A CURIOUS DISEASE.
The London Medical Record quotes some information regarding a strange disease that is met with in Siberia, and known to the Russians by the name of ‘Miryachit.’ The person affected seems compelled to imitate anything he hears or sees, and an interesting account is given of a steward who was reduced to a perfect state of misery by his inability to avoid imitating everything he heard and saw. One day the captain of the steamer, running up to him, suddenly clapping his hands at the same time, accidentally slipped, and fell hard on the deck. Without having been touched, the steward instantly clapped his hands and shouted; then, in helpless imitation, he, too, fell as hard, and almost precisely in the same manner and position as the captain. This disease has been met with in Java, where it is known as ‘Lata.’ In the case of a female servant who had the same irresistible tendency to imitate her mistress, the latter, one day at dessert, wishing to exhibit this peculiarity, and catching the woman’s eye, suddenly reached across the table, and seizing a large French plum, made pretence to swallow it whole. The woman rushed at the dish and put a plum in her mouth, and, after severe choking and semi-asphyxia, succeeded in swallowing it; but her mistress never tried the experiment again.