274 MEMORIES OF MY LIFE 



" Well, there certainly was one curious thing," etc. 

 etc. 



One afternoon at tea-time, before a meeting- of 

 the Royal Society, Sir Risdon Bennett (1809-1891), 

 a well-known physician, President of the College of 

 Physicians in 1876, and a Fellow of the Royal Society, 

 drew me apart and told me of a strange experience 

 he had had very recently. He was writing in his 

 study separated by a thin wall from the passage, 

 when he heard the well-known postman's knock, 

 followed by the entrance into his study of a man 

 dressed in a fantastic medieval costume, perfectly 

 distinct in every particular, buttons and all, who, after 

 a brief time, faded and disappeared. Sir Risdon said 

 that he felt in perfect health ; his pulse and breathing 

 were normal, and so forth, but he was naturally 

 alarmed at the prospect of some impending brain 

 disorder. Nothing, however, of the sort had followed. 

 The same appearance recurred ; he thought the post- 

 man's knock somehow originated the hallucination. 



I begged him to publish the curious case fully 

 with his name attached, as it would then become a 

 classical example, but he hesitated ; however, he did 

 ultimately publish it at some length in a medical 

 paper, but signed only with his initials. I wholly 

 forget its date. If any reader interested in these 

 things should come across the paper, these imperfect 

 but vivid recollections of mine may corroborate 

 such impressions as he would have of its veracity, for 

 I heard the story at length, very shortly after the 

 event, told me with painstaking and scientific exact- 

 ness, and in tones that clearly indicated the narrator's 

 earnest desire to be minutely correct. I purposely 



