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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    stitution. Bonnet, and La Tlace in his Ussai PMlosophique sur les Probabilites (pp. 224-226), have mentioned a fact of this nature relating to a maternal grandfather of the former of these physicians.* One of the most interesting narratives of this character is that which was published a few years since by the bookseller Nicolai, of Berlin:— Case VII. During the latter six months of the year 1790, that academician relates, I had endured griefs that most deeply affected me. Dr. Selle, who was accustomed to bleed me twice a year, had deemed it advisable to do so but once. On the 24th of February, 1791, after a sharp altercation, I suddenly perceived, at the distance of ten paces, a dead body ; I inquired of my wife if she did not see it; my question alarmed her much, and she hastened to send for a doctor ; the apparition lasted eight min- utes. At four in the afternoon, the same vision reappeared; I was then alone; much disturbed by it, I went to my wife's apart- ment ; the vision followed me. At six, I perceived several fig- ures that had no connection with the others. When the first alarm had subsided, I watched the phantoms, taking them for what they really were, the results of an indispo- sition. Full of this idea, I carefully examined them, endeavor- ing to trace by what association of ideas these forms were pre- sented to my imagination; I could not, however, connect them with my occupations, my thoughts, or my works. On the following day, the figure of the corpse disappeared, but was replaced by a great many other figures representing sometimes friends, but more generally strangers. None of my intimate friends were amongst these apparitions, which were almost ex- clusively composed of individuals inhabiting places more or less distant. I attempted to produce at will persons of my acquaint- ance by an intense objectivity of their persons; but although I could see two or three of them distinctly in my mind, I could not succeed in making exterior the interior perception, although I had before seen them in that manner involuntarily, and though I saw them afresh when not thinking of them. The disposition of my mind prevented me from confounding those false appear- ances with reality. * Bonnet, Essai analytique sur l'Amo, ch. xxiii. p. 42G.