Posthumous humanity : a study of phantoms / by Adolphe d' Assier ; translated and annotated by Henry S. Olcott ; to which is added an appendix, shewing the popular beliefs current in India respecting the post-mortem vicissitudes of the human entity.

  • Assier, Adolphe d', 1827-1889.
Date:
1887
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Posthumous humanity : a study of phantoms / by Adolphe d' Assier ; translated and annotated by Henry S. Olcott ; to which is added an appendix, shewing the popular beliefs current in India respecting the post-mortem vicissitudes of the human entity. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    Aerolites, so long denied by the scientists, may now be seen by thousands in our collections. Stone-showers were not the only phenomena of this nature. Many persons had witnessed the fall of large numbers of toads in the midst of certain heavy showers; there was but one answer to their affirmations—that of Lavoisier slightly altered r toads do not exist in the clouds ; consequently none can tumble upon the earth. As it was absolutely necessary to take some notice of these animals^ which fairly covered the ground, it was added that they came from eggs hidden beneath stones, and which were suddenly hatched out by the heat and electricity which usually accompany showers. It might have been objected that the size of the toads ill accorded with the diminutiveness of the eggf^ whence they were alleged to have emerged, and that furthermore it was their nature to first show them- selves under the form of tadpoles before adopting that of their adult age. But the scientists were not men to permit themselves to be stopped by such trifling annoyances, and it was of small moment to them whether or not they gave a twist to the most fundamental laws of natural history when their theory was jeopardized. A rain of oranges having occurred after a heavy shower, it was soon discovered that these novel projectiles had come from a neigh- bouring orange-grove that had been stripped by the tempest. This undoubted fact set people to thinking, and to study at closer range the progress