The wonderful relativity of psychology to the purely somatic phenomena comprised under the term physiology, while not having altogether escaped the observation of earlier thinkers, did not assume the significance it now possesses till modern science compelled mere psychicists to recognize the invaluable services this new handmaiden bestowed on their favorite pursuit. It had been too much the vogue to frown down attempts at chemical explanations of vital processes as verging towards materialism, and thus materialism was in reality strengthened, since the opponents of modern physiology had shut their eyes to facts as stubborn and undeniable as the soul itself whose cause they were championing. This antagonism was unfortunate; for, though of short duration, it gave rise to the impression in the popular mind that the old science dreaded the new light, and that recent discoveries tended rapidly to overthrow the time-honored belief in the distinct substantiality of the soul. To this same arrogant rejection by pedantic orthodoxists of facts that seemingly conflicted with accepted views, may be ascribed the sneering and triumphant manner of many scientists who fail to take account of the slowness with which men reconcile themselves to truths not hitherto suspected. Had, however, the data of modern science been at first fully considered, it would have become evident that theories and assumptions alone ran counter to the doctrine of a spiritual soul, and that scientific facts, startling and numerous as they were, did not, when viewed by the light of a just interpretation, conflict with any prior truth. The hasty and groundless character of the assumptions which tend to materialism may be inferred from the claim not long since put forward in the Ecole de Médecine at Paris, to the effect that the science of physiology demands in advance the rejection of any principle of activity in man not amenable to its methods and instruments of research, on the ground that man in his totality is the true objective point of this science, and the admission of aught in him which it cannot determine is equivalent to stating that man is more than he is. According to this authority, therefore, the notion of a soul, viewed as a spiritual substance, distinct and different from the body, hampers science and circumscribes the field of its inquiry. But if the vast strides made by physiology within the last decade have been the occasion of some pernicious speculation, and have seemed to give countenance to materialism, this has been the case only when the science transcended its own data and soared into the region of conjecture. Its legitimate fruits are manifest in the flood of light it has thrown on the most intricate questions of psychology, and the elucidation of points which, but for it, would have remained for ever in obscurity. Indeed, it may be said to have created a new branch of psychical science, and to have brushed away many cobwebs that clouded the psychology of the schools. The volume before us represents the latest expression of the physiology and pathology of the nervous system, and is characterized by unusual closeness of observation and accuracy of expression, while evincing a proneness to theorize on points concerning which the author is least at home. Dr. Hammond has been a close student at the bedside and an indefatigable worker with those instruments of research which have almost built up his science, but for all an indifferent thinker, as we shall shortly endeavor to prove. It is true that no authority is more frequently invoked, and with good reason, to determine questions relative to mental aberration and unusual conditions of the nervous system; but when he abandons the ophthalmoscope, the cephalohœmometer, the œsthesiometer, and assumes the abolla of the philosopher, he evidently misses his rôle. He is undoubtedly a physiologist of the first rank and a respectable authority on minute nervous histology, but as a theorist he is a failure. Accustomed to dogmatize on facts coming within the scope of the senses, he applies the same procrustean rule of reasoning to purely intellectual processes, and speedily flounders in a quagmire. His mind has tipped the balance in the direction of material things, and has not been able to regain its equilibrium.
As a repertory of interesting facts, gleaned in the course of a long and varied experience, his book is invaluable. It bristles with information and is replete with comments which prove Dr. Hammond to be an accurate, close, and painstaking observer, as well as an accomplished anatomist. His chapter on Aphasia is intensely interesting, and constitutes a valuable contribution to the theory of localized function. Aphasia is that inability to use language which proceeds, not from paralysis of the labial muscles, nor from hysteria, nor from injury of the vocal chords (aphonia), but from a lesion of that portion of the brain which presides over the memory of words and the co-ordination of speech. Many instances are adduced in proof that this inability results from the impairment of a given portion of the cerebral substance; and from the constant recurrence of the same effects from the same lesion the inference is drawn that a very restricted portion of the brain is concerned in connecting thoughts with words, co-ordinating these, and arranging them in articulate sounds. Authorities, indeed, are not agreed as to what special brain lobe this faculty is to be ascribed, but the fact is borne out by unquestionable evidence that some portion of the anterior convolutions controls and regulates the power of speech. The point of interest is that the function is localized and depends on the minute physical texture of the nerve substance through which it is carried on. Dr. Hammond justly claims the credit of having first observed that the form of aphasia called amnesic (forgetfulness of words) depends on some lesion of the vesicular or gray matter of the brain, since it is unaccompanied by paralysis, while the form called ataxic (inability to co-ordinate articulate sounds) is connected with the corpus striatum which presides over motion, and so we find this latter form always associated with paralysis.
No summary of this chapter can do it justice, so pregnant is it with facts and abounding with varied suggestion. We would remark, however, that Dr. Hammond has failed to call attention to the remarkable confirmation which the condition of amnesic aphasia offers in support of the inseparable connection between thought and some symbol of expression—a circumstance which Trousseau, in his learned work on Clinical Medicine, has noted at length. Trousseau says: “A great thinker as well as a great mathematician cannot devote himself to transcendental speculations unless he uses formulæ and a thousand material accessories which aid his mind, relieve his memory, and impart greater strength to thought by giving it greater precision. Now, an aphasic individual suffers from verbal amnesia so that he has lost the formulæ of thought.” This fact of aphasia curiously coincides with Vicomte de Bonald’s theory of the divine origin of language, which is based on the supposed impossibility of having a purely intellectual conception without an accompanying formula or word to circumscribe and differentiate it, and that accordingly language, in such relation, must have been communicated.
It is likewise corroborative of the view taken by Max Müller, who says (Science of Language, 79): “Without speech, no reason; without reason, no speech.” And again: “I therefore declare my conviction, whether right or wrong, as explicitly as possible, that thought, in one sense of the word—i.e., in the sense of reasoning—is impossible without language.”
The latest disclosure of science, therefore, so far from conflicting on this important point with the philosophy of the Scholastics, endorses and sustains it, and is opposed rather to the rationalist view of the question.
It is in the chapter on Insanity that Dr. Hammond first betrays the crudeness and shallowness of his philosophy. On page 310 he says: “By mind we understand a force developed by nervous action, and especially the action of the brain.” And again: “The brain is the chief organ from which the force called mind is evolved.”
In this definition the author is guilty of having used a term more obscure and ambiguous than the definiendium itself; for no two scientific men agree in their view of force. Dr. Mayer, of Heilbronn, says: “The term force conveys the idea of something unknown and hypothetical.” “Forces are indestructible, convertible, and imponderable objects.” Dr. Bray, in his Anthropology, says: “Force is everything; it is a noumenal integer phenomenally differentiated into the glittering universe of things.” Faraday says: “What I mean by the term force is the cause of a physical action,” and elsewhere, “Matter is force.” Dr. Bastian, on Force and Matter, declares force to be “a mode of motion.” Herbert Spencer says of it: “Force, as we know it, can be regarded only as a conditioned effect of the unconditioned cause, as the relative reality, indicating to us an absolute reality by which it is immediately produced.” Another writer (Grove) calls forces the “affections of matter.” Now, the word mind conveys, even to the most illiterate, a precise and definite notion. Every one knows that it is the principle within him which thinks and underlies all intellectual processes; but when Dr. Hammond informs him that it is a “force,” and he finds that a bewildering confusion of opinions, expressed in the obscurest terms, prevails concerning the nature and essence of “force,” he finds that he has derived “Fumum ex fulgore.” Even the term “evolves” is unfortunate; for the word occurs in a great variety of connections. If force is an entity, it cannot be evolved; it is produced. Of thought, indeed, it might be said that it is evolved from the mind, since it represents the latter in a state of active operation, and has no separate entity of its own; but mind, being known to us as something in all respects distinct and diverse from matter, cannot, except by a lapse into the grossest materialism, be said to be evolved from the brain. Had Dr. Hammond present to his mind a definite idea when he penned the word, he might have easily found a clearer substitute. Carl Vogt knew well what meaning he intended to convey when he said: “Just as the liver secretes bile, so the brain secretes thought.” There is candor, at least, in this statement, and none of that shuffling timorousness which shame-facedly glozes materialism in the formula: “Mind is a force evolved from the brain.”
Having satisfied himself that there can be no question as to the accuracy of this definition, our author places mind in contrast with “forces in general” by designating it a compound force. What he means by “forces in general” it is hard to say; for if mind is a force, it possesses the generic properties which ally it with other forces, and must therefore be one of the “forces in general,” since that is a veritable condition of its being a force at all. But this is a minor error. The expression “compound force,” used as Dr. Hammond uses it, implies a far graver mistake, and all but stultifies its author. Either mind is a force (and be it remembered the author has not enlightened us as to the sense in which we ought to understand the term), having a special function to perform, from which, and from its mode of performance, its character is inferred, in which case it is a simple force, no matter how great may be the number and variety of the objects on which it is expended; or, it is a combination of forces, each proceeding from its proper source or principium, and each directed to its proper object-term or class of object-terms, in which case it is not one force merely, however much Dr. Hammond may insist upon calling it compound, but a series of forces, each possessed of a distinct entity and an individual identity. The doctor evidently did not study the scope and import of the word when he thus loosely employed it, else he would have perceived that whatever is compound is some one and the same thing made up of parts, and not a collection of individuals.
We will now see in what manner he distributes and assigns to duty the sub-forces comprised under the general term “compound force.” For aught we know, Dr. Hammond may have once been familiar with the researches of Stewart, Reid, Brown, and Hamilton, not to mention Locke, Descartes, Leibnitz, and Malebranche; but he certainly labored under some form of amnesia when he devised the following scheme of psychology: He declares that the sub-forces into which the compound force called mind is divisible are fourfold, viz.: perception, intellect, emotion, and will. He defines perception to be “that part of the mind whose office it is to place the individual in relation with external objects.” This definition supposes that the whole mind is not concerned in the act of perception, but that, while one part of it is quiescent, another may be engaged in perceiving. This view of perception has the questionable merit of originality, differing as it does from the definition given by every author from Aristotle to Mill, who all regard perception as an act of the mind, and the faculty of perceiving nothing else than the mind itself viewed with reference to its perceptive ability. Further on he says: “For the evolution of this force [viz., part of the mind] the brain is in intimate relation with certain special organs, which serve the purpose of receiving impressions of objects. Thus an image is formed upon the retina, and the optic nerve transmits the excitation to its ganglion or part of the brain. This at once functionates [Anglice, acts.—C. W.], the force called perception is evolved, and the image is perceived.”
We have quoted this passage at some length, not only for the purpose of exhibiting Dr. Hammond’s theory of perception, but to show how admirably the argot of science serves to hide all meaning and to leave the reader dazed and disappointed. No one yet, till Dr. Hammond’s appearance on the psychological stage, ventured to call a mere impression on an organ of sense perception; indeed, the whole difficulty consists in explaining how the mind is placed in relation with this image. It was with a view to elucidate this much-vexed matter that the peripatetics invented their system concerning the origin of ideas. It is all plain sailing till the image or phantasm in the sensitive faculty is reached; so that at the point where the Scholastics commenced their subtle and elaborate system Dr. Hammond complacently dismisses the question by saying: “And the image is perceived.” What need we trouble ourselves about general concepts, reflex universal ideas, intelligible species, the acting and the possible intellect, when there is so easy a mode of emergence from the difficulty as Dr. Hammond suggests? No doubt he would, like hundreds of others who do not understand Suarez or St. Thomas, regard the writings of these doctors on this subject as a tissue of jargon, overloading and obscuring a question which is so plain that it needs but to be enunciated in order to be understood. Then the long and warm conflicts which have torn the camp of philosophy, and separated her votaries into opposite schools, would all be happily ended; it would suffice to say: “Gentlemen, your toilsome webwork of thought is no better than the product of Penelope’s distaff; the whole affair may be summed up in these words: A ganglion functionates, the force called perception is evolved, and the image is perceived.” Mirabile dictu! It is not, therefore, necessary to discuss the question of ideal intuition to find out whether the idea is a representative and subjective form or objective and absolute; whether we are to agree with Reid and the school of experimental psychologists, or do battle under the colors of Gioberti and Rosmini, or the learned and lamented Brownson? All these things are no doubt beneath the consideration of the materialist’s psychology.
But we have still more to learn concerning perception at the feet of this new Gamaliel. He says (page 312): “Perception may be exercised without any superior intellectual act, without any ideation whatever. Thus if the cerebrum of a pigeon be removed, the animal is still capable of seeing and of hearing, but it obtains no idea from those senses. The mind, with the exception of perception, is lost!” Perception is not, therefore, connected with consciousness; for, according to Dr. Hammond, we may hear and see without knowing it. We do not deny that impressions may be made on the organs of sense without eliciting an act of consciousness, for which reason, indeed, ordinary language has reserved the use of words designating the function of organs for those cases where consciousness is elicited; for no one would dream of saying that he feels the prick of a pin or hears another speak without knowing it. A cadaver can perceive as well as a living subject, if we are to accept Dr. Hammond’s view; for we know that an image may be formed and retained by the retina after death, and this is all that is needed for perception. To explain all intercurrent difficulties, we have but to fall back on ganglia and evolution. At each step of the intellectual process a convenient ganglion exists which evolves just the sort of force requisite to produce the desired result, and thus we have a perfect system of psychology. Of the intellect he says: “In the normal condition of the brain the excitation of a sense, and the consequent perception, do not stop at the special ganglion of that sense, but are transmitted to a more complex part of the brain, where the perception is resolved into an idea.” Thus is the brain made the sole organ of thought. We have but to say, “A perception is resolved into an idea,” and in so many words we bound over difficulties which made Plato, after much deep pondering, invent a theory of thought, yet regarded as a matchless monument of subtlety and sublimity, which taxed the subtle intellects of St. Augustine, St. Thomas, Leibnitz, and Kant, and which will, in all probability, continue to be an object of curious research to the end of time. If a child, beholding the changeful images of a kaleidoscope, should, prompted by the curiosity of youthful age, inquire the reason of this beautiful play of colors, surely no one would cynically answer him that one figure is resolved into another. Dr. Hammond slurs over the difficulty; for the vexing question is, How does the mind form an idea?—not, whether a ganglion is excited and evolves force, but how, on the occasion of such excitation, an idea, which is something altogether different from the excitation, is produced in the mind.
This question he not only fails to answer, but exhibits a woful depreciation of its scope and gravity. He continues: “Thus the image impressed upon the retina, the perception of which has been formed by a sensory ganglion, ultimately causes the evolution of another force by which all its attributes capable of being represented upon the retina are more or less perfectly appreciated according to the structural qualities of the ideational centre.” This sentence furnishes the keynote to the whole theory of material psychics, and leads us to inquire into its growth and history. When Bichat in France and Sir Charles Bell in England simultaneously discovered that a separate function was assignable to the anterior and posterior nerve-fibres projected from each intervertebral foramen; that the anterior possess the power of causing muscular contraction, the posterior that of giving rise to sensation, they laid the foundation of the wonderful and beautiful though much-perverted doctrine of the localization of function. The experiments of Flourens, Claude Bernard, Beaumont, Virchow, and Kolliker multiplied similar discoveries and enlarged the significance of Bell’s and Bichat’s conclusions. To every ganglion its separate function is now sought to be assigned, and we have already alluded to the interesting facts which ataxic and amnesic aphasia have lately developed. The intimate relation thus manifested between particular portions of the brain-substance and the corresponding mental function, aroused and quickened curiosity to find out the nature and reason of this dependence. The materialist perceived in this doctrine of the localization of function a new weapon for attacking the spirituality of the soul, and was not slow to bring it into requisition. It was assumed that a reason for the difference of function in the different portions of the nervous structure would be found in the intimate texture of the nerve-tissues themselves; and the assumption, in so far as it is logical to suppose, that a difference in organization can alone account for a difference in the manifestation of power, was fair and plausible. All efforts were now directed towards such discoveries in the minute histology of the nervous system as would point to a connection between special ganglia and the functions performed by them. The microscope, indeed, brought to light many wonderful differences, but none sufficient to justify what is, therefore, but a mere assumption—the conclusion that the peculiar organization of certain portions of the nervous system is as much the efficient cause of the functions with which they are connected as the sun is the cause of heat and light, and the summer breeze of the ripple on the harvest field. It was deemed unnecessary to look for an explanation of intellection and volition beyond the known or knowable properties of those portions of the nervous substance with which the processes in question are connected. If, it was argued, certain varying states of the inner coat of minute blood-vessels fitted them to select, some arterial blood, and others venous blood, and no one thought to invoke any other agency in determining the cause of the difference or of the function, why should we admit the existence of a distinct substance in accounting for mental phenomena, when structural differences just as palpable and obvious are at hand to explain them? In a word, not only difference of function was attributed to difference of structure, but this latter difference was held to be the sole cause and chief origin of the function itself. Dazzled by the brilliancy of their discoveries, and misled by a false analogy, many physiologists confounded condition with cause, and, having perceived that the manifestations of the mind are profoundly modified by the character of the medium through which they are transmitted, inferred that the medium generated the function. This confusion of condition with cause was further aided by the current false notion of cause. Following Hume and Brown, most modern men of science behold nothing else in the relation of cause to effect than a mere invariable antecedence and subsequence of events, which, of course, nullifies the distinction proper between indispensable condition and cause. With them that is cause on the occurrence of which something else invariably follows; nor need we look for any other relation between the two. This doctrine, applied to the phenomena of the mind, could not but lead the discoverers of localized functions to downright materialism. They perceived that certain phenomena invariably proceeded in the same manner from certain portions of the nervous organism, and that any disturbance of the latter was attended by a marked change in the character of the phenomena with which it was connected. This invariability of antecedence and fluctuating difference of effect pointed unerringly, they thought, to structural differences in the nervous system as the efficient cause of all its functions. Applying this doctrine of causation to the process of intellection, we find how logically it sustains Dr. Hammond’s assertion that mind is an evolution of force from a special ganglion, since an excitation of the same ganglion is always followed by the same result—viz., a mental apprehension.
The invariability of sequence is all that is needed to establish ganglion in the category of causes, and ideation in that of effects.
We will now apply the same method of reasoning to a case in which the obvious distinction between cause and condition cannot fail to strike the most inattentive, and make manifest the sophistry of materialistic physiology. Should we stray into a minster filled with a grand religious light, and find chancel, nave, and pillar all radiant with purple and violet, soft amber and regal red, we would naturally look to the stained-glass window to discover the source of those warm tints and brilliant hues, and would seek to determine what in those party-colored panes gives rise to the effects we admire. We first discover in each colored glass a peculiarity of structure which especially adapts it to the emission of its proper ray, and then note that the difference in the color of the rays depends on this same peculiarity of structure. The problem is solved. Since a structural peculiarity in the violet pane, for instance, fits it for the emission of its own ray, and so on with respect to red, yellow, and purple, why need we look for any other source of those colors? As we discover in each party-colored pane the cause of the difference in the color of the ray, we mistake the cause of the difference for the cause of the ray, and assume not only the difference of the ray to depend on the color of the transmitting medium, but deem that medium to be itself the sole source of the light. In like manner the speculative and transcendental physiologist finds in the adaptation of certain portions of the nerve-tissue to the production of specific functions a reason for referring the highest order of mental phenomena to the nervous system as their cause, forgetting that the adaptation in question may be but a mere condition modifying the manifesting power of the substance which is the true source of the phenomena. The observer who regards colored glass as the source of light, because he has been able to trace a connection and establish a relation between the color of the ray and the minute structure of the glass, differs in naught from theorists of Dr. Hammond’s stripe, who make nervous ganglia centres or sources of ideation because of the invariable production of the latter on the occasion of some excitation in the former. In both instances is committed the error of confounding condition with cause, of mistaking the cause of a difference between two occurrences for the cause of the occurrences themselves.
We have dwelt at this length on Dr. Hammond’s theory of the Intellect, as it embodies an error so pernicious that the callow mind of the medical student, awed by the authority of a name, is likely, on reading this chapter, to imbibe principles which, slowly elaborated, will lead him in process of time to the chilling tenets of materialism.
The third sub-force enumerated by Dr. Hammond is Emotion, which, like perception and intellect, is a force evolved on the occasion of an excitation in some other portion of the brain. Thus the emotions of joy, sorrow, hope, and love can be excited by making an impression on this portion of the nervous substance, just as we elicit different sounds from a piano by striking different keys in succession. “‘Sblood! do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe?” Yet Dr. Hammond would of man make a Hamlet’s pipe, with its ventages and stops, to be sounded from the lowest note to the top of the compass at the pleasure of a skilled performer. The physiological signs of emotion he has truthfully described, such as blushing, palpitation, increase of the salivary secretion, and other bodily changes, the connection of which with the emotions themselves will, we fear, so far as there is any hope of a satisfactory explanation from physiology, remain a dead secret for ever. The fourth and last of the sub-forces evolved by the brain is Will, with respect to which the doctor has not much to say, though it is easy to understand that it owes its origin, according to him, to the same ganglionic changes as the three preceding. He has not even defined this force, but merely says that by volition acts are performed. The ordinary idea of will exhibits it as a power which the soul exercises at discretion, even at times in the absence of any motive, except caprice, and often against a strong excitement of passion, so that it can be connected with no organic changes which are necessary and subject to law. This idea Dr. Hammond’s doctrine entirely overthrows; for if will be the result of ganglionic excitation, it must surely follow the latter, and can consequently be in no manner connected with its causation. Whatever cause, then, may have produced the excitation, it must have been necessary—i.e., have necessarily produced volition. Volition, therefore, being the result of changes necessarily produced, must itself be necessary, and we then have the anomaly of necessary will, which is a sheer contradiction. There is no such thing, therefore, as volition, in the true and accepted sense of the word, and what we deem to be the free acts of the soul are brought about as necessarily as pain or pleasure when the exciting agents of those emotions are in operation. It is not difficult to estimate the practical consequences of this doctrine. Man, thus made to act by organic changes and the necessary determination of his nature, not being answerable for these, cannot be made answerable for their consequences; so that the good and evil he performs resemble, the former the changes which the bodily system undergoes in a state of health, the latter the morbid changes of disease. The good he does is as much the necessary outcome of his nature as the golden fruit is of the tree, while his bad actions are as the tempest that wrecks or the breath of a pestilence.
This is the self-same doctrine of Broussais dressed in the garb which the latest researches in neurological science have prepared for it, and much more covertly and insidiously presented.
Broussais says: “L’ivrogne et le gourmand sont ceux dont le cerveau obéit aux irradiations des appareils digestifs; les hommes sobres doivent leur vertu à un encéphale dont les stimulations propres sont supérieures à celles de ces appareils” (Irritation et Folie, p. 823).—“The drunkard and the glutton are those whose brain obeys the summons issued by the digestive organs; sober men owe their virtue to the possession of a brain which rises superior to such orders.” Surely in this, as in countless other instances, history continues to repeat itself.
The definition of Insanity given by Dr. Hammond surpasses in clearness and comprehensiveness all those which he has collected from other sources, and is such, we consider, as will with difficulty be improved upon in the respects mentioned. He calls it “a manifestation of disease of the brain, characterized by a general or partial derangement of one or more faculties of the mind, and in which, while consciousness is not abolished, mental freedom is perverted, weakened, or destroyed.” This definition more closely applies to all occurring cases of insanity than any hitherto given, though it is a pity the doctor has robbed its latter portion of all meaning by having virtually denied mental freedom in his foregoing theory of volition. The remainder of the chapter on insanity is exceedingly instructive and interesting. The author has clearly exhibited the difference between illusion, hallucination, and delusion, nor has he permitted himself once, in his application of the terms to individual cases, to interchange or confound them. Indeed, it is a matter of regret that so acute an observer and so diligent a collector of facts was ever tempted to betake himself beyond their legitimate domain, and to launch himself on the troubled sea of speculation. But it has been ever thus:
“Laudet diversa sequentes.”
The great bulk of the work—and it is a volume of nearly nine hundred pages—is taken up with the discussion of those nervous diseases which, for the most part obscure in their origin and of infrequent occurrence, have been brought to light for the first time in this monograph, so that the medical profession owes a deep debt of gratitude to the laborious researches of Dr. Hammond in a very partially explored field. To the general reader the chapter on Hydrophobia cannot fail to prove interesting, presenting as it does a graphic description of the symptoms which usher in this terrible disease, and suggesting remedies which are within the reach of every one, and are calculated to avert the awful consequences of a bite by a rabid dog, provided they be employed without delay. The interval between the reception of the wound and the outbreak of the symptoms is very variable, but the majority of cases occur within seven months. This interval is called the period of incubation, and is usually not characterized by any other signs than a certain amount of mental depression, often the result of a nervous apprehension of consequences. The sleep especially is apt to be disturbed by such forebodings, so that the animal which inflicted the wound is frequently dreamt of. The prognosis of the disease is most discouraging, since our author says: “There is no authentic instance on record of a cure of hydrophobia.” The post-mortem signs of disease are shrouded in obscurity; for, though Dr. Hammond details at great length certain altered conditions of the brain and spinal cord, as well as of the arteries supplying them, those changes are by no means pathognomonic—i.e., peculiar to the disease in question. The point of greatest practical interest to those who have so far escaped the death-dealing fang of Blanche, Tray, or Sweetheart is that, should so sad an occurrence befall them, they must hasten at once to a surgeon, and see that, after having tightly bound the limb above the injury, he use the knife with an un-sparing hand, till every part with which the teeth of the animal may have come in contact has been entirely removed. Cauterization, either by fire, or nitrate of silver, or some of the mineral acids, is preferred by some physicians, and has proved quite as successful as excision. A Mr. Youatt employed cauterization four hundred times on persons who had been bitten by rabid animals, and every time with success. Dr. Hammond employed cauterization seven times—four with nitrate of silver and three with the actual cautery—and always with success. This proceeding should be adopted, even though several weeks, or even months, may have elapsed since the infliction of the wound; in which case, however, excision is deemed preferable to cauterization. The importance of this knowledge to persons residing in a city overrun with mongrels is very great; and while we hope our readers may never have occasion to put it into practice, we would recommend them to treasure it up for an emergency which, however sad, is always possible.
Following the chapter on hydrophobia are some very interesting statements concerning Epilepsy—a disease which, in a light form, prevails more extensively than most people imagine. The most remarkable precursory symptom to an attack of epilepsy is what is called an aura, or breeze. This usually begins in some lower part of the body and shoots towards the head. It resembles at times an electric shock, and again a sharp stab or blow. The strangest auræ are hallucinations of vision which lead the patient to believe he sees a rapid succession of colors. The experiments of Dr. Hughlings Jackson with regard to those colored auræ are full of interest.
He finds that a vision of red ushers in the phenomenon, and that the whole prism is exhibited to the sight till the violet end of the spectrum is reached. The approach of the aura is often felt, and gives admonition to the patient of the speedy approach of a seizure, so that he is thereby enabled to seek a place of security and retirement before the actual advent of an attack. Many interesting cases, exhibiting the freaks and peculiarities of this strange disease, are recorded by Dr. Hammond. Convulsion, tremor, chorea or St. Vitus’ dance, and hysteria are next treated of in succession, and much valuable information might be derived from a perusal of these chapters.
Catalepsy, one of the strangest of nervous disorders, receives a due share of attention, though much that is authoritative cannot be affirmed concerning it, since the data of the disease are neither numerous nor reliable. When the cataleptic seizure is at its height, there is complete suspension of consciousness, and a muscular rigidity supervenes, which causes the limbs to retain for a long time any position, no matter how awkward or irksome, in which they may be placed.
This condition so closely simulates death that in former times mistakes were frequently made which were not discovered till life had really become extinct in the grave. Another strange feature of this disease is the magnetic influence a female subject exercises over her unattainted sisters during a paroxysm. It has been observed that, if one female in a ward fall into a cataleptic fit, those immediately around her are seized in the same manner, the attack lasting for a period of variable duration. The description of these nervous maladies gradually leads to Dr. Hammond’s views on Ecstasy, which are all the more interesting as the chapter is chiefly taken up with the discussion of the wonderful and perplexing case of Louise Lateau. The chapter should have followed the one on hydrophobia, and been entitled Thaumatophobia rather than Ecstasy, since the doctor exhibits a most contemptuous estimate of the intelligence of those who hold that there can be anything not explicable by the known laws of physiology in the most wonderful cases of ecstasia. He ranks among ecstatics of a former period St. Francis of Assisi, St. Catherine of Sienna, St. Teresa, Joan of Arc, and Madame Guyon, all of whom, he says, “exhibited manifestations of this disorder.” With respect to those celebrated personages there is no sort of medical testimony giving evidence of the existence of disease, or in any way furnishing an adequate scientific explanation of the facts revealed by their historians. It is as illogical and presumptuous for Dr. Hammond to qualify their cases in the manner he does as it would be for a believer in the supernatural to assert the miraculous character of a mere feat of legerdemain. The only difference is that Dr. Hammond’s disregard for the rules of evidence is applauded by the world as indicating a vigorous and healthy intelligence, whilst the equally illogical assertor of the supernatural character of what is not proven to be such would be at once, and with justice indeed, put down as an imbecile and a slave to superstition. The burden of proof is ever thrust on other shoulders by our author, and never borne by his own. Let but Dr. Warlomont devise a pathophysiological explanation of Louise Lateau’s stigmata, not only gratuitous from beginning to end, but even at variance with the facts of science, and Dr. Hammond gives in a blind adhesion to his conclusions without a single inquiry into the weight of proof on the other side. Even Dr. Warlomont acknowledged the difficulties with which Dr. Lefebvre’s work bristles in the way of a physiological explanation, and it is evident, from the intensely-labored character of his report, that he entered into the controversy as an ex parte disputant. We do not intend to reopen the discussion of this famous case, since enough concerning it has already appeared in these pages.[115] It is sufficient that we note the recusant spirit of some modern scientists whenever there is question of the supernatural. They will not believe, no matter how overwhelming the evidence, lest they be suspected of weakness, or of bartering their intellectual freedom for the formulæ of an effete authority. These gentlemen consult their prejudices rather than truth, and, provided they tickle the ears of radicals and non-believers, they consider themselves lifted into the proud position of supreme arbiters between reason and authority. Dr. Hammond says ecstasy was “formerly quite common among the inmates of convents.” We would inform him that its frequency was never greater than now, and the widespread attention which one or two cases have attracted is proof how rare is that frequency. Indeed, it has been the invariable policy of the church to discourage tendencies in this direction, and spiritual advisers often remind their penitents that an unbidden and unwelcome guest not rarely presents himself in the garb of an angel of light. It is related of St. Francis of Sales that a nun having declared to him that the Blessed Virgin had appeared to her, he inquired how much vin ordinaire she had taken that day; and, upon her answering, “One glass,” he told her to drink two the following day, and she might have two apparitions. In view of this disinclination of ecclesiastics to encourage ecstasia, especially among women, whose nervous system is so impressionable, it ill becomes Dr. Hammond, having the mass of testimony at his command in support of the genuineness of the two cases to which reference is made, to use the following language: “But the effort was in vain, just as is the attempt now to convince the credulous and ignorant of the real nature of the seizures of Louise Lateau, Bernadette Soubirous—who evoked Our Lady of Lourdes—and of the hundreds of mediums, ecstatics, and hysterics who pervade the world.” The frankness with which the church authorities demanded the closest and most searching scientific investigation of the case of Louise Lateau, and their expressed determination to accept its legitimate results, should be to all reasonable men a guarantee of their good faith and of their abhorrence of impostures. It is consoling to think that the intelligence of some scientific men is still unfettered, and that, though in the absence of a prominent member—Dr. Lefebvre—the friends and abettors of Dr. Warlomont endeavored to spring on the Belgian Royal Academy of Medicine a resolution declaring the case of Louise Lateau fully explored and closed, the Academy refused to adopt it, thereby admitting that so far science has failed to account for the marvellous phenomena of which this girl is the subject. The inherent defect of Dr. Hammond’s reasoning is that it identifies cases which are merely analogous. It is true that the majority of pseudo-ecstasies resembling the inspired ecstasy of holy personages are dependent on a disordered condition of the nervous system, but this resemblance does not necessarily tend to classify the latter under the same head. Yet this is what Dr. Hammond and his school do. They seize general traits of resemblance, shut their eyes to essential differences, and, finding that the greater number of cases obey throughout certain known definite laws, they conclude that all cases do likewise. History abounds with instances of disordered imagination depending on a morbid condition of the nervous system, but in all the impartial observer can discern well-marked differences, separating them essentially from authentic cases of true ecstasy. Baron von Feuchtersleben[116] relates many extraordinary cases of this sort. Herodotus (ix. 33) speaks of the Argive women who, under a morbid inspiration, rushed into the woods and murdered their own children. Plutarch relates the story of a monomania among the Milesian girls to hang themselves. We have all read of the convulsionnaires at the tomb of Mathieu of Paris. Dr. Maffei describes a similar epidemic, which received the name of “Pöschlianism” from a religious, fixed delusion which originated with one Pöschl. These cases were usually accompanied by convulsions and terminated in suicide. Besides the disorders alluded to, we read of sycanthropy among the natives of Arcadia, a somewhat similar aberration among the aborigines of Brazil, and the delusion of the Scythians that they were women. Dr. Hammond relates a case as wonderful as any of these—viz., that of the noted Ler, an inmate of the Salpêtrière, whose contortions and antics resemble the hysteria of the “Jerkers” in Methodist camp-meetings. The attempt to identify all occurring cases with these is a flagrant violation of the inductive method by which scientific men, above all others, claim that they are guided. If observation and experience are to be our guides in determining the truth, then let us admit nothing but what these criteria verify. This is precisely what these gentlemen do not do; and because they perceive a general resemblance between a group of facts, they identify all possessing this resemblance, and predicate thereon a general law. We cannot hope for a discontinuance of this baneful and short-sighted procedure until men who profess to be votaries of science shall become truly rational, instead of making an empty and futile boast of being rationalists.
[114] A Treatise on the Diseases of the Nervous System. By William A. Hammond, M.D., Professor of Diseases of the Mind and Nervous System in the Medical Department of the University of the City of New York, etc. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1876.
[115] Vide The Catholic World, November, 1875 - March, 1876.
[116] The Principles of Medical Psychology. By Baron Ernst von Feuchtersleben, M.D., Sydenham Society, p. 252.