The sense of hearing is equally blunted, and insensible to ordinary sounds. On several occasions, a person standing behind her has shouted loudly into her ears without exciting the least evidence of being heard. Except upon the conjunctiva, as mentioned, general sensibility seems to be completely in abeyance. Numerous experiments were made to test this fact.
For instance, the mucous membranes of the nose and ears were repeatedly tickled with a feather without exciting any reflex contraction; a strong solution of ammonia held under the nose produced no effect. The skin, being less sensitive than the mucous membranes, was pricked with a needle, and a pin thrust through a fold of skin on the hands and forearm; the point of a penknife was also driven into the skin until it bled freely, without producing the faintest muscular contraction or indication of sensibility.
A still more decisive test was made with an electro-magnetic battery,[52] the electrodes of which were placed on the front of the forearm where the skin is very thin and sensitive, and the strongest possible current passed through the muscles for more than a minute by the watch without eliciting the least evidence of pain, and the electric brush was equally powerless. The poles were likewise applied
to different parts of the face, and violent and prolonged contractions of the facial muscles induced, but without the slightest winking or other sign of sensibility or suffering.
Such is the condition of the organic functions during the first part of the ecstasy, but some modifications are observed during the second. Thus, while lying prostrate on the floor, the pulse becomes almost imperceptible, and an ordinary observer would fail to detect it at all, although Dr. Lefebvre was sure it never ceased to beat fully. Its frequency was at the same time greatly increased; so that, when it could be counted, it often rose to 120 or 130 in the minute. The movements of respiration now become more and more feeble, and the closest attention is needed to make sure that they exist, the rhythmical motion of the little shawl that covers her shoulders being often the only appreciable evidence that they are not totally suspended.
Another remarkable fact, which is contrary to the general physical rule, is that the rate of the pulse and that of respiration are directly in an inverse proportion; both Dr. Lefebvre and Dr. Imbert-Goubeyre having proved that, while the pulse rose from 90 to 130 per minute, the respirations (normally averaging 20 to 25) sink to 18 or even 10 in the same period. In proportion as the pulse and breathing become feeble, the skin loses its natural temperature, and is bathed in a cold sweat. As was stated, reaction occurs in ten or fifteen minutes; the pulse regains its force and normal frequency, respiration increases, and the natural standard of bodily heat is restored. The ecstatic thus passes at once from her trance into her ordinary life without any intermediate stage of transition. No headache, stiffness of the joints, or other discomfort is complained of; the intellect
is perfectly clear, the expression serene, the face calm, and the body active. At this moment the pulse has been found regular, soft, and from 72 to 75 per minute; respiration of natural strength, and 22 per minute, and the skin perfectly natural.
III.—THE QUESTION OF CREDIBILITY.
The suspicion of fraud seems never to have been entertained by the people who surrounded Louise Lateau. Her straightforward character, her simple and unostentatious piety, and her heroic acts of charity to the poor seemed to them the antithesis of hypocrisy. Of the likelihood of intentional deception each reader will judge for himself from the sketch we have given of her history. Dr. Lefebvre, however, acknowledges without hesitation that when he first visited her he was sure a pious fraud was being attempted which the eye of science would at once detect. Considering that he knew nothing of her and her antecedents, this suspicion, he says, “was natural, legitimate, necessary even; but it soon disappeared in presence of the facts.”
If only the stigmatization be considered, the supposition is untenable, when it is remembered that she was constantly watched by her friends, neighbors, and visitors. How, under such circumstances, could she possibly buy and use the blisters, caustics, or other means of producing the bleeding wounds? But, granting she had all these at her command, how could the ignorant peasant girl—even though aided by two or three accomplices—produce a result which the physician with all the resources of science cannot effect? For it involved the necessity of causing a bloody discharge from nine or ten points of the body, and of sustaining this for a half-day or even longer