In 1831, a young girl, also aged fourteen, who lived as under nursery-maid in a French family, exhibited the same phenomena, and when the case of Angelique Cottin was made public, her master published hers. He says that things of such an extraordinary nature occurred as he dare not repeat, since none but an eye-witness could believe them. The thing lasted for three years, and there was ample time for observation.
In the year 1686, a man at Brussels, called Breekmans, was similarly affected. A commission was appointed by the magistrates to investigate his condition; and, being pronounced a sorcerer, he would have been burnt, had he not luckily made his escape.
Many somnambulic persons are capable of giving an electric shock; and I have met with one person, not somnambulic, who informs me that he has frequently been able to do it by an effort of the will.
Dr. Ennemoser relates the case of a Mademoiselle Emmerich, sister to the professor of theology at Strasburg, who also possessed this power. This young lady, who appears to have been a person of very rare merit and endowments, was afflicted with a long and singular malady, originating in a fright, in the course of which she exhibited many very curious phenomena, having fallen into a state of natural somnambulism, accompanied by a high degree of lucidity. Her body became so surcharged with electricity, that it was necessary to her relief to discharge it; and she sometimes imparted a complete battery of shocks to her brother and her physician, or whoever was near her, and that frequently when they did not touch her. Professor Emmerich mentions also that she sent him a smart shock, one day, when he was several rooms off. He started up and rushed into her chamber, where she was in bed; and as soon as she saw him she said, laughing: “Ah, you felt it, did you?” Mademoiselle Emmerich’s illness terminated in death.
Cotugno, a surgeon, relates that, having touched with his scalpel the intercostal nerve of a mouse that had bitten his leg, he received an electric shock; and where the torpedo abounds, the fishermen, in pouring water over the fish they have caught for the purpose of washing them, know if one is among them by the shock they sustain.
A very extraordinary circumstance, which we may possibly attribute to some such influence as the above, occurred at Rambouillet in November, 1846. The particulars are furnished by a gentleman residing on the spot at the time, and were published by the Baron Dupotel—who, however, attempts no explanation of the mystery:—
One morning some travelling merchants, or pedlars, came to the door of a farmhouse, belonging to a man named Bottel, and asked for some bread, which the maid-servant gave them, and they went away. Subsequently one of the party returned to ask for more, and was refused. The man, I believe, expressed some resentment and uttered vague threats, but she would not give him anything and he departed. That night at supper the plates began to dance and roll off the table, without any visible cause, and several other unaccountable phenomena occurred; and the girl going to the door and chancing to place herself just where the pedlar had stood, she was seized with convulsions and an extraordinary rotatory motion. The carter who was standing by laughed at her, and out of bravado placed himself on the same spot, when he felt almost suffocated, and was so unable to command his movements that he was overturned into a large pool in front of the house.
Upon this they rushed to the curé of the parish for assistance; but he had scarcely said a prayer or two before he was attacked in the same manner, though in his own house; and his furniture beginning to oscillate and crack as if it were bewitched, the poor people were frightened out of their wits.
By-and-by the phenomena intermitted, and they hoped all was over; but presently it began again, and this occurred more than once before it subsided wholly.
On the 8th December, 1836, at Stuttgard, Carl Fischer, a baker’s boy, aged seventeen, of steady habits and good character, was fixed with a basket on his shoulders, in some unaccountable way, in front of his master’s house. He foresaw the thing was to happen when he went out with his bread very early in the morning; earnestly wished that the day was over, and told his companion that if he could only cross the threshold, on his return, he should escape it. It was about six when he did return; and his master, hearing a fearful noise which he could not describe—“as if proceeding from a multitude of beings”—looked out of the window, where he saw Carl violently struggling and fighting with his apron, though his feet were immoveably fixed to one spot. A hissing sound proceeded from his mouth and nose, and a voice, which was neither his nor that of any person present, was heard to cry, “Stand fast, Carl!” The master says that he could not have believed such a thing; and he was so alarmed that he did not venture into the street, where numerous persons were assembled. The boy said he must remain there till eleven o’clock; and the police kept guard over him till that time, as the physician said he must not be interfered with, and the people sought to push him from the spot. When the time had expired, he was carried to the hospital, where he seemed exceedingly exhausted and fell into a profound sleep.