Case of spectral illusions / by Benjamin Bell.

  • Bell, Benjamin, 1810-1883.
Date:
[cbetween 1800 and 1899?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Case of spectral illusions / by Benjamin Bell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    apartment, a group of beautiful grey horses, as large as life, and, at the foot of her bed, a crowd of tortoise-shell kittens, with their eyes intently directed towards her. These living objects were succeeded once more by patterns of embroidery and wood-carving, and, several times lately, on awaking from sleep, about midnight, she has observed five male heads peering at her over the foot-board of the bed, while she seldom fails to see in one corner, a pleasant looking young matron quietly engaged with her work. Generally speaking, her condition is much more comfort- able than it was for many months ; the noises are now quite bearable; she takes her food with considerable relish, and has ; recovered her wonted cheerfulness which the long con- tinued distraction had well-nigh taken away. The chief point of interest in the foregoing history, is the perfect conviction on the part of the lady herself that the perceptions of which she was conscious had no external or tangible origin. As they were conflrmed neither by her own sense of touch, nor by the senses of her friends, her sound judgment pronounced them to be illusory; had she been incapable of thus exercising her reasoning faculty, she must have fallen into the error of other persona, similarly affected, and have believed the perceptions to be real. In strict language, they are real; as real as the normal perceptions of sight and hearing, of which we are all conscious. But there is this distinction, these abnormal perceptions are subjective in their cause, depend- ing upon a condition of the sensorium induced db intra; whereas, normal perceptions are objective^ and caused by impressions made, db extra, on the nervous structures of the eye and ear. The physical causes of these subjective per- ceptions are necessarily very obscure. That they are in- dependent of organic change of structare is more than probable, from the very noticeable fact, that the psychical phenomena undergo so many variations, and sometimes cease entirely. May we suggest, that whatever lesions of a permanent nature may sometimes be discovered after death, either in the substance or in the membranes of the brain, these illusory perceptions are occasioned by more or less disturbance of the capillary circulation in certain structures intimately connected with sight and hearing—