628 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



not born an inebriate. But nobody believes it would be safe for him 

 to tamper with intoxicating liquors, because, in all probability, he has 

 inherited a predisposition to inebriety. And, if one's ancestors have 

 been consumptives, the disease that affected their lungs would, under 

 favorable circumstances, be more apt to affect his than those of one 

 whose ancestors had never had consumption. If a man had an uncle, 

 or an aunt, or a brother, who had suffered from that disease, it would 

 seem to indicate that it was " in the blood." And so, in the same way, 

 as regards insanity. It would not be correct, of course, to say that a 

 person inherited insanity from an uncle or a brother. But the fact 

 that the uncle or the brother had been insane would show that the dis- 

 ease was in the family in the blood and one, in such a case, would 

 have good reason to be apprehensive lest he himself might have in- 

 herited a predisposition to become insane from the same source whence 

 his relatives had derived their tendency. 



The first that I remember of my attack was while I was riding in 

 a railroad-car. It seemed to me that the passengers in the forward 

 part were getting up amateur theatricals. The fact that this did not 

 surprise me, nor appear at all out of place, illustrates one curious 

 feature of insanity, and that is, its close similarity in many respects to 

 dreaming. It is well known that the strange phantasmagoria attend- 

 ant upon most of our dreams never strikes us at the time as at all 

 astonishing, illogical, or contradictory, because the critical faculty in 

 sleep is partially and perhaps wholly dormant. And so also is it in 

 insanity. And as a sound or a touch will suggest or give direction to 

 an ordinary dream, so everything that occurs within the sight or hear- 

 ing of an insane man affects him in like manner. Also, he has no 

 more control over his words and actions, when the insanity is com- 

 plete, than a somnambulist. And, when a patient comes to himself, 

 after having been insane, he feels as though he had been having a 

 long and, sometimes, a very unpleasant dream. Some of my delusions 

 were of a frightful character, and resembled a nightmare more than 

 anything else ; but more often they were by no means disagreeable. 

 Of course, it seemed strange to me afterward that I could have been 

 carried away by such absurdities. At one time I thought that the end 

 of the world had come, and that the day of judgment was at hand. 

 This was somewhat remarkable, because I had not for years been a 

 believer in the scriptural prophecies relating to those two events. 

 Nor had I any faith in the doctrine that there is a hell of fire ; yet, in 

 imagination, I visited that place of torment, and witnessed the tor- 

 tures of the damned without, however, getting scorched myself. 

 Some strange conceits, that I had come across in books, occasionally 

 suggested material for my mind to work on. I saw men whose souls 

 I believed had been taken from their bodies, leaving behind the intel- 

 ligent personal identity an idea suggested by a character described in 

 Bulwer's " Strange Story." Again, I thought that demons occasion- 



