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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    in weak subjects, of an irritable and atrabilious temperament, and would be less common in tbe robust; but tbey would grad- ually increase with all drunkards. Case CLXXIX. Tbe individual whose case we now state, was very gentle in disposition, and an excellent workman when he had not been drinking; when sober, his energy in labor paid off the debts he had contracted during his drunken fits; but when the fit was on him, he remained sometimes for fifteen days or three weeks in a state of stupefaction and prostration. On the night of my crime, said he, I felt so great an- guish that I trembled from head to foot. It seemed to me as if a voice within me said: ' You must now beat your child to death.' As so atrocious an idea had never entered my mind, I sprang out of bed, raised my clasped hands to heaven, and said to my- self, as I walked up and down the room: ' Great God! Lord Jesus! I must kill my child !' No voice either within or without replied, and I returned to bed. I then caressed the sleeping child, and said, in a low tone: 'Sleep, my beloved child, sleep!' I had scarcely lain three or four minutes, when the anguish and trembling returned, and something unknown repeated, but more imperatively than before: ' Knock your child on the head in- stantly !' I felt resistance to be impossible. I rose in my shirt, and sought for a hatchet under the bed where my two little girls slept. Having found it, and grasped the handle, I returned to the bed where my son slept. It was five in the morning, and broad daylight, and I melted into tears at the sight of my be- loved son, whom an authoritative voice commanded me to kill. I could not recall my senses. I raised the hatchet, and with the thick end struck him three or four blows on the head. I do not know on what part, for my senses were gone. I only know that the blows followed in quick succession, that he struggled, did not speak, but groaned heavily, probably because the first blow had mortally wounded him. The sight of his blood brought me somewhat to myself; I took the hatchet back to its place, and woke my eldest daughter, saying : 'Charlotte, get up ; call your mother ; I have killed my Charles with the hatchet.' She replied: ' What do you say, my father ?' ' Yes, yes, call your mother ; I have indeed killed my little Charles with the hatchet.' My daughter began to lament, and ran to fetch her mother, whilst my other daughter, who had