190 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



road, and all the past be a blank to him from some point the night 

 before. These blanks occasionally lasted twenty-four hours, and he 

 could never recall anything which happened, and only knew by the 

 money and tickets that he had made a trip on his train. After a time 

 he would put down in a note-book events of importance in this state, 

 which he never did otherwise. The train-hands knew that he was, 

 as they termed it, "memory-drunk," when he used his note-book 

 freely, and seemed dull and abstracted. A pilot on a Sound steamer, 

 after seasons of hard work, and exhaustion from loss of sleep, would 

 use brandy to keep up, and have blanks of hours from which he 

 would recover, having no recollection of what had happened. He 

 would act as usual, only be less talkative, and dull in his manner. A 

 skilled mechanic, who used spirits to excess, suffered from blanks of 

 many hours' duration, during which he attended a dangerous machine, 

 performing all the duties, requiring both skill and judgment. A clergy- 

 man, who drinks wine, has frequently conducted service, and preached 

 a sermon without any memory of the fact, having a blank of all sur- 

 roundings for hours. A grocer, after a period of great excess in the use 

 of spirits, will conduct his business for hours without any consciousness 

 of events, and only know by the books and the statements of others 

 what has taken place. These are only a few of the histories of a 

 large number of cases which I have gathered to illustrate the fact 

 that in this trance state the mind may work along accustomed lines of 

 thought and action. In this condition, the evidence of a mental blank 

 is more or less obscure. In the next division, the mind displays 

 unusual ranges of thought and action, some of which can be traced 

 to the surroundings. A physician, who drank constantly, and was a 

 bitter skeptic, went into a revival meeting and professed change of 

 heart, and took part in the exercises, and the next morning had no 

 recollection of it. Later, while drinking, he heard the singing of the 

 revival meeting, and, dropping all business, entered and took a very 

 active part, and seemed fully conscious of all the surroundings, yet, 

 after a night's sleep, had no recollection whatever of anything which 

 had occurred. In this case the trance state was manifest in unusual 

 deeds and acts, suggested from the surroundings. A similar case was 

 that of an editor, who, after drinking to excess, could always be found 

 in temperance-meetings, making eloquent appeals, and yet he gave no 

 evidence of being under the influence of spirits, nor could he remember 

 anvthins: of what had occurred. Another case is that of a man of for- 

 tune, who drank wine freely, awoke and found that he had married 

 his servant, and made an unusual disposition of his property, which 

 was all a blank to him. To his friends and others he seemed fully 

 conscious of the nature and consequences of these events at the time. 

 I think it will be found that inebriates brought suddenly into condi- 

 tions of excitement are moved by circumstances and surroundings to 

 which they are often really oblivious. If the trance state is pres- 



