In consequence of some affection of the ear, the insane sometimes insist that malicious agents contrive to blow streams of infected air into this organ: others have conceived, by means of what they term hearkening wires and whiz-pipes, that various obscenities and blasphemies are forced into their minds; and it is not unusual for those who are in a desponding condition, to assert, that they distinctly hear the devil tempting them to self-destruction.
A considerable portion of the time of many lunatics, is passed in replies to something supposed to be uttered. As this is an increasing habit, so it may be considered as an unfavourable symptom, and at last the patient becomes so abstracted from surrounding objects, that the greater part of the day is consumed in giving answers to these supposed communications. It sometimes happens that the intelligence conveyed, is of a nature to provoke the mad-man, and on these occasions, he generally exercises his wrath on the nearest bystander; whom he supposes, in the hurry of his anger, to be the offending party.
In the soundest state of our faculties, we are more liable to be deceived by the ear, than through the medium of the other senses: a partial obstruction by wax, shall cause the person so affected, to hear the bubbling of water, the ringing of bells, or the sounds of musical instruments; and on some occasions, although the relation seems tinged with superstition, men of undeviating veracity, and of the highest attainments, have asserted, that they have heard themselves called. “He [Dr. Johnson] mentioned a thing as not unfrequent, of which I [Mr. Boswell] had never heard before—being called, that is, hearing one’s name pronounced by the voice of a known person at a great distance, far beyond the possibility of being reached by any sound, uttered by human organs. An acquaintance on whose veracity I can depend, told me, that walking home one evening to Kilmarnock, he heard himself called from a wood, by the voice of a brother who had gone to America; and the next packet brought account of that brother’s death. Macbean asserted that this inexplicable calling was a thing very well known. Dr. Johnson said, that one day at Oxford, as he was turning the key of his chamber, he heard his mother distinctly call Sam. She was then at Litchfield; but nothing ensued. This phænomenon is, I think, as wonderful as any other mysterious fact, which many people are very slow to believe, or rather, indeed, reject with an obstinate contempt.”—Boswell’s Life of Dr. Johnson, 4to. vol. ii. p. 384.
One of the most curious cases of this nature which has fallen under my observation, I shall here venture to relate, for the amusement of the reader. The patient was a well educated man, about the middle age; he always stopped his ears closely with wool, and, in addition to a flannel night-cap, usually slept with his head in a tin saucepan. Being asked the reason why he so fortified his head, he replied, “To prevent the intrusion of the sprites.” After having made particular enquiry concerning the nature of these beings, he gravely communicated the following information:—“Sir, you must know that in the human seminal fluid there are a number of vital particles, which being injected into the female, impregnate her, and form a fœtus of muscles and bones. But this fluid has other properties, it is capable, by itself, of producing vitality under certain circumstances, and experienced chemists and hermetical philosophers have devised a method of employing it for other purposes, and some, the most detrimental to the condition and happiness of man. These philosophers, who are in league with princes, and their convenient and prostituted agents, contrive to extract a portion of their own semen, which they conserve in rum or brandy: these liquors having the power of holding for a considerable time the seminal fluid, and keeping its vitality uninjured. When these secret agents intend to perform any of their devilish experiments on a person, who is an object of suspicion to any of these potentates, they cunningly introduce themselves to his acquaintance, lull him to sleep by artificial means, and during his slumbers, infuse a portion of their seminal fluid (conserved in rum or brandy) into his ears.
“As the semen in the natural commerce with the woman, produces a child, so, having its vitality conserved by the spirit, it becomes capable of forming a sprite; a term, obviously derived from the spirit in which it had been infused. The ear is the most convenient nidus for hatching these vital particles of the semen. The effects produced on the individual, during the incubation of these seminal germs, are very disagreeable; they cause the blood to mount into the head, and produce considerable giddiness and confusion of thought. In a short time, they acquire the size of a pin’s head; and then they perforate the drum of the ear, which enables them to traverse the interior of the brain, and become acquainted with the hidden secrets of the person’s mind. During the time they are thus educated, they enlarge according to the natural laws of growth; they then take wing, and become invisible beings, and, from the strong ties of natural affection, assisted by the principle of attraction, they revert to the parent who afforded the semen, and communicate to him their surreptitious observations and intellectual gleanings. In this manner, I have been defrauded of discoveries which would have entitled me to opulence and distinction, and have lived to see others reap honours and emoluments, for speculations which were the genuine offsprings of my own brain.”
By some persons, madness has been considered as a state of mind analogous to dreaming: but an inference of this kind supposes us fully acquainted with the actual state, or condition of the mind in dreaming, and in madness. The whole question hinges on a knowledge of this state of mind, which I fear is still involved in obscurity. As it is not the object of the present work to discuss this curious question, the reader is referred to the fifth section of the first part of Mr. Dugald Stewart’s Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind, and to the note, o, at the end; he will also find the subject treated with considerable ingenuity in the eleventh section of Mr. Brown’s Observations on Zoonomia.
There is, however, a circumstance, which to my knowledge, has not been noticed by those who have treated on this subject, and which appears to establish a marked distinction between madness and dreaming. In madness, the delusion we experience is most frequently conveyed through the ear; in dreaming, the deception is commonly optical; we see much, and hear little; indeed dreaming, at least with myself, seems to be a species of intelligible pantomime, that does not require the aid of language to explain it. It is true, that some who have perfectly recovered from this disease, and who are persons of good understanding and liberal education, describe the state they were in, as resembling a dream: and when they have been told how long they were disordered, have been astonished that the time passed so rapidly away. But this only refers to that consciousness of delusion, which is admitted by the patient on his return to reason; in the same manner as the man awake, smiles at the incongruous images, and abrupt transitions of the preceding night. In neither condition, does the consciousness of delusion, establish any thing explanatory of the state of the mind.
In a description of madness, it would be blameable to omit a form of this disease which is commonly very intractable, and of the most alarming consequences; I mean, the insanity which arises from the habit of intoxication. All persons who have had any experience of this disease, readily allow that fermented liquors, taken to excess, are capable of producing mental derangement: but the medical practitioner has in such cases, to contend, and generally without effect, with popular prejudice, and sometimes, with the subordinate advisers of the law.
To constitute madness, the minds of ignorant people expect a display of continued violence, and they are not satisfied that the person can be pronounced in that state, without they see him exhibit the pranks of a baboon, or hear him roar and bellow like a beast. By these people the patient is stated only to be intemperate; they confess that he does very foolish things when intoxicated; but that he is not mad, and only requires to be restrained from drinking. Thus, a man is permitted slowly to poison and destroy himself; to produce a state of irritation, which disqualifies him for any of the useful purposes of life; to squander his property amongst the most worthless and abandoned; to communicate a loathsome and disgraceful disease to a virtuous wife, and leave an innocent and helpless family to the meager protection of the parish. If it be possible, the law ought to define the circumstances, under which it becomes justifiable, to restrain a human being from effecting his own destruction, and involving his family in misery and ruin. When a man suddenly bursts through the barriers of established opinions; if he attempt to strangle himself with a cord, to divide his larger blood-vessels with a knife, or swallow a vial full of laudanum, no one entertains any doubt of his being a proper subject for the superintendance of keepers, but he is allowed, without control, by a gradual process, to undermine the fabric of his own health, and destroy the prosperity of his family.
All patients have not the same degree of memory of what has passed during the time they were disordered: and I have frequently remarked, when they were unable to give any account of the peculiar opinions which they had indulged, during a raving paroxysm of long continuance, that they well remembered any coercion which had been used, or any kindness which had been shewn them.