Part 54

In the brains of epileptic idiots, who are very determined somnambulists, we discover changes the most various; effusion, congestion, ossification of membranes, ramollissement, indurcissement, bony spiculæ, or points pressing the brain, tubercles, cysts. In some, the skull assumes the density of ivory. Yet in those persons who have been known to be sleep-walkers, the inspection is seldom satisfactory. Plethora of the head has often, however, preceded the sleep-walk. Signor Pozzi, physician to Benedict XIV., if he submitted not to depletion each second month, became a somnambulist; and we have known that in chorea, previous to the dance, and in some cases of somnambulism also, pain has been felt from the occiput along the course of the spinal marrow. This is from immediate excitement; but dyspepsia and other abdominal derangements may so influence the ganglia and nerves of organic life, and through them the brain and cord, as to excite sleep-walking by remote sympathy.

That injuries of the nervous matter about the nape of the neck are of the highest importance in our studies of these eccentric actions, is certain. The experiments of Flourens show that the progressive or forward motion of animals, is influenced by varied states of the cerebellum. When Majendie cut through the corpora striata, the animal darted forward; when the pons Varolii was cut, the animal rolled over sixty times in a minute.

When a soldier is struck by a ball about the cervical vertebræ, he often springs from the ground and drops dead.

It is our duty, then, not to slight the condition of the somnambulist. If simple irritation be its exciting cause, much benefit may be derived from counter-action on the surface, and other remedial means. Even if there be diseased structure, some palliation may be afforded. As preventives of the fit, we may inculcate an abstinence from late meals, exercise in the evening previous to retirement to rest, a high pillow, &c.

If the propensity continue in spite of our efforts, it will be right to have the windows fastened or locked, and the door of the chamber bolted without; or to confine the ankle or wrist to the bed-post by a long fillet, which may by its detention awake the sleeper on starting from the bed.

IMITATIVE MONOMANIA.

“Men, wives, and children, stare, cry out, and run, As it were doomsday.” JULIUS CÆSAR.

There are other very curious analogies of somnambulism, which are marked by a power of action that appears preternatural. And here again we witness the irresistibility of motion, which seems to subvert the laws of gravitation and the principles of mechanics. The involuntary twitchings and contortions of St. Vitus’s dance present the slighter form of these eccentric actions, which, in the intense degree, become like the fury of a raving maniac.

In young girls there often is a proneness to be excited by slight causes,—to be startled by mere trifles.

Savarry tells us of a man who, at two o’clock each day, was irresistibly impelled to rap at doors and make very odd noises, and felt intense pleasure in doing this. If this had occurred in the night, it would have been termed somnambulism.

Gall also relates of a young man at Berlin, who, after rolling about in his bed for some time, and jumping out and in repeatedly in his sleep, at last started up awake, astonished at the crowd around his bed. And Dr. Darwin writes of a boy, nine years old, who went through a course of gymnastics, with an occasional song between the acts. At length he seemed bursting, and soon sank down in a stupor.

ASTR. I have read, (I think in Mezeray,) of an epidemic mania of this sort, in which the creatures tore off their clothes, and ran naked through the streets and churches, until they fell breathless on the ground. Some of them swelled even to bursting, unless they were bound down by cords. The disease was referred to the agency of demons, and treated by exorcisms; they even tore their flesh to free themselves from their possessing devils. I have seen also a confident story of some nuns, who jumped so high during an hysteric ecstacy, that they were at length seen to fly; in imitation, perhaps, of the Corybantes, the priests of Cybele, who, in the celebration of their mysteries, leaped and raved, like madmen in the midst of their shrieks and howlings.

EV. All these eccentricities amount to complete monomania for the time they last, and they are marked often by a very violent imitative propensity; like the delirium which came upon the Abderites, on witnessing the performance of the “Andromeda” of Euripides, by Archelaüs. Of such nature was the “dancing mania” of the middle ages; the tarantula of Apulia, in which melancholy was succeeded by madness; the feats of the Jumpers of Cornwall, and the Convulsionnaires of the Parisian miracles.

Yet with all this apparent violence, there might be a power of control by management. On some sudden and extreme mental influence, there was in the Maison de la Charité, at Haerlem, an infectious convulsion of this nature, so that the troop of little scholars, girls and boys, were a mere legion of dancing maniacs; and nothing appeared to relieve them, until a ruse of the physician Boërhave put to flight the illusion. With a solemn voice he pronounced, in the hearing of the little creatures, his decision that each of them should be burned to the bone of the arm with a red hot iron. From that moment the mania subsided.

Dr. Hecker, in his account of the Dance of the middle ages, notices two forms of this national monomania:—“Tarantulism,” and the “Danse de Saint Guy.”

The first was marked by all sorts of illusions, demonomania, obscene dancing, groaning, and falling down senseless.

The persons who believed themselves bitten by the tarantula became sad and stupid. The flute or guitar alone could give them succour. At the sound of its music they awoke, as if by enchantment; their eyes opened, their movements, which at first slowly followed the music, gradually became animated, until they merged into an impassioned dance. To interrupt the music was disastrous:—the patients relapsed into their stupidity, until they became exhausted by fatigue. During the attacks, several singular idiosyncracies were manifested, contrary to what occurred in Germany. Scarlet was a favourite colour, though some preferred green or yellow. A no less remarkable phenomenon was their ardent longing for the sea; they implored to be carried to its shores, or to be surrounded by marine pictures; some even threw themselves into the waves. But the dominant passion was for music, though they varied in their particular tastes. Some sought the braying sound of the trumpet, others the softer harmony of stringed instruments.

There was once a woman of Piedmont who was charmed by the “capriccio,” played by the leader of an orchestra, into an ecstatic dance. In her, the sensations, as she expressed them, were so “strangely mingled,” as powerfully to illustrate the fine line of distinction between pleasure and pain. She gradually became weaker, and the memory of the music was so intense, that, while she was irresistibly impelled to this maniacal dance, her expressions were those of acute pain, and her cries were constantly of those “horrid sounds.” In six months, this unhappy creature died exhausted.

The Tigretier, of Abyssinia, is believed in Africa to be the effect of demoniac influence. Indeed there is in this strange state a complete metamorphosis of features, and voice, and manner. In the hearts, even of the women, the affections of nature and of attachment seem to be annihilated, and they seem overwhelmed by some oppressive weight, which is dissipated only by almost preternatural exertion, excited by the charm of music; in which wild dance the female is dressed in ornaments of silver, like the chiefs of battle. This maniac movement is often, I believe, kept up from early morning until sunset, ere the accumulation of energy is exhausted; and even then the woman will start off suddenly and outrun the fleetest hunter, until she drops as if dead. But it seems the climax of the cure is not complete, until she drops all her ornaments, and a matchlock is fired over her, when she owns her name and family, both having been previously denied. She is taken to the church and sprinkled with holy water, and then the spell is broken.

There is another strange monomania, an incitement to suicide, evinced in that loathsome disease of the Lombard and Venetian plains, Pellagra. The prevailing fashion is drowning; so that Strambi has termed this monomania, water-madness.

Others are driven on by still more horrible fancies. Thus Grenier wrapped himself in a wolf-skin, and murdered young maids that he might devour them. And, among ourselves, the desire to change the infant into a cherub, has led the wild fanatic to the murder of the innocents!

ASTR. This, I suppose, is Lycanthropy, or wolf-madness, on which old Burton so funnily expatiates; and to which the author of the old play of “Lingua” also points, alluding to the

“Thousand vain imaginations, Making some think their heads as big as horses, Some that they’re dead, some that they’re turned to wolves.”

In the woods of Limousin, in France, the belief in the power of changing from men to wolves is still prevalent. The Loup-garoux, or Wehr-wolf, was thought to have been in league with Satan.

In my wanderings through Poictou, these monsters seemed to me to confine their unholy powers to midnight prowling, and the wolf-howl. Yet Marie, in the “Lai du Bisclavaret,” endows them with the cannibalism of the goul and the vampire:

“So Garwal roams in savage pride, And hunts for blood, and feeds on men; Spreads dire destruction, far and wide, And makes the forests broad his den.”

EV. The extraordinary effects of the instinct of imitation in spreading these epidemics, is but an example on the grand scale of what we see daily instances of in yawning, hiccoughing, coughing, and other similar acts, and in the propagation of hysteria and epilepsy. Some persons, again, possess an irresistible tendency to imitate others in mere trifling things. Tissot relates a case of a female, who never could avoid doing every thing she saw any one else do. She was obliged to walk blindfolded in the streets; and, if you tied her hands, she experienced intolerable anguish until they were loosened. There was another girl, that was seen by Dr. Horn, at Salzburg, who sat cross-legged, like a hog. She had been brought up in a sty.

Even during the Commonwealth, the religious fanaticism of the Quakers carried the proselytes to such a pitch, that the preachers were thrown into excessive convulsions, and seemed possessed of demons. The churches were broken into, and the ministers insulted and attacked in the pulpits. Chains, and locks, and the pillory, which were inflicted on these mad people, failed, as it might be expected, in restoring their senses, although they bore them with the most astonishing fortitude. In their worshipping, the same eccentricities were seen: after a deep and long silence, a number of the devotees rose at once, and declaimed. The presumptuous imitation of the Saviour was a favourite illusion; and the forty-days’ fast sometimes terminated in death. Naylor, convinced of his divine identity, rode in procession on a mule, while his deluded proselytes spread their garments, and sang Hosannas to him. Nay, the purity of the female mind was so grossly perverted, that a Quakeress walked naked into a church, before Cromwell, as a sign to the people!