278 STUDIES IN LIFE AND SENSE. 



Three weeks afterwards he awoke to consciousness in the hospital at 

 Mayence. 



For a year the paralysis of the right side continued, but this con- 

 dition improved under treatment. Curious periodical aberrations of 

 the intellect, however, began to appear about three months after his 

 mishap. These latter symptoms occurred at intervals, varying from 

 fifteen to thirty days, and they lasted from fifteen to thirty hours. 

 His abnormal periods were therefore short, as compared with his 

 normal ones. The peculiarities of his abnormal period were very 

 marked. His eyes were wide open ; his movements were regular 

 but automatic ; he went wherever he was directed ; when he stumbled 

 over an object he felt about for the obstruction and then passed on 

 one side ; and he ate and drank as usual, and rose and retired to rest 

 at his accustomed hours. More curious was the fact that pins might 

 be run into his body without eliciting the slightest exclamation of 

 pain. To electricity he was equally insensible ; he heard not, but 

 rarely saw, and did not distinguish what he ate or drank. His sense 

 of touch alone was present, and that in an elevated degree ; but 

 curiously enough, when placed in an appropriate position, he might 

 be made automatically to express in pantomime the movements of 

 reconnoitring or skirmishing in an enemy's country. He could hum 

 a tune, and sang from a roll of paper placed in his hand as if it were 

 a vocal score ; and, as refreshment, swallowed between his songs, 

 without grimace, a mixture of strong vinegar and water. That the 

 sense of sight, although deficient, yet played a part in directing the 

 abnormal life of R, was apparent in an experiment of Dr. Mesnet's, 

 in which, when engaged in writing a letter, a screen was interposed 

 between his eyes and his letter. The sergeant proceeded for a little 

 time with his letter, finally, however, coming to a halt as his words 

 became illegible, but without exhibiting a sign of annoyance ; and 

 when sheet after sheet of a superimposed series was withdrawn as 

 he wrote, so that each sheet contained but a few words of his letter, 

 he continued to write on, signing his name on the last sheet as if 

 it contained the whole of his communication, and correcting the 

 imaginary writing which he supposed was represented before him. 

 His tobacco pouch being removed after the manufacture of a first 

 cigarette, lie neither saw nor smelt the missing object, but when 

 placed in his hand the automatism of his nature asserted itself, and 

 another cigarette was duly manufactured. 



The seats of the senses in the brain, or " sensory ganglia," as they 

 are named, may apparently serve as centres of action, even when the 

 purely intellectual functions of the brain proper (or " cerebrum ") are 

 practically in abeyance ; and such a remark, moreover, leads us to 

 understand how in the phases of somnambulism, when mind proper 

 is annihilated, there are performed movements and acts involving 



