Part 61

I will not fatigue you with varieties, such as carus, catalepsy, and the like, or with mere medical definitions, as syncope or fainting, epilepsy, apoplexy, and their analogies.

By the term trance I would define all those conditions in which there is protracted derangement of volition or the will; sensibility and voluntary action being suspended, while the vital functions are performed, yet with diminished energy; the “deep sleep” of Paracelsus, Hieronymus Fabricius, Celsus, and other writers of antiquity.

In some the rosy colour of the lips and cheeks will not fade; in others, they are pale and bloodless; the body becomes cold as marble, the pulse often imperceptible, and the vapour of breathing on a polished surface alone distinguishes the still living being from the perfect work of the sculptor. I have, however, had patients who were rosy when they fell asleep, but became pale about the end of the second day.

Girls often smile sweetly in full catalepsy, but the countenance will become anxious as waking approaches; and this must ever excite suspicion. The body indeed is, to the external world, dead; for although the cataleptic will often swallow food, while all the other muscles are in spasm, this may, I believe does, depend on mere irritability, by which, as I before told you, the brain is first excited, and then directs a movement without the mind’s feeling. Catalepsy is so peculiar to young females of extreme sensibility, that it may be considered an intense hysteria, depending on certain sympathies, or resulting from sudden or powerful influences on the passions. The form of catalepsy marked by hysteria is least dangerous; but it is very stubborn. Probably this is the form so common in Germany.

Previous to the cataleptic acme girls are often maniacally violent, and will then suddenly regain their temper and their reason. They will sit and play with their fingers in a sullen mood, and the power of motion and speech and other acts of volition may be alternately impaired or lost. In some, the sleep has been preceded by fits of lethargy, by lassitude, and inaptitude to exertion, and perhaps a propensity to sleep-walking. The decided state of catalepsy has begun in an epileptic convulsion. In all, I think, I have seen combined with this disorder, irregular determination of blood; in one case, where the taste and smell were gone for four or five months, the climax was suicide by arsenic.

The countenance is almost always placid in cataleptic sleep; the eyes being turned up, the pupils dilated, but the eyelids closed. If the fit be the result of sudden fright, the features will remain as they were at that moment—the eyelid fixed, but the pupil usually sensible. The joints and muscles are pliable, and may be moulded to any form, but they remain in that position as rigidly fixed as the limbs of a clay figure, or the anchylosed joints of the self-torturing fakir; insensible to all stimuli, beating, tickling, or pricking.

I have seen patients lapse into a state of catalepsy, in a moment, without a struggle. I remember, during one of my visits to the asylum in Hoxton, a maniac, who often in the midst of his occupation became instantaneously a statue; leaning a little forward, one arm lifted up, and the index finger pointed as at some interesting object; the eye staring and ghastly, and the whole expression as of one rapt in an ecstacy of thought or vision.

The waking from a trance, like the recovery from the asphyxia of drowning, is painful. It is attended with a struggle, and the hand is almost invariably placed firmly over the heart, as if its actions were a painful effort to overcome congestion.

In some cases, indeed, a purple hue will suddenly suffuse the cataleptic body; the limbs are then extremely rigid, but become pliant when the healthy tint is restored.

The sensation in the brain of the cataleptic, as of those recovering from drowning, resembles the pricking of needles, the circulation soon becoming accelerated. Hunger is usually intense when the patient awakes. The usual duration of catalepsy is from twenty to forty hours. The return of volition is commonly marked by perspiration; this premonitory sign is often followed by a piercing shriek, as in the case of night-mare, and, indeed, in a slight degree, of an infant’s cry as soon as it is born.

It has appeared to me that the cataleptic is marked by extremes of feeling and disposition. The sensibility either being too dull for the feeling of joy, or so intensely excited by pleasure, as to approach the confine of delirium. One of my patients, in particular, who was an eighty-hour sleeper, endured a metamorphosis from religious enthusiasm to theatrical mania. Her Bible was discarded for romances and play-books, and even the most licentious volumes.

CAST. I have read, (I suppose in some moth-eaten tomes enshrined I know not where,) of a scholar of Lubeck, who slept seven years; in Diogenes Laertius, of Epimenides, who slept fifty-one years in a cave; in Ricaut, of the seven devoted sleepers of Ephesus (the same, I presume, as the seven illustrious sleepers of Mahomet’s tale in the Koran); and of the Leucomorians, who fall asleep with the swallows early in November, and wake at the end of April.

One moment more among the legends of romance. In the “Hierarchie of the Blessed Angels” it is written, that in a dark cavern of the Baltic, there were discovered five men in Roman habits, so deeply sleeping, that all efforts to awaken them were unavailing.

Ogier the Dane is now sleeping in the dungeon of Cronenburg Castle—(so recordeth the “Danske Folk Saga.”)

Prince Arthur, too, was lying, when a chronicle was writ, in a trance at Avelon; and the Britons, with implicit belief, were watching for his awaking.

Years have passed since these mysterious legends were penned, and I dare not say that the spells are broken yet.

EV. If they then slept, sweet Castaly, they are surely sleeping now. Tales lose nothing by telling, and nature is often thus magnified into a miracle. You may however believe this, that a periodical catalepsy with intervals may last even for years. The “Memoirs of the Academy of Berlin” record the case of a woman, who sunk into catalepsy twice a day for many years; during which period she was married, and became the almost unconscious mother of children.

Nay, there is a story of Mynheer Vander Gucht, of Bremen, who, with very brief intermissions, slept and dreamt for thirty years; so that, on the return of travellers by sea or land, the primal question was, if Mr. Vander Gucht was up!

IDA. Catalepsy, I believe, has been often feigned; and, although it is astonishing with what apathy pain may be endured, the imposture, I presume, may be usually discovered by the proposition of some horrible remedy.

EV. Frequently; but many impostors have withstood the test, and triumphed in their deception. Yet it is true that the perfect state of catalepsy has been, in very rare instances, voluntarily produced; thus exhibiting the complete influence of will over an involuntary muscle, the heart.

The case of Colonel Townsend I adduce, as one of undoubted authority. This officer was able to suspend the action both of his heart and lungs, after which he became motionless, icy cold, and rigid,—a glassy film overspreading his eyes. As there was no breathing, there was no vapour apparent on the glass, when held to his mouth. During the many hours in which this voluntary trance existed, there was a total absence of consciousness, yet a faculty of self-reanimation!

Avicenna speaks of one that could “cast himself into a palsie when he list;” and Celsus, of a priest that could “separate himself from his senses when he list, and lie like a dead man, void of life and sense.” Cardan, the Pavian astrologer, brags of himself that he could do as much, and that “when he list.”

Dr. Cleghorn, of Glasgow, relates the case of a man who could stop the pulse at his wrist, and reduce himself to the condition of syncope, by his will, of course.

Barton, the holy maid of Kent, was enabled thus to “absorb her faculties.”

Restitutus, a presbyter, could also throw himself into a trance,—being insensible, except to the very loudest sounds. So says Augustin.

ASTR. So that there may not be much imposture in the case, recorded in the “Spectator,” of Nicholas Hart, a professor of somnolency, who lived by sleeping. The following is his advertisement in the “Daily Courant,” of that time:—

“Nicholas Hart, who slept last year in Saint Bartholomew’s Hospital, intends to sleep this year at the ‘Cock and Bottle,’ in Little Britain.”

I will freely confess to you, Evelyn, my scepticism as to these ultra romantic legends; but may my own memory fail me not, while I relate a few strange stories, and demand of yourself confirmation.