HALLUCINATOEY MANIFESTATIONS. 
69 
by several incidents of a disagreeable character, and on the 24th 
of February of that year he observed, at the distance of ten 
paces from him, the figure of a person he had known in life 
but who was deceased : the figure remained before him for 
seven or eight minutes ; then, as he became exhausted, he fell 
into a troubled slumber, .and slept the ghost away. 
Later in the day the same figure and other figures returned 
to the astonished Mcolai, and until April continued to return, 
so that he became accustomed to them ; and, learning to distin- 
guish phantoms from phenomena, observed the phantoms, cor- 
rectly knowing them to be projections from his own brain. 
Tlie forms, he said, were, for the most part, human figures 
of both sexes ; some of persons dead or distant, whom he 
knew, others of persons he did not know : they came 
without his will, and went without his order. Occasionally 
the figures were mounted on horseback or were accompanied 
by animals of natural size and colour, but all perhaps were a 
little 'paler than natural. To Mcolai, the figures, when he got 
familiarised with the phenomena of their appearances, spoke ; 
their speeches being short and not disagreeable. 
In the whole history of spiritual manifestations, so called, 
there is nothing that equals in marvel this experience of Mcolai. 
How his spiritual history would have ended had it progressed 
to his death, and what beliefs would have been founded upon 
it, had it received no correction, it were indeed hard to say. 
Fortunately, as I think, in the month of April 1791, a cold- 
blooded Sangrado of a surgeon formed a conclusion that the 
loss of a little blood by means of leeches might clear the vision 
of the haunted bookseller. On the 20th of that month the 
surgeon carried out his design at eleven o’clock of the 
forenoon. During the operation, says Mcolai, the room 
swarmed with human forms, and continued full till four 
o’clock, ‘‘ when the digestion commences : ” then the figures 
began to move more slowly: afterwards they became paler: 
at half-past six they were all entirely white, and moved very 
little, though they were distinct in form. The figures did not 
glide away, neither did they vanish, but in this instance they 
dissolved immediately into air, some of them remaining, in 
pieces, for an interval. By degrees they were all lost, and at 
eight o’oclock there did not remain a vestige of them ; neither 
did they return. Mcolai was cured by his Sangrado. 
One important feature, solemn I am bound to say, remains to 
be said about all these peculiar hallucinations. It is, that the 
organic conditions leading to their development may become 
contagious. At first the hallucinatory disorder has its origin 
in individual persons, but it may become endemic, and in the 
