CATALEPSY.
CATALEPSY differs in some of its characteristics from trance, but the
one is often mistaken for the other. It is not so much a disease as a
symptom of certain nervous disorders, and to which women and children
are more particularly liable. Catalepsy can be produced artificially by
hypnotisation. Like trance, it has often been mistaken for death, and
its subjects buried alive.
Dr. Franz Hartmann differentiates the two disorders as follows:--“There
seems hardly any limit to the time during which a person may remain
in a trance; but catalepsy is due to some obstruction in the organic
mechanism of the body, on account of its exhausted nervous power.
In the last case the activity of life begins again as soon as the
impediment is removed, or the nervous energy has recuperated its
strength.”
Dr. Gowers, in Quain’s “Dictionary of Medicine,” ed. 1894, vol. i.,
pp. 284-5, describes catalepsy as belonging to both sexes, at all ages
from six to sixty. It is a nervous affection, commonly associated
with distinct evidence of hysteria, but said sometimes to occur as
an early symptom of epilepsy. It is attended commonly with loss of
consciousness. The limbs remain in the position they occupied at the
onset, as if petrified. The whole or part of the muscles pass into
a state of rigidity. In profound conditions sensibility is lost to
touch, pain, and electricity; and no reflex movements can be induced
even by touching the conjunctiva, a state of mental trance being
associated.
[NATURE OF CATALEPSY.]
_Cassell’s Family Physician_ (by Physicians and Surgeons of the
principal London Hospitals) describes this singular affection, as
follows:--“Catalepsy is one of the strangest diseases possible. It
is of rare occurrence, and some very sceptical people have even
gone so far as to deny its existence. That is all nonsense, for
catalepsy is just as much a reality as gout or bronchitis. A fit of
catalepsy--for it is a paroxysmal disease--consists essentially in
the sudden suspension of thought, feeling, and the power of moving.
The patient remains in any position in which she--we say she, for it
occurs mostly in women--happens to be at the moment of the seizure, and
will, moreover, retain any posture in which she may be placed during
the continuance of the fit. For example, you may stretch out the arms
to their full length, and there they remain stretched out without
showing the slightest tendency to drop. It does not matter how absurd
or inconvenient or apparently fatiguing the position may be, it is
maintained until altered by some one or until the fit is over. In these
attacks there are no convulsions, but, on the contrary, the patient
remains perfectly immobile. She is just like a waxen figure, or an
inanimate statue, or a frozen corpse.
“Cataleptic fits vary very much, not only in their frequency, but in
their duration. Sometimes they are very short indeed, lasting only a
few minutes. In one case, that of a lady, they would sometimes come on
when she was reading aloud. She would stop suddenly in the middle of a
sentence, and a peculiar stiffness of the whole body would seize her,
fixing the limbs immovably for several minutes. Then it would pass off,
and the reading would be continued at the very word at which it had
been interrupted, the patient being quite unconscious that anything had
happened. But sometimes fits such as these may last for days and days
together, and it seems not improbable that people may have been buried
in this state in mistake for death.”
The following case, contributed by Dr. Gooch, will further illustrate
this malady:--
“A lady, who laboured habitually under melancholy, a few days after
parturition was seized with catalepsy, and presented the following
appearances:--She was lying in bed motionless and apparently
senseless. It was thought the pupils of her eyes were dilated, and
some apprehensions were entertained of effusion on the brain; but
on examining them closely it was found they readily contracted when
the light fell upon them. The only signs of life were warmth, and a
pulse which was one hundred and twenty, and weak. In attempting to
rouse her from this senseless state, the trunk of the body was lifted
up and placed so far back as to form an obtuse angle with the lower
extremities, and in this posture, with nothing to support her, she
continued sitting for many minutes. One arm was now raised, and then
the other, and in the posture they were placed they remained. It was
a curious sight to see her sitting up staring lifelessly, her arms
outstretched, yet without any visible signs of animation. She was
very thin and pallid, and looked like a corpse that had been propped
up and stiffened in that attitude. She was now taken out of bed and
placed upright, and attempts were made to rouse her by calling loudly
in her ears, but in vain; she stood up, indeed, but as inanimate as a
statue. The slightest push put her off her balance, and she made no
exertion to retain it, and would have fallen had she not been caught.
She went into this state three times; the first lasted fourteen
hours, the second twelve hours, and the third nine hours, with waking
intervals of three days after the first fit, and of one day after
the second; after this time the disease assumed the ordinary form of
melancholia.--_The Science and Practice of Medicine, by Sir W. Aitken,
p. 357._
[CASES BY DRS. JEBB AND KING CHAMBERS.]
Dr. John Jebb, F.R.S., cited in Reynolds’ “System of Medicine,” vol.
ii., pp. 99-102, has recorded the following graphic case:--
“In the latter end of last year (_viz._, 1781), I was desired to
visit a young lady who, for nine months, had been afflicted with that
singular disorder termed a catalepsy. Although she was prepared for
my visit, she was seized with the disorder as soon as my arrival was
announced. She was employed in netting, and was passing the needle
through the mesh, in which position she immediately became rigid,
exhibiting, in a very pleasing form, a figure of death-like sleep,
beyond the power of art to imitate or the imagination to conceive. Her
forehead was serene, her features perfectly composed. The paleness
of her colour, her breathing at a distance being also scarcely
perceptible, operated in rendering the similitude to marble more exact
and striking. The positions of her fingers, hands, and arms were
altered with difficulty, but they preserved every form of flexure they
acquired: nor were the muscles of the neck exempted from this law, her
head maintaining every situation in which the hand could place it as
firmly as her limbs,” etc.
Dr. King Chambers, after citing the above case in full, continues:--
“The most common exciting cause of catalepsy seems to be strong mental
emotion. When Covent Garden Theatre was last burnt down, the blaze
flashed in at the uncurtained windows of St. Mary’s Hospital. One of
my patients, a girl of twenty, recovering from low fever, was woke up
by it, and exclaimed that the day of judgment was come. She remained
in an excited state all night, and the next morning grew gradually
stiff, like a corpse, whispering (before she became quite insensible)
that she was dead. If her arm was raised, it remained extended in
the position in which it was placed for several minutes, and then
slowly subsided. The inelastic kind of way in which it retained its
position for a time, and then gradually yielded to the force of
gravity, reminded one more of a wax figure than of the marble to
which Dr. Jebb compares it. A strange effect was produced by opening
the eyelid of one eye; the other eye remained closed, and the raised
lid after a time fell very slowly like the arm. A better superficial
representation of death it is difficult to conceive.... In both these
cases I convinced myself carefully that there was no deception.
“Other cases are of much longer duration.... The death-like state
may last for days. It may be mistaken for real death, and treated as
such....
“Any cases of apparent death that did occur (in former days) were
burnt, or buried, or otherwise put out of the way, and were never more
heard of. But after the establishment of Christianity, tenderness,
sometimes excessive, for the remains of departed friends took the
place of the hard, heathen selfishness. The dead were kept closer to
the congregations of the living, as if to represent in material form
the dogma of the Communion of Saints. This led to the discovery that
some persons, indeed some persons of note (amongst others, Duns Scotus
the theologian, at Cologne), had got out of their coffins, and died in
a vain attempt to open the doors of their vaults.”
[CASES FROM THE MEDICAL JOURNALS.]
The author relates several other remarkable cases. Here is one:--
“I lighted accidently on another case, communicated to the same
scientific body (Acad. Royale des Sciences), by M. Imbert in 1713.
It is that of the driver of the Rouen diligence, aged forty-five,
who fell into a kind of soporific catalepsy on hearing of the sudden
death of a man he had quarrelled with. It appears that ‘M. Burette,
under whose care he was at La Charité, made use of the most powerful
assistances of art--bleeding in the arms, the foot, the neck, emetics,
purgatives, blisters, leeches,’ etc. At last somebody ‘threw him
naked into cold water to surprise him.’ The effect surprised the
doctors as much as the patient. It is related with evident wonder how
that ‘he opened his eyes, looked steadfastly, but did not speak.’ His
wife seems to have been a prudent woman, for a week afterwards she
‘carried him home, where he is at present: they gave him no medicine;
he speaks sensibly enough, and mends every day.’”
The _Lancet_, 1870, vol. i., p. 1044, in its Paris correspondence
says:--
“The following curious case is related as having occurred at Dunkirk,
on April 14, and as ‘showing the utility of catalepsy.’ A young girl
of seventeen years was seized with a violent attack of epilepsy, and
fell, on the above date, into a canal. A boatman immediately jumped
into the water to save her, and brought her to the shore after twenty
minutes. The most singular circumstance connected with the accident is
that, when the young girl was taken out of the water, she presented
all the symptoms of catalepsy. Notwithstanding this long immersion,
she was resuscitated, and nothing afterwards transpired to cause any
anxiety.”
Mr. James Braid, M.R.C.S., in the _Medical Times_, 1850, vol. xxi.,
p. 402, narrates a case of a cataleptic woman in the Manchester Royal
Infirmary under the care of Dr. John Mitchell, and writes:--
“Every variety of contrivance and torture was resorted to by various
parties who saw her, for the purpose of testing the degree of her
insensibility, and for determining whether she might not be an
impostor, but without eliciting the slightest indication of activity
of any of the senses; ... nevertheless she _heard and understood all
that was said and proposed to be done, and suffered the most exquisite
torture from various tests applied to her_!! A fact so important as
this ought to be published in every journal throughout the civilised
world; so that in future professional men might be thereby led to
exercise greater discretion and mercy in their modes of applying tests
to such patients.”
The _Somerset County Herald_ (Taunton) of October 12 1895, has the
following:--
“EXTRAORDINARY CASE OF TRANCE NEAR WEYMOUTH.
“The wedding nuptials of a sailor from H.M.S. _Alexandra_ and a young
woman residing at Broadwey, who were recently married, have been
interrupted in a most unusual manner by the newly-made bride falling
into a trance. On the day following the wedding Mr. and Mrs. Mortimer,
for such is the name of the newly-espoused pair, went for a drive, and
on returning in the evening the bride, remarking that she did not feel
very well, went upstairs, and before long was in a sound sleep, which
continued throughout the night and far into the following day. The
relatives of the bride, remembering symptoms which she had previously
developed, then sent for Dr. Pridham, who at once pronounced that
the unfortunate young woman had fallen into a trance. Dr. Colmer, of
Weymouth, was likewise called; but nothing that these two medical
gentlemen could do had the slightest effect in arousing their patient
from the state of lethargy into which she had so suddenly and
unexpectedly relapsed. In this condition she remained for a space of
five days, when she gradually showed signs of returning animation,
and in the course of a few hours regained consciousness, though she
was then in a very exhausted condition. After her awakening the young
woman developed inflammation of the legs, which was regarded as a
very serious condition for her to be in. In an interview on Saturday,
Dr. Pridham described the trance as being exceedingly death-like in
character, and added that, in such trances as the one in question, in
the past people have no doubt been actually buried.”
A report of this case appears in the _St. James’s Gazette_.
A less experienced practitioner would probably have made out a death
certificate, as in numerous similar cases.
After burial we hear no more of them; they may have been buried in
a death-like trance, but the medical certificate, no matter how
inconsiderately given, consigns them to perpetual silence beyond appeal
or escape. Family remonstrance is then unavailing, for, except in cases
of strong suspicion of poisoning, no Home Secretary or Coroner would
grant an order for exhumation.
[APATHY OF THE PUBLIC.]
The existence of trance, catalepsy, and other death counterfeits,
followed by hasty burial, has been alluded to by reputable writers from
time immemorial; and while the veracity of these writers has remained
unchallenged, and their narratives are confirmed by hundreds of cases
of modern experience, the effect on the public mind has been only of a
transitory character, and nothing has been done either in England or
America to safeguard the people from such dreadful mistakes.