BODILY ILLNESS AS A MENTAL STIMULANT. 257 



disciples, holy women, Jews and Roman soldiers. And the 

 progress of her vision might be traced by the succession of 

 actions she performed at various stages of it : most of these 

 movements were expressive of her own emotions, whilst regu- 

 larly about three in the afternoon she extende 1 her limbs in 

 the form of a cross. The fit terminated with a state of 

 extreme physical prostration ; the pulse being scarcely per- 

 ceptible, the breathing slow and feeble, and the whole 

 surface bedewed with a cold perspiration. After this state 

 had continued for about ten minutes, a return to the 

 normal condition rapidly took place.' 



There seems no reason for supposing that there was any 

 deceit on the part of Louise Lateau herself, though that she 

 was self-deceived no one can reasonably doubt. Of course 

 many in Belgium, especially the more ignorant and super- 

 stitious (including large numbers of the clergy and of religious 

 orders of men and women), believed that her ecstasies were 

 miraculous, and no doubt she believed so herself. But 

 none of the circumstances observed in her case, or related 

 by her, were such as the physiologist would find any diffi- 

 culty in accepting or explaining. Her visions were such as 

 might have been expected in a person of her peculiar 

 nervous organisation, weakened as her body had been by 

 long illness, and her mind affected by what she regarded as 

 her miraculous recovery. As to the transudation of blood 

 from the skin, Dr. Tuke, in his ' Illustrations of the Influence 

 of the Mind upon the Body in Health and Disease ' (p. 267), 

 shows the phenomenon to be explicable naturally. It is a 

 well-authenticated fact, that under strong emotional excite- 

 ment blood escapes through the perspiratory ducts, appa- 

 rently through the rupture of the walls of the capillary 

 passages of the skin. 



We see, then, in Louise Lateau's case, how the mind 

 affected by disease may acquire faculties not possessed 

 during health, and how in turn the mind thus affected may 

 influence the body so strangely as to suggest to ignorant or 

 foolish persons the operation of supernatural agencies. 



