A. M. a woman aged twenty-seven, was admitted into the hospital August 15,
1795; she had then been eleven weeks disordered. Religious enthusiasm, and
a too frequent attendance on conventicles, were stated to have occasioned
her complaint. She was in a very miserable and unhappy condition, and
terrified by the most alarming apprehensions for the salvation of her
soul. Towards the latter end of September she appeared in a convalescent
state, and continued tolerably well until the middle of November, when she
began to relapse.
The return of her disorder commenced with loss of sleep. She alternately
sang, and cried the greatest part of the night. She conceived her inside
full of the most loathsome vermin, and often felt the sensation as if
they were crawling into her throat. She was suddenly seized with a strong
and unconquerable determination to destroy herself; became very sensible
of her malady, and said, that God had inflicted this punishment on her,
from having (at some former part of her life) said the Lord's Prayer
backwards. She continued some time in a restless and forlorn state; at one
moment expecting the devil to seize upon her and tear her to pieces; in
the next, wondering that she was not instigated to commit violence on the
persons about her. On January 12, 1796, she died suddenly. She was opened
twelve hours after death. The thoracic and abdominal viscera were
perfectly healthy.
Upon examining the contents of the cranium, the pia mater was considerably
inflamed, and an extravasated blotch, about the size of a shilling, was
seen upon that membrane, near the middle of the right lobe of the
cerebrum. There was no water between the membranes, nor in the ventricles,
but a general determination of blood to the contents of the cranium. The
medullary substance when cut into was full of bloody points. The
consistence of the brain was natural.