Licence: In copyright
Credit: Attention / by W.B. Pillsbury. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.
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![seated earlier associations still persist. The patient recog- nises the names and uses of familiar objects, can still speak in the normal manner ; it is merely that the recently ac- quired and more unstable connections disappear. The paths which connect the partial system with the whole are merely impaired, not broken, and, as is usual in all such cases, the earlier associations remain while the newer and less firmly fixed disappear. The degeneration may sometimes extend further. In a case reported by Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, quoted by Professor James [5], the discontinuity between the two systems became so complete that the patient was compelled to begin her education anew and to build up her knowledge from the beginning as does a child. Even in this case, in which the breaking down of the connections was probably as com- plete as in any case which has been reported, there were nevertheless traces of the persistence of the old connections, for learning went on much more quickly than it had at first, and the complete recognition of objects and their uses had not disappeared. Moreover, the effect of the earlier ex- periences was not completely destroyed, but returned with a sudden rush after a period, and the patient became a normal woman again. By far the most interesting and instructive case of multi- ple personality so far reported is that of Miss Beauchamp, reported by Dr. Morton Prince. [9] This was a young woman of college education who developed a divided personality as the result of an emotional shock that acted upon an here- ditary nervous instability. The self divided first into two selves, then later a third developed, and there could be distinguished a dozen or more that were less well developed. The three most marked were known as BI, BIV, and Sally. The one that first made itself known to Dr. Prince was BI, a studious, morbidly conscientious person of poor health. Then Sally appeared, first as a sub-self or hypnotic self that never had an independent existence, never had “ her eyes open ” or normal control of the motor mechanism.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21523630_0312.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
