376 ON UTERINE IRRITATION, AND ITS EEFECTS 



in the least degree recognised or brought to mind by any sug- 

 gested associations, unless they occurred in that train, and 

 while the mind was under that particular diseased habit under 

 which they were generated ; and in this case they occurred 

 with readiness and fidelity. 



This, indeed, was a case of disease, evidently depending on 

 the state of the brain as connected with the habitudes of the 

 sanguiferous system. In this particular it is to be ranked with 

 the aberrations which constitute many cases of insanity ; and it 

 is both curious and humbling to think, that in insanity itself there 

 is scarcely a mental irregularity admitting of description, but 

 what may be shown to be only a greater degree of those 

 mental aberrations, those follies, and those partialities to which 

 the most vigorous and the most correct minds are continually 

 liable * 



The strong contrast between the mental states of this per- 

 son under her fit, and when it was off, is to be classed with a 

 set of facts, of which some other examples have lately come to 

 the public knowledge. One of them was in an apparently 

 simple girl in the neighbourhood of Stirling, who, in her sleep, 

 talked like a profound philosopher, solved geographical pro- 

 blems, and enlarged on the principles of astronomy, detailing 

 the workings of ideas which had been suggested to her mind, 

 by over-hearing the lessons which were given by a tutor to the 

 children of the family in which she lived. The originality of 

 the language which she used, shewed something more than a 

 bare repetition of what she had heard. She explained the al- 

 ternations of winter and summer, for instance, by saying, that 

 " the earth was set a-gee." 



Another 



* Some views on this subject are given by the author of the present report in 

 the article " Insanity ," in the Edinburgh Encyclopedia. 



