132 OF VITAL MOTION. 



illustration of our present problem. This case, says 

 Coleridge,* " occurred in a Catholic town in Germany, 

 a year or two before my arrival in Gottingen, and bad 

 not then ceased to be a frequent subject of conversa- 

 tion. A young woman of four or five and twenty, 

 who could neither read nor write, was seized with a 

 nervous fever ; during which, according to the asseve- 

 rations of all the priests and monks of the neighbour- 

 hood, she became possessed^ and, as it appeared, by a 

 very learned devil. She continued incessantly talking 

 Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, in very pompous tones, 

 and with most distinct enunciation. This possession 

 was rendered more probable by the known fact, that 

 she was or had been an heretic. Voltaire humorously 

 advises the devil to decline all acquaintance with 

 medical men; and it would have been more to his 

 reputation, if he had taken this advice in the present 

 instance. The case had attracted the particular 

 attention of a young physician, and by his statement 

 many eminent physiologists and psychologists visited 

 the town, and cross-examined the case on the spot. 

 Sheets full of her ravings were taken down from her 

 own mouth, and were found to consist of sentences, 

 coherent and intelligible each for itself, but with little 

 or no connexion with each other. Of the Hebrew, a 

 small portion only could be traced to the Bible; the 



* Biographia Litteraria, vol. i. p. 112, 



