Hallucinations.

  • Alexandre Jacques François Brière de Boismont
Date:
1853
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Hallucinations. 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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    Finally, he again got into the carriage, but his agitation and fury lasted until our arrival at Buoy, where we stopped for breakfast. The priest endeavored to calm him—begged him to forget his injuries, and pardon his enemy. ' I consent, Mon- sieur l'Abb£,' said the officer; 'be our mediator. But let him show himself!—let him acknowledge his wrongs !—let him stay his insults ! Do you not hear the coward ? He continues to insult me ; he says I have been discharged; it is false—I have only changed my regiment. Pouzet, show yourself! come and fight! If you do not, I will report you everywhere as a villain. They will spit in your face, and tear off your epaulettes.' We offered him breakfast, but he declined. This agitated state lasted until our arrival at Lons-le-Saulnier, where he was taken to the hospital.* With the progress of the moral affection, all the means em- ployed by these patients to escape the plots of their enemies are ineffectual. They introduce themselves into their dwellings,, annoy them constantly ; speak ironical, injurious, and menacing words ; appear to them in the streets, and in the silence of night. Frequently, illusion is combined with hallucination, and they see enemies in every person whom they meet. When the disorder has reached this point, the patient becomes so exasperated that he resolves to escape this constant and frightful torment by suicide. This result more frequently takes place when he thinks that his enemies wish to be rid of him by means of poison. He then frequently refuses all kinds of nourishment, because it tastes badly, or has a suspicious odor, and thus he dies of hunger. At other times the insane, furious at these persecutions, form projects of vengeance, strike, wound, or kill the first person whom they meet, and who, as they say, pays for the rest. Under some circumstances, they conceive a hatred for their nearest relative, or the person whom they most frequently see, and their act in this case may impose on inexperienced minds, who look on it as an act of revenge. Insane hallucinated persons of this class are in general very formidable, and the examples we shall give will justify our asser- tion. Case CLXVII. Mr. It. de G. was engaged in an office under * Bottex, op. tit.
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