554 



NERVOUS DISEASES. 



Secretary of State, E. P. Roggen ; Auditor of 

 Public Accounts, H. A. Babcock; Treasurer, 

 Charles H. Willard ; Attorney-General, William 

 Leese; Commissioner of Public Lands and 

 Buildings, Joseph Scott; Superintendent of 

 Public Instruction, W. W. W. Jones. The 

 Democratic nominees for the respective offices 

 were J. Sterling Morton, L. C. Pace, H. E. 

 Bonesteel, Gustave Benecke, D. W. Clancy, 

 C. S. Montgomery, Nels O. Albert, and A. M. 

 Dean. The vote for Governor was as follows: 

 Republican, 72,835 ; Democratic, 57,534; Pro- 

 hibition, 3,075. For the other State officers 

 the Republican vote was about 2,000 larger. 



Three Republican Congressmen were elected. 

 For the amendment to the legislative article 

 of the Constitution, 51,959 votes were cast, 

 and 17,766 against it. For the amendment to 

 the executive article, only 22,297 votes were 

 cast, while 44,488 were cast against it. The 

 following was the vote for Presidential Elect- 

 ors: Republican, 76,912; Democratic, 54,391 ; 

 Prohibition, 2,899; scattering, 47. Leavitt 

 Burnham, Republican, was chosen Regent of 

 the State University, over D. T. Scoville, Demo- 

 crat. The Legislature of 1885 has 25 Repub- 

 licans and 8 Democrats in the Senate, 78 Re- 

 publicans and 18 Democrats in the House. 



NERVOUS DISEASES. Bliryachit. This is the 

 Russian name for a peculiar nervous disease, 

 hitherto undescribed, which has been recently 

 brought to the notice of the medical profession. 

 The unfortunate subject is obliged to imitate 

 any sudden sound, or movement, that may be 

 made by a second person. However ridiculous 

 the action may be, the patient feels irresistibly 

 impelled to repeat it as nearly as possible. The 

 disorder is said to be common in Siberia, where 

 it was observed by Lieut. Buckingham, of the 

 United States Navy, who describes it thus: 



While we were walking on the bank here, we ob- 

 served our messmate, the captain of the general staff 

 [of the Russian army], approach the steward of the 

 boat suddenly ^ and, without any apparent reason or 

 remark, clap his hands before his face ; instantly the 

 steward, clapped his hands in the same manner, put 

 on an angry look, and passed on. The incident was 

 somewhat curious, as it involved a degree of familiarity 

 with the steward hardly to have been expected. Aft- 

 er this we observed a number of queer performances 

 of the steward, and finally comprehended the situa- 

 tion. It seemed that he was afflicted with a peculiar 

 mental or nervous disease, which forced him to imi- 

 tate everything suddenly presented to his senses. 

 Thus, when the captain slapped the paddle-box sud- 

 denly in the presence of the steward, the latter in- 

 stantly gave it a similar thump ; or if any noise were 

 made suddenly, he seemed compelled against his will 

 to imitate it instantly, and with remarkable accuracy. 

 To annoy him, some of the passengers imitated pigs 

 grunting, or called out absurd names ; others clapped 

 their hands and shouted, jumped, or threw their hats 

 on the deck suddenly, and the poor steward, suddenly 

 startled, would echo them all precisely, and sometimes 

 several consecutively. Frequently he would expos- 

 tulate, begging people not to startle him, and again 

 would grow furiously angry, but even in the midst of 

 his passion he would helplessly imitate some ridicu- 

 lous shout or motion directed at him by his pitiless 

 tormentors. Frequently he shut himself up in his 

 pantry, which was without windows, and locked the 



door, but even there he could be Leard answering the 



Eunts, shouts, or pounds on the bulkhead outside. 

 e was a man of middle age, fair physique, rather in- 

 telligent in facial expression, and without the slightest 

 indication in appearance of his disability. As we de- 

 scended the bank to go on board the steamer, some 

 one gave a loud shout and threw his cap on the 

 ground ; looking about for the steward, for the shout 

 was evidently made for his benefit, we saw him vio- 

 lently throw his cap, with a shout, into a chicken- 

 coop, into which he was about to put the result of his 

 foraging expedition, among the houses of the stanitza. 

 We afterward witnessed an incident that illustrated 

 the extent of his disability. The captain of the 

 steamer, running up to him, suddenly clapping his 

 hands at the same time, accidentally slipped and fell 

 hard on the deck ; without having been touched by 

 the captain, the steward instantly clapped his hands 

 and shouted, and then, in powerless imitation, he too 

 fell as hard and almost precisely in the same manner 

 and position as the captain. In speaking of the stew- 

 ard's disorder, the captain of the general staff said it 

 was not uncommon in Siberia; that he had seen a 

 number of cases of it, and that it was commonest 

 about Yakutsk, where the winter cold is extreme. 

 Both sexes were subject to it, but men much less than 

 women. It was known to Russians by the name of 

 *' miryachit." 



The late Dr. George M. Beard described sim- 

 ilar phenomena witnessed by himself among 

 the "Jumpers" or ''Jumping Frenchmen" of 

 Maine and northern New Hampshire. He as- 

 certained that whatever order was given them 

 was at once obeyed. Thus, one of the jumpers 

 who was sitting in a chair with a knife in hia 

 hand was told to throw it, and he threw it 

 quickly, so that it stuck in a beam opposite ; at 

 the same time he repeated the order to throw 

 it, with a cry of alarm like that of hysteria 01 

 epilepsy. He also threw away his pipe, which 

 he was filling with tobacco, when he was slapped 

 upon the shoulder. Two jumpers standing 

 near each other were told to strike, and they 

 struck each other very forcibly. One jumper, 

 when standing by a window, was suddenly 

 commanded by a person on the other side of 

 the window to jump, and he jumped up half a 

 foot from the floor, repeating the order. When 

 the commands are uttered in a quick, loud voice, 

 the jumper repeats the order. When told to 

 strike he strikes, when told to throw he throws 

 whatever he may happen to have in his hand. 

 Dr. Beard tried this power of repetition with 

 the first part of the first line of Virgil's u ^Eneid " 

 and the first part of the first line of Homer's 

 " Iliad," and out-of-the-way words of the Eng- 

 lish language with which the jumper could not 

 be familiar, and he repeated or echoed the 

 sound of the word as it came to him in a quick, 

 sharp voice; at the same time he jumped, or 

 struck, or threw, or raised his shoulders, or 

 made some other violent muscular motion. 



Dr. William A. Hammond, commenting on 

 these cases, says : 



There is another analogous condition known by the 

 Germans as Schlaftrunkenheit. and to English and 

 American neurologists as somnolentia, or sleep-drunk- 

 enness. In this state an individual, on being suddenly 

 awakened, commits some incongruous act of violence, 

 ofttimes a murder. Sometimes this appears to be ex- 

 cited by a dream, but in others no such cause could 

 be discovered. Thus, a sentry fell asleep during hia 





