STRANGE MENTAL FACULTIES IN DISEASE. 177 

 STIIANGE MENTAL FACULTIES IN DISEASE. 



By IIEZEKIAII BUTTERWORTH. 



THERE are certain mental mysteries associated with peculiar 

 states of disease, and especially with low, nervous diseases, 

 Avhich discover unexpected powers of mind, and which illustrate some 

 of the conditions on which human life depends, and the laws that 

 govern its continuance. Among these are certain enlargements of 

 the perceptive faculties, and a singular power which the mind seems 

 to possess of acting independently of its organs. 



Our attention was recently called to the subject by the mental con- 

 dition of a near relative, suiFering from extreme nervous debility. 

 " I am in constant fear of insanity," she said to me one day, " and I 

 wish I could be moved to some retreat for the insane. I understand 

 my condition perfectly: my reason does not seem to be impaired, but 

 I can think of tico things at the same time. This is an indication of 

 mental unsoundness, and is a terror to me. I do not seem to have 

 slept at all for the last six weeks. If I sleep, it must be in a suc- 

 cession of vivid dreams that destroy all impression of somnolence. 

 Since I have been in this condition, I seem to have very vivid impres- 

 sions of Avhat happens to my children who are away from home, and 

 I am often startled to learn that these impressions are correct. I 

 eem to have also a certain power of anticipating what one is about 

 to say, and to read the motives of others. I take no jileasure in this 

 strange increase of mental power; it is all unnatural; I cannot live 

 in this state long, and I often wish that I were dead." 



The faculty of memory is one of the tirst to be obviously aflected 

 by disease. When disease for a time seems to suspend the action of 

 this faculty, or visibly to diminish it, the result is not looked upon as 

 phenomenal, for it is common and expected. But when disease in- 

 creases the power of this faculty, a thing not uncommon, the patient 

 is not unfrequently regarded as possessing more than human wisdom, 

 and the case usually excites comment as one of great mystery. Dr. 

 Steinbech mentions the case of a clergyman who, being summoned to 

 Jidminister the sacrament to an illiterate peasant, found the patient 

 praying aloud in Greek and Hebrew. The case was deemed wellnigh 

 miraculous. After the peasant's death, it was found that he was ac- 

 customed in youth to hear the parish minister pray in those languages, 

 and it was inferred that he must have been repeating remembered 

 words without understanding their meaning. Dr. Abercrombie relates 

 the circumstances of a more remarkable case. A poor shepherd-girl 

 was for a time accustomed to sleep in a room adjoining that occupied 

 by an itinerant musician. The man was an artist by education, a lover 



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