Louise Lateau of Bois d'Haine : her life, her ecstasies, and her stigmata, a medical study / by F. Lefebvre ; translated from the French ; edited by J. Spencer Northcote.
- Lefebvre, Ferdinand J. M., 1821-1902.
- Date:
- 1873
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Louise Lateau of Bois d'Haine : her life, her ecstasies, and her stigmata, a medical study / by F. Lefebvre ; translated from the French ; edited by J. Spencer Northcote. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.
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![' The president of the commission announced that, in accordance with the invitation he had received in the name of M. Teste him- self, he had provided pasteboard and wooden boxes of different sizes, each containing a fragment of printing in a clear tj])e, and that he wished one of these boxes to be used. Two of these boxes, of about the size of four inches, each contained a j)rintedpage of the same size in pica letters (caracteres cicero). These two were laid aside as too large. A third very small pasteboard box had in it one single line and five or six words, about twenty-five letters, printed in small capi- tals. M. Teste chose that one. Several members of the commission rejected it as too small, and besides not containing the required pica type. M. Teste and the commission unanimously adopted an oblong pasteboard box, narrow and long, being about four inches and a haK long and an inch mde. Some printing, in pica type, was placed flat and loose in the box, which was secured by two small bands of paper sealed at each end. 'M. Teste then brought in the somnambulist. She was a young- woman, dark, and with pleasing featm'es and general appearance. He placed her on a chair in one corner of the room, the members of the commission being seated at a short distance from her, and in a position from whence they could observe all her movements. M. Teste magnetised her with about twenty passes, and pronouncing her in a state of somnambulism, handed to her the box that had been selected, and wliich he received direct from the hands of the president of the commission. The latter pointed out, at the magnetiser's re- quest, the direction of the lines and letters on the fragment of paper contained within the box. Shortly afterwards M. Teste asked the somnambulist if she could read in the interior of the box; she replied affirmatively. He asked her how soon she thought she could read it; she answered, In ten minutes; and this with an assurance and conviction that were truly startling. ' She continued to look intently at the box, moving and turning it in her hands. In these movements she tore one of the slips of paper sealed round the box. A remark was made on the subject, and no- thing more of the kind occurred, ' The embarrassment of the somnambulist increased visibly; she exhausted herself with fruitless efforts, which, in appearance at least, were most fatiguing. The length of the lines (it was poetry) did not fill the entire length of the box; there was a considerable space of blank pa]5er; and it was upon this unoccupied space that the atten- tion and the fingers of the somnambulist seemed especially to rest, as though she wished to read at a place where there were no letters. She had announced that she could read it in ten minutes, but half an hour, an hour even, passed in this manner. The magnetiser asked](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21063904_0219.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
