Sketches of the philosophy of apparitions, or, an attempt to trace such illusions to their physical causes / by Samuel Hibbert.

  • Hibbert, Samuel, 1782-1848.
Date:
1824
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sketches of the philosophy of apparitions, or, an attempt to trace such illusions to their physical causes / by Samuel Hibbert. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

    26/476 (page 16)
    the mind gradually becomes unconscious of actual impressions, and the recollected images of our thought, vivified to the height of sensations, ap- pear, as it were, to take their place. “ Whenever the operation of this gas,” remarks Sir Humphry Davy, “ was carried to its greatest height, the pleasurable thrilling gradually diminished, the sense of pressure was lost, impressions ceased to be perceived, vivid ideas passed rapidly through the mind.” On another occasion, this great che- mist describes his ner :—“ Immediately after my return from a long journey, being fatigued, I respired nine quarts of nitrous oxide, having been precisely thirty-three days without breathing any. The feelings were different from those I had experienced on former experiments. After the first six or seven respira- tions, I gradually began to lose the perception of external things, and a vivid and intense recollec- tion of some former experiments passed through my mind, So that I called out, what an amazing concatenation of ideas!” A third experiment by the same philosopher was perhaps attended with the most remarkable results. He was enclosed in an air-tight breathing box of the capacity of about nine cubic feet and a half, in which he allowed himself to be habituated to the excitement of the gas, which was then carried on gradually. After having, therefore, been in this place of confinement feelings after the following man-