352 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



they had ever witnessed any similar case. In reply, I have received 

 three noteworthy instances, but none to be compared in their exact 

 parallelism with that just given. The details of these three cases are 

 painful, and it is not necessary to my general purpose that I should 

 further allude to them. 



There is anotlier curious French case of insanity in twins, which 

 was pointed out to me by Prof. Paget, described by Dr. Baume in the 

 "Annales Medico-Psychologiques," 4me serie, vol. i., 1863, p. 312, of 

 which the following is an abstract. The original contains a few more 

 details, but is too long to quote : Fran9ois and Martin, fifty years of 

 age, worked as railroad-contractors between Quimper and Chateaulin. 

 Martin had twice had slight attacks of insanity. On January 15th a 

 box in which the twins deposited their savings was robbed. On the 

 night of January 23d-24th both Frangois (who lodged at Quimper) 

 and Martin (who lived with his wife and children at St.-Lorette, two 

 leagues from Quimper) had the same dream at the same hour, 3 

 A. M., and both awoke with a violent start, calling out, " I have caught 

 the thief! I have caught the thief! they are doing mischief to my 

 brother ! " They were both of them extremely agitated, and gave 

 way to similar extravagances, dancing and leajjing. Martin sprang 

 on his grandchild, declaring that he was the thief, and would have 

 strangled him if he had not been prevented ; he then became steadily 

 worse, complained of violent jiains in his head, went out-of-doors on 

 some excuse, and tried to drown himself in the river Steir, but was 

 forcibly stopped by his son, who had watched and followed him. He 

 was then taken to an asylum by gendarmes, where he died in three 

 days. Frangois, on his part, calmed down on the morning of the 24th, 

 and employed the day in inquiring about the robbery. By a strange 

 chance, he crossed his brother's path at the moment when the latter 

 was struggling with the gendarmes; then he himself became mad- 

 dened, giving way to extravagant gestures and making incoherent 

 proposals (similar to those of his brother). He then asked to be bled, 

 which was done, and afterward, declaring himself to be better, w^ent 

 out on the pretext of executing some commission, but really to drown 

 himself in the river Steir, which he actually did, at the very spot 

 where Martin had attempted to do the same thing a few hours pre- 

 viously ! 



The next point which I shall mention, in illustration of the ex- 

 tremely close resemblance between certain twins, is the similarity in 

 the association of their ideas. No less than eleven out of the thirty- 

 five cases testify to this. They make the same remarks on the same 

 occasion, begin singing the same song at the same moment, and so on ; 

 or one would commence a sentence, and the other would finish it. An 

 observant friend graphically described to me the efiect produced on 

 her by two such twins whom she had met casually. She said: 

 "Their teeth grew alike, they spoke alike and together, and said the 



