dust of dead or the orisons of living saints. The priests of that era found it expedient to denounce the affection as the work of Satan or his satellites, and employed the whole artillery of book and bell in exorcising the dancing demons.

Considerable space has been occupied in detailing these events, not only because they furnish parallels to some cases about to be related, but because they are themselves examples of one of the most singular forms which fanaticism has assumed. Patients who support suffering from being endowed with a stoical indifference to pain, or who, from the abstraction in which they are plunged, cannot be roused by external impressions, or who are, to a certain degree, actually insensible, are to be met with in every hospital. But the most curious instance which I have examined, is that of a female who believed herself to be at once immortal and invulnerable. Her belief was so far well founded; for on the infliction of various injuries which were resorted to experimentally, she betrayed no agitation, or other indication that she was conscious that her skin had been pricked, pierced, or cut. She either did not feel, or possessed the power of resisting and concealing the effects of pain. Humanity and policy set limits to the extent to which this insensibility could be put to the test; and although the subject of the experiment peti tioned daily to be discharged from the mouth of a twenty-fourpounder, her obtuseness of sensation was tried chiefly by means of pins, scarificators, seton needles, and similar instruments. Yet during the application of what would have proved intolerable torture to another person, her courage, or complacency, or insensibility, remained indomitable and imperturbable. Although composed and tranquil, and even smiling, during such operations, she was evidently acting under the influence of a high-wrought enthusiasm, and an unimpaired conviction of the exemption from the ordinary physical laws to which she laid claim. The strength of her moral feeling-in other words, the impression upon one part of the nervous system-rendered inert the sensation of pain, or the impression upon another part. Nor is this the prerogative of lunatics and fanatics alone. When Cranmer was brought to the stake, he held his offending right hand steadily amid the flames, as if the consuming and agonising power of the fire recoiled and were as nothing before the intensity of his devotion and the firmness of his purpose.*

Some difficulty would be found in discovering exact parallels to the Demonomaniacs of St Medard among the inmates of an asylum; for even mad miracle-mongers seldom pretend to possess, or to be benefited by, such gifts as those with which the ashes of Paris were endowed. Many features of coincidence, however, will be detected in the following cases.

• Southey's History of the Church, vol. ii. p. 240.

CASE IV.-C. W. æt. 60.

Predominating Organs. - Wonder, Ideality, Firmness, Veneration.

This patient has been insane for many years; but, according to his own estimate, he was cured of all mental disease at a remote period. From the same authority we learn that he has from youth been a martyr to the persecutions of evil spirits of all sorts and dimensions. To the machinations of these he is still exposed, and he bows before their dominion as the savage at the shrine of his demon-god. He confesses to have been at two several periods incurably deranged, and incorrigibly wicked. To the epochs at which these moral taints were eradicated we would especially refer.

When his malady first appeared he was residing in his native parish; and, according to the prescription of the minister and sundry wise women, he was bound hand and foot, carried to the churchyard, and deposited within the ruined walls of what had formerly been the place of worship. He was there left in company with three women similarly affected, to await midnight, which was to prove the critical season. The propitious hour arrived, the bonds fell from his limbs, and he arose free and unfettered by his complaint. His companions were not so fortunate; but he had the ungallantry, or, as he regards it, the piety, to leave them to their fate. Such practices are still persevered in. I have examined a woman whose condition, to the surprise of her relatives, was unaltered by bathing her head in St Fillan's spring.

Was there trick or deception in these transactions? or were the parties mutually deceived by their own superstitious feelings? We may at least conclude that Wonder, Veneration, and Hope, dictated the ordeal, and that the same feelings made it, or made it appear, successful. The minister trusted implicitly in the efficacy of his prescription; he believed that the holy character of the place would effect that which science had attempted in vain; and the patient, participating in this trust, and convinced especially that the efficacy would be developed at a particular moment, exerted that strength which persons labouring under nervous diseases alone possess, burst the bonds, and arose changed, in so far as he would be looked upon by himself and by others as a favoured and heaven-protected mortal. At a subsequent period the public functionaries had formed a different opinion, and he was cognosced. Here commences the series of misdemeanours of which he is self-accused. They consisted in the inordinate activity of Amativeness and the other propensities. He became a terror unto himself; for while irresistibly hurried toward sensual gratification, he felt all the agonies of impiety and moral pollution. These tendencies were, as he expresses it, lashed out of him. The keeper to whom he was committed was of the old school, and preferred the virtue of a whip to that of persuasion. We know not whether the possessed literally kissed the hand of his unmerciful exorcist; but he expresses his sense of gratitude for the system of castigation to which he was subjected: he declares that every laceration of his back diminished the strength of his inclinations; that, in short, he was cured by the cat-o'-nine-tails. Three things are certain that he was affected with satyriasis, that he was lashed without compunction, and that under this discipline his vicious propensities were extinguished or subdued.

Predominating Organs. - Wonder, Veneration, Firmness, Cautiousness, De

structiveness.

Deficient Organs. - Hope, Self-Esteem.

This woman underwent a regular tutelage for religious mania. She has nursed the seeds of her malady within her for years, and, as they grew, rejoiced in their growth. Her conviction of unworthiness, arising from a large Veneration and small Self-Esteem and Hope, was a hoarded treasure, which, with the true characteristic of a miser, she would not exchange for its real value, the practical duties of life. Originally endowed with strong religious feelings, she was thrown into a situation where they were strengthened and stirred up until they usurped the place and influence of every other power. As a girl, she was known as despondingly pious, as fondly attached to home and its sources of happiness, and as disinclined to try or to trust to those of the world. She resided with a relation in the country, who saw little society, and who, being devout in disposition, and ignorant that an exalted state of religious feeling is not rational religion, rather encouraged her serious temper of mind. Thus prompted, she became affected with a species of bibliolatry. Her days were spent in reading, committing to memory, or interpreting the pages of the sacred volume; her nights passed in a sleepless anxiety to discover the hidden meanings of the difficulties which she encountered. In this occupation she believed the whole circle of Christian duties to consist. She now doubted the truths in which she had hitherto believed, and ultimately took refuge in a new religion. Next she held, that so much was incumbent on man, and so inadequate were her moral capabilities, that she must perish in her disobedience and unbelief. Her friends indicate this as the point at which her mind bent and broke under the self-imposed burden. Closer observers would fix upon an earlier period; for there often appears a greater degree of infatuation and folly in training the mental powers in such a manner as to predispose to insanity, than in the extravagancies which characterise insanity itself. Her mind now became a mere conflict between despair and devotion-between the terror of deficient Hope and large Cautiousness, and the longing to propitiate by reverence that Being towards whom Hope directs its aspirations. She declared herself to be irreclaimably wicked, to have been specifically excluded from the wide pale of salvation, to be actually a murderer of God, the very deicide who nailed our Saviour to the cross. To this horrible idea she clung as if it had been necessary to her existence; and yet, to escape from the fear which it created, she had the daring to attempt suicide. This singular compound feeling is inexplicable save by phrenological analysis. But by the employment of this agent we find, that a large Wonder and a considerable Ideality would give to her religious views the colouring of awe and mysticism; that a large Cautiousness, excited by this moral darkness, added the sentiment of fear to superstition; that despondency resulted from the same organ associated with a very deficient Hope; and that the determination to put an end to her sufferings and existence was conferred by the activity of three of the largest organs in the head-Firmness, Destructiveness, and Secretiveness. So inveterate was the suicidal tendency, that, besides stratagems innumerable, in all probability suggested by this determination, upwards of a dozen of actual attempts were frustrated. Connected with the hallucination by which she was persecuted, are the phenomena which class her with some of the heroines of St Medard. In them a certain religious delusion-that of the sanctity and salutiferous virtues of a certain place or person produced strong convulsions; in her a similar religious delusion -that of her having been an active agent in the crucifixion likewise produces convulsions. In both the paroxysm took place when a certain class of feelings predominated; in, both pain was said to be no longer felt; in both, the person affected, cried beseechingly for the infliction of pain; and in both the consequences were so far beneficial, that tranquillity and a nearer approach to health succeeded.

I have seen this person in a voluntary convulsion fit, or one which it was in her power to produce by dwelling on particular objects of thought, continue to scream for a quarter of an hour at the utmost pitch of a shrill voice-" Pluck out my eye; cut off my hand; they have offended; I am lost, condemned!" As these lugubrious exclamations were accompanied by a look of absolute abandonment-by violent tossing of every limb, the writhing of the whole body, indeed the action of every muscle the effect upon the mind of a spectator was unmingled horror. Confessedly these paroxysms recurred only when religion, or rather the destruction of the religious hopes in which she had been taught, or in which she had taught herself, to believe, was obtruded upon her recollection. She was tranquillized or exhausted by these exacerbations, however violent they might be.

:

These points of similarity, and the fact that a permanent convalescence is anticipated, appear to shew, that there may be convulsionaires without the aid of the relics of the Abbé Paris the moral cause being, however, in both cases the same.

(To be continued.)

ARTICLE XI.

ACCOUNT OF THE SYSTEM OF EDUCATION FOLLOWED IN THE REV. J. C. BRUCE'S ACADEMY AT NEWCASTLE-ONTYNE.

MR COMBE, during his stay at Newcastle, visited the acade my kept by the Rev. John Collingwood Bruce, A. M. in No. 80, Percy Street, and was greatly pleased with the system pursued, the appearance of intelligence and happiness in the pupils, and the extensive and correct knowledge which they had acquired. The academy is conducted on the modern principle of teaching both languages and useful knowledge; of exciting in the pupils an înterest in, and love for, their studies; of relieving attention by regular changes in the objects pursued; and above all, of bringing a great amount of adult mind to bear upon the minds of the young, there being eight assistants employed in teaching about 120 pupils. Mr Combe requested Mr Bruce to favour him with an outline of his plan, with which solicitation he kindly complied, by addressing to him the following letter :

VOL. IX. NO. XLVI.

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