EFFECTS OF FEAR.
It is a common practice, in many parts of India, to oblige persons suspected of crimes to chew dry rice in presence of the officers of the law. Curious as it may appear, such is the intense influence of fear on the salivary glands, that, if they are actually guilty, there is no secretion of saliva in the mouth, and chewing is impossible. Such culprits generally confess without any further efforts. On the contrary, a consciousness of innocence allows of a proper flow of fluid for softening the rice.
Many of our readers are familiar with the case of the thief to whom, in common with other suspected persons, a stick of a certain length was given, with the assurance that the stick of the thief would grow by supernatural power. The culprit, imagining that his stick had actually increased in length, broke a piece off, and was thus detected. A similar anecdote is told of a farmer who detected depredations on his corn-bin by calling his men together and making them mix up a quantity of feathers in a sieve, assuring them, at the same time, that the feathers would infallibly stick to the hair of the thief. After a short time, one of the men raised his hand repeatedly to his head, and thus betrayed himself.
A Parisian physician, during his visits made in a hired fly, had received a bottle of real Jamaica rum as a sample, but found, after returning home, that he had left it in the carriage. He went to the office, and informed the manager that he had left a virulent poison in one of the carriages, and desired him to prevent any of the coachmen from drinking it. Hardly had he got back when he was summoned in great haste to three of these worthies, who were suffering from the most horrible colic; and great was his difficulty in persuading them that they had only stolen some most excellent rum.
One of the most singular examples on record of the effect of fear acting through the imagination is given by Breschet, a French author of the sixteenth century, who informs us that the physicians at Montpellier, which was then a great school of medicine, had every year two criminals, the one living, the other dead, delivered to them for dissection. On one occasion they determined to try what effect the mere expectation of death would produce upon a subject in perfect health; and in order to carry out the experiment they told the gentleman (for such was his rank) who was placed at their discretion, that, as the easiest mode of taking away his life, they would employ the means which Seneca had chosen for himself, and would therefore open his veins in warm water. Accordingly they covered his face, pinched his feet, without lancing them, and set them in a footbath, and then spoke to each other as if they saw that the blood was flowing freely, and life departing with it. The man remained motionless; and when, after a while, they uncovered his face, they found him dead.