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POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
a soldier’s intellect was improved by a musket-ball knocking 
out some of his brains. 
In the two cases just mentioned, the personality of the boy 
and that of the priest was changed from an idiotic one to 
a rational one by a physical accident ; and it is interesting to 
compare such instances with those of the opposite sort, where, 
instead of the new and induced character being better, it has 
been horribly worse. 
When persons were observed to suffer under that kind of 
dualism in which their proper selves were tempted and tormented 
by the second and morbid self, we cannot wonder that our fore- 
fathers, ignorant of science, thought them subjects of demoniacal 
possession. There seemed to be two distinct persons in one 
body ; and many of the old ascetics, who, like modern lunatics, 
knocked their heads against stones, and tormented their flesh, 
acted under the notion that their real personality — that whicli 
they thought themselves — had to fight with a hostile and 
diabolical personality which occupied and used their bodies. 
When the delusions are constant, and the original man struggles 
against them, the dual personality is complete and continuous ; 
but cases frequently occur of what is called “ double conscious- 
ness,” in which there is a dual personality, each one of which 
has a separate period to itself. Many of these are related in 
well-known books, but the following is taken from a recent 
number of the “Revue Scientifique” (May 20). 
It is recorded by M. Azam, from whose dreadfully prolix 
narrative we glean the following facts : — The subject of the 
disorder is Felida X., born of healthy parents at Bordeaux in 
1843. Her father, a merchant captain, died while she was young, 
leaving a family for the mother to support. Thus Felida’s early 
years were spent in poverty, but she developed in the usual way 
till about thirteen, when, just after puberty, she exhibited 
hysterical symptoms, accompanied with pulmonary haemorrhage, 
without apparent cause from the condition of the respiratory 
organs. About fourteen she suffered sharp pains in both temples 
and fell suddenly into an unconscious state like sleep, which 
lasted about ten minutes, after which she opened her eyes and 
entered into what M. Azam calls her second state. This lasted 
an hour or two, after which the fainting and sleep reappeared, 
and she returned to what the doctor calls her ordinary state. 
More attacks came on every five or six days, or less often ; and 
her relations, noticing a change in her condition during the 
second life, and her forgetfulness of it on awakening, thought 
her idiotic. The hysteria got worse, and she suffered convul- 
sions, which led to M. Azam, who was connected with a lunatic 
asylum, being called in. This was in 1858, and he found 
Felida a plump brunette of moderate height, very intelligent 
