The British and Foreign Medico-Chirurgical Review, Or, Quarterly Journal of Practical Medicine and Surgery (Volume 39)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1867. Excerpt: ... the marvellous distinctness of his visions, which sometimes take the form of devils, sometimes of creeping animals, but almost always of something fearful or loathsome, will not doubt the intensity of subjective sensations in the domain of vision. But that illusive visions of great distinctness should appear, it is not necessary for the nervous system to be thus obviously deranged. People in the full possession of their faculties, and of high intelligence, may be subject to such appearances, for which no distinct cause can be assigned. The best illustration of this is the famous case of Mrs. A--, given by Sir David Brewster, in his ' Natural Magic.' Mr. Huxley, after describing its chief points, remarks--What the senses testify is neither more nor less than the fact of their own affection; well insisting that, As to the cause of that affection, they really say nothing, but leave the mind to form its own judgment on the matter. A hasty or superstitious person in Mrs. A--'s place would have formed a wrong judgment, and would have stood by it on the plea that' she must believe her senses, ' and ' would thus become a mine of ghost stories of the most excellently authenticated kind.' Mrs. A--, he points out, undoubtedly saw what she said she saw. The evidence of her eyes as to the existence of the apparitions, and of ber ears to those of the voices, was in itself as perfectly trustworthy as their evidence would have been had the objects really existed; for there can be no doubt that exactly those parts of her retina which would have been affected by the image of a cat, and those parts of the auditory organ which would have been set vibrating by her husband's voice, were thrown into the same condition by some internal cause. This curious subject remin...