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
Catalogue details

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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    mena, the Morocco marabout lias a certain quantity of benzoin burnt behind the table, and whilst the vapour spreads itself through the room, the person undergoing the process falls into a complete state of anfesthesia.' It is esddent that these different processes of fascination are quite similar to those x^nblished by Mr. Braid, and that the condition in which the Ai-ab sorcerers place their patients is a true state of In^onotism. XVIII. The patient in the follo'WT.ng case, rex)orted by M. Mesnet, was .a hysterical woman. Her illness lasted seven months. It com- menced mth violent hysterical fits, the number of wliich sometimes reached forty-eight in twenty-four hours. Soon the ]Dhenomena of catalepsy (muscular rigidity, retaining the postures given to the limbs or trunk) appeared after the hysterical fit. They lasted from fifteen to twenty minutes. To tlus double nervous affection attacks -ofsomnambuhsm were added, diu'ing which the patient was governed by one single idea, the temptation to suicide, which she unceasingly sought to reahse. The somnambulist being full of her sinister x)re- occuxDations, no impression could be made upon her, either by the presence of x^ersons placed opposite to her in the lightest part of the Toom, or by the sound of voices, or by the noise of a spoon struck violently on the bottom of an instrument close to her ear.*^ Doctor Masarde reports a case of hysteria in wliich the fits reap- peared on four consecutive days at about five o'clock in the morning, -and disappeared under the action of sulphate of quinine. He quotes another case, where the attacks returned every fifth .day.47 Doctor Dassit relates the account of a j^oung girl who, during ten or twelve years, was affected mtli ordinary hysterical fits; at the ex- piration of this time the attacks assumed a periodical form. Every day at about thi-ee o'clock a clearty-develoi)ed hysterical fit came on, succeeded by a profomid sleep, with suspension of sensibility, and lasting three or four liom-s.^^ Doctor Mangin repoi-ted, in 1850, his observations of a young person, nineteen years old, whom he had attended for an affection wliich he designated by the title of ecstasy. During her attack she lay upon her back, sleeping calmly, her'limbs outstretched. The insensibility of the sldn was complete.- This state lasted two days ** Archives gen. de Med., No. for February 1860. Ann. de Med. helge et etrangere, t. iv. p. 24. ^^ Bullet, de Tlieraijeutiq^uc, August 18-il.