852 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



would appear which might have passed at 

 first for a graver form of the preexisting 

 symptoms. From a stage marked by con- 

 vulsive cries, the patients would fall into 

 a kind of swoon in which consciousness 

 failed and speech became more or less dif- 

 ficult and finally impossible ; or the attack 

 would be continued with a kind of mental 

 exaltation in which, without being con- 

 scious of it, the patients would indulge in 

 conversations having all the characteristics 

 of the delirium of mania, in some cases of 

 that of demonomania. They would speak 

 ill the third person and as if they were 

 men, clearly giving it to be understood 

 that it was not they that spoke, but some 

 other spiritual person a demon, who used 

 their organs to express what they seemed 

 to say and to execute what they seemed to 

 do. When asked who they were, they would 

 not give their own name, but some strange 

 man's name, which was an epithet rather 

 than a name, and belonged to the demon 

 that possessed them, adding that he had 

 lived in their bodies for months or years, 

 and before that had lived in the body of a 

 person in some other country. Some, in 

 their fits, declared themselves to be witches 

 or diviners, and pretended to answer all 

 sorts of questions and to predict events ; 

 the more they were excited by the curiosity 

 or credulity of those who inquired of them, 

 the more ardent they seemed to be to pre- 

 dict and lie with impudence. Blasphemies 

 and imprecations characterized all the at- 

 tacks, but DO appearance of amorousness 

 was shown. Sometimes the patients spoke 

 in Italian instead of in their native Friulian 

 dialect, and witnesses who can hardly be 

 depended upon asserted that some of them 

 spoke in French and Latin. After the at- 

 tacks some remained sleepy and exhausted, 

 others recovered their natural physical en- 

 ergy and resumed their ordinary occupa- 

 tions, as if they were in good health. At 

 the same time, a certain mental exaltation 

 remained, with the latter class especially, 

 and was revealed by a loquacity, an imper- 

 tinence, and a boldness in strong contrast 

 with the ordinary excessive timidity of moun- 

 tain-girls in the presence of strangers. They 

 would laugh without cause and without re- 

 straint when questioned respecting their af- 

 fliction, and protested that they recollected 



nothing of what they had done in their fits, 

 seeming to believe that they were not sick, 

 but possessed. The attacks were provoked 

 in the majority of cases by the sound of 

 the church-bells : some pretended that the 

 sound operated as a natural exorcism upon 

 the evil spirits of the air ; others asserted 

 that the consecration of the host, which was 

 announced by ringing the bells, was the 

 real determining cause of their attacks. 

 The malady was generally aggravated after 

 religious ceremonies, such as masses and 

 pilgrimages ; nevertheless, with some, the 

 contact of a sacred relic applied by a priest 

 to the neck or breast was enough immedi- 

 ately to arrest the attack. The means em- 

 ployed to put a stop to the epidemic em- 

 braced the instruction of the population 

 against their superstitious beliefs, the dis- 

 couragement of the exciting religious exer- 

 cises, exorcisms, and pilgrimages, the isola- 

 tion of the sick and their dispersion into 

 neighboring districts, so as to prevent them 

 from making a spectacle of themselves, and 

 the institulion of a regular medical visita- 

 tion. The epidemic character of the dis- 

 ease was arrested, and the attacks suffered 

 by the patients becume less frequent and 

 violent ; but some of the number who were 

 sent home from the hospital at Udine be- 

 came worse again after their return. A 

 more rigorous application of remedial meas- 

 ures was urged, the operation of which Dr. 

 Franzolini promises to describe in another 

 report. 



The Strawberry-Leaf Beetle. A new 

 destructive insect has been described by 

 Professor A. J. Cook, of Illinois, as prey- 

 ing on the leaves of the strawberry-plant. 

 It is described as the Paria aterrima, or 

 strawberrjMeaf beetle, and belongs to the 

 family Chyysomelicke, the same to which 

 the Colorado potato-beetle and the grape- 

 vine and cabbage flea-beetles belong. It is 

 about an eighth of an inch long, with yel- 

 lowish head, antennae, legs, and wing-cases, 

 brown thorax, clouded with black at the 

 center, and body black on the under side. 

 The yellowish wing-cases have also two 

 black spots, of which the hinder one is the 

 larger. The species is at least two-brooded, 

 appearing first in March, April, and May, 

 and again in July, and may possibly be 

 still more prolific. The larva is white, with 



