148 



KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



[Aug. 22, 1884. 



A STRANGE DISORDER. 



AVERY curious disorder of the nervous system is de- 

 scribed in the Revue Scientifique of August, being 

 taken from the Archives de Neurologie for Api-il of this 

 year. It appears that, in the U.S. State of Maine there 

 are some persons in apparent health except so far as relates 

 to nervous excitability, which is excessive. The least irri- 

 tation causes them to jump. They also feel compelled 

 to execute anything they are ordered to do, and they 

 repeat the command in a loud voice. Dr. Beard reports 

 that one "jumper," as they are called, was sitting on a 

 chair cutting tobacco. He went up to him, struck him 

 suddenly on the shoulder, and said, " Throw it away ! " 

 He repeated the words in a voice of terror, and threw his 

 knife, so that it stuck in a door opposite to him. Two 

 other jumpers struck themselves violently on being told to 

 do it. 



This disorder appears to be hereditary. In one family 

 Dr. Beard found the father, his son, and two little girls of 

 four and seven affected by it ; and in another case three 

 brothers were its victims. 



A similar complaint occurs in the Malay region of 

 Asia, and it has been observed amongst various races, 

 Tamils, Bengalese, Sikhs, and Nubians. The Malays call 

 the patient a latah, a word of wide significance, applied to 

 various degrees of nervous excitability. Mr. O'Brien 

 states that when travelling in the Malay Peninsula he had 

 as a servant a young Malay whom his comrades called a 

 latah, though his conduct and conversation indicated 

 nothing irrational. Four-and-twenty hours elapsed before 

 his peculiarity was displayed. A signal fuse was then fired 

 by way of rejoicing, and the doctor was about to ignite 

 another when the young man pushed him violently on one 

 side, seized the torch, lit the fuse, and fell to the ground 

 face downwards, uttering a strange cry. The next day he 

 seemed all right, but when the doctor waved his hand as 

 an adieu on leaving the shore, he imitated the movements 

 with frenzy. He also imitated him as he whistled a 

 European tune. 



On another occasion the doctor had introduced to him an 

 old and highly respectable woman, with whom he talked for 

 ten minutes without noticing anything abnormal. All of 

 a sudden the person who brought her took off his coat, upon 

 which she began to undress, and would soon have been 

 quite naked, if he had not stopped her. She was furious 

 against the man who incited her to this indecency, and 

 while she was taking off her clothes, abused him as " an 

 abandoned pig," and wanted him killed. Another case 

 ended tragically. The cook of a steamer was latah, and one 

 day was nursing a child, when a sailor came near him with 

 a billet of wood in his arms. He rolled the wood on the top 

 of an awning, and loosening it let the wood fall. The cook 

 did the same with the child, and killed it. At Singapore 

 another latah, seeing his mistress tear a letter and throw 

 the pieces out of window, did the same with a bundle of 

 new clothes he was carrying. 



The disorder is not confined to warm climates. It is 

 known in Siberia, and a case is mentioned of the pilot of a 

 ship on the Ussar who could not refrain from imitating 

 actions or noises made by the passengers to try him. The 

 captain had a fall while clapping his hands, whereupon the 

 pilot clapped his, and fell in the same way. The Russians 

 call the complaint miryachil, and it is said to be common 

 near Yakutsk in severe winters. S. 



American Telegraphy. — There were 42,917 telegraph offices in 

 the United States in 1882. The number of telegrams forwarded 

 during the year was 40,581,1/7. 



PARADOXISTS IN AMERICA. 



By Richakd A. Proctor. 



ONE of the most remarkable features of American 

 newspapers is the attention directed in them to men 

 of the paradoxical turn of mind. Our Hampdens, Paral- 

 laxes, and Newton Crosslands ought to cross the Atlantic 

 if they wish to receive the amount of attention which 

 doubtless they consider their due. At Montreal lately 

 there died a man named Vennor, who had posed as a 

 weather prophet, with the usual amount of success, for 

 several years. His predictions were quoted over the length 

 and breadth of the United States, as well as of British 

 America, and he was regarded (if we can judge from news- 

 paper comments) as a veritable man of science by most 

 Americans. The Montreal Daily Witness paid Montreal 

 the left-handed compliment of describing Vennor as " her 

 most celebrated citizen." In Kentucky, a few years ago, 

 there was another charlatan, by the name of Professor 

 Tice, who claimed similarly to be a weather-prophet, and 

 showed an even more marked ignorance of real science in 

 every line of his writing. His predictions were for a long 

 time regarded with approval, although they showed no 

 more than the usual proportion of successes to failures. 

 He was successfid as a lecturer, getting fees, in 

 fact, which an English science-teacher of the soundest 

 kind would certainly not command in the old country, 

 nor secure in America unless he had done something 

 which had attracted special attention there. After 

 a while, " Professor " Tice found that his failures were 

 becoming rather too prominent a feature in newspaper 

 notices; so he made a bold stroke for public favour. He 

 invented a planet to account for his failures — an intra- 

 Mercurial planet, of course. He described how, observing 

 the sun one September day, he saw a round spot, which at 

 first he supposed to be only an ordinary sun-spot ; but, 

 seeing it was moving across the sun's face, he concluded it 

 must be Mercury. (He had no idea how thoroughly he was 

 thus exposing his ignorance — not, indeed, to the average 

 American paragraphist — but to every one acquainted 

 with the elements of that science in which he pre- 

 tended to be most profound ; a transit of Mercury in 

 September would be as surprising a phenomenon to an 

 astronomer as an eclipse of a crescent moon.) Finding 

 after reference to an almanac that it was not Mercury, he 

 concluded it must be Vulcan, the intra-Mercurial planet 

 discovered by Lescarbault, if that veracious observer's 

 account is to be believed. This idea being conceived, 

 Tice was at once able — such is the force of genius 

 — to assign the true period of Vulcan, so as to com- 

 bine together Lescarbault's observation, his own, and 

 all those failures of his which wanted a new planet for 

 their interpretation. So ingeniously was this done, that 

 it appeared, on examining " Professor " Tice's own most 

 precious data, that when he saw Vulcan, that planet must 

 have been seen through the sun. This was pointed out in 

 a Louisville magazine, edited by a gentleman much less 

 widely known throughout America than " Professor" Tice, 

 but having the advantage of him in knowing a good deal 

 about science, whereof the professor knew nothing. We 

 heard less about Tice after that, though, doubtless, 

 millions still put faith in him. And now, another 

 of these charlatans has distinguished himself in such a 

 way that American papers have spoken of him as one 

 might speak of a new Newton, though every line he 

 has written shows him to be ignorant of the veriest 

 elements of science. Like Tice, this man — who rejoices in 

 the name of Wiggins, and honours Ottawa by his presence 



