the regular external organ of the sense transferred, but that the nerves of the part serve as conductors to the subtle influence to the cerebral organ of the internal sense. The fingers do not collect and transmit the rays of light so that they fall on the retina, and the image there formed, according to the laws of optics, be conveyed by the optic nerve to the sensorium; but the nerves of the fingers convey to the sensorium directly an influence which there produces an image of the object.” Such is, or was, his opinion ; but you will not fail to observe that this explanation of the doctor’s is widely dissimilar to the views before referred to, and insisted upon by the late Mr. Lewes. In confirmation of the preceding remarks in regard to clairvoyance, I would direct your attention to the condition and peculiarities of the somnambule. These you will hardly dispute; they go far to confirm the truth of the foregoing facts. In the first place, the eyelids of the somnambule are always firmly pressed together, and the eyeballs not in their natural position, but drawn upwards; this condition of things is altogether involuntary. The somnambule is thus described by the late Mr. Sergeant Cox: “The somnambule, with his eyes closed and all his senses sealed, will perform his daily work, however intricate, write, read, thread a needle, sew, and do other arts requiring keen sight, manual dexterity, and delicate touch, but he neither sees, hears, nor feels with the bodily organs. The mind only is awake, and manifestly the mind then receives impressions of external objects and guides the actions of the body without the assistance of its usual informants, the senses. … In this condition he passes without fear and with perfect ease and safety over places dangerous even to the waking footstep, on the ridge of a house roof, across a narrow plank, above a strealn, down a steep and perilous path in a mountain side, with a precipice over which an error by the footstep of a few inches would hurl him The eyes must be useless, for in their position no ray from any external object can possibly be thrown on the retina.”* The same author in his description of somnambulism, adds these words: “Nor are these phenomena (of somnambulism) all that is strange in a condition not now disputed by physiologists and physicians.” Not now disputed ? I should be glad, indeed, if physiologists and physicians did not now continue to dispute the facts realised by the somnambule, and demonstrated in him under the influence of mesmerism or when hypnotised. My late experience goes, I regret to say, in the opposite direction. But let that pass.
To conclude, I would impress on those present the fact that, in the hands of the late Dr Elliotson, ard of Braid and Esdaile as well as many more in the time gone by, animal magnetism, or mesmerism (so called) has been employed?and well and beneficently employed?in the relief of sorrow and of suffering, also in the removal of pain and disease. The enthusiasm which animated these men in their good works, and encouraged them to ignore the rest and be thankful policy, is now very much needed. For myself, I feel thankful that to Dr Hack Tuke, and to Drs. Stirling and McKendrick, including others like them, engaged at this time in the study of animal magnetism and allied subjects, we may look for the realisation of many and important discoveries in nerve physiology and pathology?discoveries which utilised to the full, may yet aid science, and promote the good cause of progress and humanity. To medical men more than to others is, as I believe, entrusted such high and noble efforts. May such efforts be never wanting in those who come after us, but rather let us hope that such, our successors, will ever?
Live In pulses stirred to generosity, In deeds of daring rectitude, In thoughts sublime that pierce the niglit-like stars, And with their mild persistence urge man’s search To vaster issues. (G. Eliot.) Postscript.
As the preceding paper was in course of preparation for the press, Mrs. Oroad fell into a decided state of trance, and in it she passed five successive days?during which she neither ate nor drank?but lay for the most part quiet and unconscious; the only exception being the occurrence at rare intervals of a sudden, involuntary, and automatic movement of the arms and upper parts of the body. Now the occurrence of this trance state adds yet another link in the chain of evidence which assures us of the identity or very close relationship of this case with the acquired condition of him or her mesmerised, as well as with the somnambulist, to which matter reference has been made.
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