Part 33

Dreams have been considered as prescriptive in various diseases. Diodorus Siculus relates that a certain Scythian dreamed that Aesculapius had drawn the humours of his body to one place, or head, to have it lanced. When Galen had an inflammation of the diaphragm, we are told that he was directed in a dream to open a vein between the thumb and the fourth finger--an operation which restored him to health. Marcus Antoninus asserted that he learned in his dreams various remedies for spitting of blood. It is related of Sir Christopher Wren, that, when at Paris, in 1671, being disordered with "a pain in his reins," he sent for a physician, who prescribed blood-letting, but he deferred submitting to it, and dreamed that very night that he was in a place where palm-trees grew, and that a woman in a romantic habit offered dates to him. The next day he sent for dates, which cured him. Now, although this cure, brought about by a dream, was considered wonderful, its circumstances offer nothing supernatural. It is more than probable that Sir Christopher had frequently read in foreign works on medicine, that dates were recommended as an efficacious remedy in nephritic complaints; and, moreover, had met in his daily perambulations female quacks, who exhibit themselves to this day in the French metropolis, fantastically attired, and vending their far-famed nostrums. That he should have remembered dates, and that the phantasm of the she-mountebank might at the same time have struck his fancy, were two associations by no means improbable.

It is very likely that all the strange stories of prophetic dreams might be traced to a similar connexion of ideas. I have before observed that dreams do not always assume their complexion from recent occurrences, and our bodily sufferings during sleep bring to our recollection every circumstance that regards the malady. A patient who had a bottle of hot water placed at his feet dreamed that he was walking in great agony in the burning lava of Vesuvius. Similar associations exist when awake: the man whose arm has been amputated constantly refers the pain he experiences to the lost hand, or to that part of the limb which received the injury; and the very same nervous illusion prevails during his slumbers. A case is recorded of an officer who had lost his leg, and, when cold, felt comfort and warmth by wrapping the stump of his wooden leg in flannel.

In various diseases the nature and the period of the invasion of dreams afford a valuable ground of observation to the physician both in his diagnosis and prognosis of the case. In incipient hydro-thorax, for instance, dreams occur at the very moment the patient falls asleep, and he fancies himself suffocated by some impending and destructive weight. Diseases of the heart are accompanied by alarming dreams, from which the patient starts up in great terror. In children the perturbation of their sleep frequently indicates the seat of their sufferings; and the valuable researches on the nervous system by Charles Bell have enabled the medical attendant to read in the features of a sleeping infant whether the malady be in the head, the cavity of the chest, or the abdomen.

If proof were wanting that dreams arise from our waking thoughts, it might be found in the circumstance of those sleepers who divulge their secrets, and verify the lines of Shakspeare:

There are a kind of men so loose of soul, That in their sleep will mutter their affairs.

Reason, therefore, prompts us to reject the idea of dreams being preternatural suggestions. In general, we may consider them as a morbid excitement of the brain, arising either from moral or physical causes, and depending essentially on the condition of our mind and body. Our most lively hopes are ever linked with fears that prey upon us even when most secure; and these apprehensions, recurring in our dreams, prove too often prophetic of the very events we dreaded. The prejudices of early education shed around these forewarnings circumstantial incidents; and fear is the greatest ally of superstition.

If our visions by night are fraught with such singular circumstances, our "day dreams," or _reveries_, are frequently attended with strange associations. The impressions received during these ecstatic visions or trances will occasionally act so powerfully upon the mind, that during our waking hours and the usual pursuits of life we cannot divest ourselves of the existence of their reality.

Dr. Arnould has given the following curious account of a case of this kind, as narrated by the individual himself:--"One afternoon in the month of May, feeling himself a little unsettled and not inclined to business, he thought he would take a walk into the city to amuse his mind, and having strolled into St. Paul's Churchyard, he stopped at the shop window of Carrington and Bowles, and looked at the pictures, among which was one of the cathedral. He had not been long there before a short grave-looking elderly gentleman, dressed in dark brown clothes, came up and began to examine the prints, and occasionally casting a glance at him, very soon entered into conversation with him, and praising the view of St. Paul's which was exhibited at the window, told him many anecdotes of Sir Christopher Wren the architect, and asked him at the same time if he had ever ascended to the top of the dome. He replied in the negative. The stranger then inquired if he had dined, and proposed that they should go to an eating-house in the neighbourhood, adding that after dinner he would accompany him up St. Paul's. It was a glorious afternoon for a view, and he was so familiar with the place that he could point out every object worthy of attention. The kindness of the old gentleman's manner induced him to comply with the invitation, and they went to a tavern in some dark alley, the name of which he did not know. They dined and very soon left the table, and ascended to the ball just below the cross, which they entered alone.

"They had not been there many minutes, when, while he was gazing on the extensive prospect and delighted with the splendid scene below him, the grave gentleman pulled out from an inside coat-pocket something like a compass, having round the edge some curious figures; then having muttered some unintelligible words, he placed it in the centre of the ball. He felt a great trembling, and a sort of horror came over him, which was increased by his companion asking him if he should like to see any friend at a distance and to know what he was at that time doing, for if so, the latter could show him any such person. It happened that his father had been for a long time in bad health and for some weeks past he had not visited him. A sudden thought came into his mind, so powerful, that it overcame his terror, that he should like to see his father. He had no sooner expressed the wish than the exact person of his father was immediately presented to his sight in the mirror, reclining in his armchair and taking his afternoon sleep. Not having fully believed in the power of the stranger to make good his offer, he became overwhelmed with terror at the clearness and truth of the vision presented to him, and he entreated his mysterious companion that they might immediately descend, as he felt himself very ill. The request was complied with, and on parting under the portico of the northern entrance, the stranger said to him, 'Remember you are the slave of the man of the mirror.'"

He returned in the evening to his home, he does not know exactly at what hour; felt himself unquiet, depressed, gloomy, apprehensive, and haunted with thoughts of the stranger. For the last three months he has been conscious of the power of the latter over him. Dr. Arnould adds, "I inquired in what way his power was exercised? He cast on me a look of suspicion mingled with confidence, took my arm, and after leading me through two or three rooms and then into the garden, exclaimed, 'It is of no use--there is no concealment from him, for all places are alike open to him--he sees us--and he hears _us now_.' I asked him where the being was who saw us and heard us? He replied in a voice of deep agitation, 'Have I not told you that he lives in the ball below the cross on the top of St. Paul's, and that he only comes down to take a walk in the churchyard and get his dinner at the house in the dark alley. Since that fatal interview with the necromancer,' he continued, 'for such I believe him to be, he is continually dragging me before him in his mirror--he not only sees me every moment of the day, but he reads all my thoughts, and I have a dreadful consciousness that no action of my life is free from his inspection, and no place can afford me security from his power.' On my reply that the darkness of the night would afford him protection from these machinations, he said, 'I know what you mean, but you are quite mistaken--I have only told you of the mirror, but in some part of the building which he passed on coming away, he showed me what he called a great bell, and I heard sounds which came from it, and which went to it, sounds of laughter, and of anger, and of pain; there was a dreadful confusion of sounds, and I listened with wonder and affright'--he said, 'this is my organ of hearing; this great bell is in communication with all the other bells within the circle of hieroglyphics, by which every word spoken by those under my control is made audible to me.' Seeing me look surprised at him, he said, 'I have not yet told you all, for he practises his spells by hieroglyphics on walls and houses, and wields his power, like a detestable tyrant as he is, over the minds of those whom he has enchanted, and who are the objects of his constant spite within the circle of his hieroglyphics.' I asked him what these hieroglyphics were, and how he perceived them? He replied, 'Signs and symbols which you in your ignorance of their true meaning have taken for letters and words, and read, as you have thought, _Day and Martin_ and _Warren's blacking_. Oh! that is all nonsense! they are only the mysterious characters which he places to mark the boundaries of his dominions, and by which he prevents all escape from his tremendous power. How I have toiled and laboured to get beyond the limits of his influence! Once I walked for three days and three nights, till I fell down under a wall exhausted by fatigue, and dropped asleep; but on awaking I saw the dreadful sign before my eyes, and I felt myself as completely under his infernal spell at the end as at the beginning of the journey.'"

Dr. Pritchard remarks on this singular case of insanity, that this gentleman had actually ascended to the top of St. Paul's, and that impressions there received being afterwards renewed in his mind when in a state of vivid excitement, in a dream or ecstatic revery, became so blended with the creation of fancy, as to form one mysterious vision, in which the true and the imaginary were afterwards inseparable.

It is also possible that this person, being of a nervous and susceptible disposition, had been struck, when on the dizzy height of the cupola, with a vertigo, or fit, during which these phantasms had struck him in so vivid a manner as to derange his intellects--the loud and terrific sound of the bell adding to the horror of his situation. It is well known that persons have recollected circumstances that occurred around them during an epileptic and an apoplectic attack. Our worthy visionary was for two years an inmate of a private asylum.

In regard to the verification of dreams, they may be easily accounted for by that proneness that most men, especially if of a weak and impressionable state of mind, experience in courting the object of their hopes or fears. Thus have the absurd prognostications of fortune-tellers been too frequently fatal, as we may work up our thoughts to such an intensity as to bring on the very death that we apprehend. Dr. Pritchard relates the case of a clergyman, in an indifferent state of health, who, when standing one day at the corner of a street, saw a funeral procession approaching him. He waited till it came near him, saw all the train pass him, with black nodding plumes, and read his own name on the coffin, which was carried by, and entered, with the whole procession, into the house where he resided. This was the commencement of an illness which put an end to his life in a few days.

During a severe fever, in the peninsula, my nightly rest was constantly disturbed by the threatening appearance of animals with fearful horns and antlers, incessantly hovering about me. For a long time after my recovery the spectral illusion continued, and every horse or mule that passed by me appeared to be armed with immense horns.

It is to be feared that, notwithstanding the ingenuity of the many physiologists who have sought to investigate the nature of dreams, we shall never come to any satisfactory conclusion, since we follow too frequently the example of the German philosopher, Lesage, who, in his endeavour to throw some light on this obscure subject, sought to ascertain the intermediate condition of the mind when passing from the waking state into sleep, a transition which never has been, and, most probably, never can be ascertained, since sleep, to a certain degree, is a suspension of all power of attention, perception, volition, and every spontaneous faculty.

ON FLAGELLATION.

Amongst the various moral and physical remedies introduced by the priesthood and physicians for the benefit of society, flagellation once held a most distinguished rank. As a remedy, it was supposed to reanimate the torpid circulation of the capillary or cutaneous vessels, to increase muscular energy, promote absorption, and favour the necessary secretions of our nature. No doubt, in many instances, its action as a revulsive may be beneficial; and urtication, or the stinging with nettles, has not unfrequently been prescribed with advantage. As a religious discipline, for such has this system of mortification been called, it has been considered as most acceptable to Heaven; so much so, indeed, that the fustigation was commensurate with the sinner's offence. Under the head of Daemonomania I have endeavoured to show that whipping was equally agreeable to the evil spirit, who delighted in flogging the elect.

It appears that at this period a belief prevailed that heavenly mercy restored the grace that had been forfeited, commuting for temporal punishment that which else would have been eternal. The monks of Fonte Avellana, for instance, had decreed that thirty psalms, said or sung, with an accompaniment of one hundred stripes to each psalm, would be considered as a set-off for one year of purgatory; and, by this calculation, the whole psalter, which would have demanded fifteen thousand stripes, would have procured a relief of five years from the fiery ordeal. It was no doubt under this impression that St. Dominic the Cuirassier, so named from his wearing, day and night, an iron cuirass next his skin, and which he never took off, adopted this same covering when, upon entering into priest's orders, his parents presented the bishop who ordained him with a rich fur garment, an offence for which the holy man wished to atone by donning an iron vestment.

This said madman belonged to the congregation of Fonte Avellana, the monks of which never touched either wine or oil, and, during five days of the week, lived upon bread and water; moreover, every day after service they flogged each other. Dominic, in extenuation of his family's offence in having presented his diocesan with a luxurious gown, lashed himself at the rate of ten psalters, and thirty thousand lashes _per diem_; by which he calculated that he was redeeming three thousand six hundred and fifty years of purgatorial torments _per annum_: but, in addition to this wholesome allowance, he humbly petitioned his superior to allow him, during Lent, a supplementary punishment of one hundred years, when his day's work was two psalters and a half, and thirty-four thousand five hundred lashes. This punishment did not seem sufficient in his eyes to propitiate the Creator; and St. Pietro Damiano informs us that, during the Lenten days, he actually recited the psalter two hundred times, with a _crescendo_ accompaniment of sixty millions of stripes. It was on this occasion that Yepes shrewdly observed, that he marvelled less at a man's head being able to retain so many verses than that his arm was able to carry on such a flagellation; or, to use his own words, how his flesh, unless made of iron, could resist such a castigation. This blessed man must have been endowed with powers that were increased by exertion, since we find that his ambition gave him such energy, that once beginning his operations in the evening, and singing and flogging, and flogging and singing, _con amore_, through the day and night, at the expiration of twenty-four hours he had gone through the psalms twelve times, begun them a thirteenth time, and proceeded as far as _Beati quorum_, the thirty-second psalm; having inflicted upon himself one hundred and eighty-three thousand one hundred stripes, thereby reducing purgatorial stock to the amount of sixty-one years, twelve days, and thirty-three minutes, to a fraction.

It would be perfectly idle and absurd for any freethinker to doubt this fact, recorded by an eyewitness--Pietro Damiano, a saint, and moreover a cardinal; and Calmet himself maintains that no man should dare to doubt a saint's assertion, more especially when speaking of another beatified person. Notwithstanding this assertion, a stiff-necked arithmetician calculated that, if during these twenty-four hours the saint had given himself two blows every second, the number of lashes would only have amounted to one hundred and seventy-two thousand eight hundred, being ten thousand three hundred short of the amount stated! However, this difficulty was overcome by Father Castaniza, who makes up the amount by maintaining that he made use of cats with ten tails, and therefore had actually a balance in his favour in his _winding_-sheet.[28]

_Ubi stimulus ibi affluxus_, has been a physiological axiom since the days of Hippocrates; and flagellation thus employed is only a modification of blistering, or exciting the skin by any other irritating method. The moral influence of flagellation in the treatment of different diseases has been appreciated by the ancients: it was strongly recommended by the disciples of Asclepiades, by Caelius Aurelianus, and since by Rhasis and Valescus, in the treatment of mania. No doubt, the terror which this castigation inspires may tend materially to facilitate the management of the insane. To the present day this opinion has prevailed to a revolting degree, and it is no easy matter for the humane physician to convince a keeper of the cruelty or inutility of this practice. Seldom or never does this harsh management become necessary: I had charge of a military lunatic asylum for a considerable time, and, with one exception, never found myself warranted in causing corporal punishment to be inflicted, notwithstanding the association of ideas of discipline which such a chastisement must have produced amongst men then exposed to the capricious infliction of the lash. The case to which I allude was one of a Sergeant N--, who had twice attempted my life, and who fully remembered every circumstance in the remissions of his malady; so much so, indeed, that doubts were entertained in the minds of the casual visiter as to the real condition of his mental faculties; and in the establishment now under my superintendence a keeper is discharged when convicted of having struck a patient _under any circumstances_.

To return from this digression: the authoritative power of man over the brute creation is daily witnessed, even with unruly and ferocious animals; and there are, no doubt, cases where bodily punishment becomes indispensable, when the body will feel what the judgment cannot comprehend. Boerhaave relates the case of a hypochondriac who swore that his legs were made of straw; but an officious servant-maid, who was sweeping the room, struck him across the shins with her broomstick, and soon brought him to a sense of his erroneous impression.

Flagellation draws the circulation from the centre of our system to its periphery. It has been known in a fit of ague to dispel the cold stage. Galen had observed that horse-dealers were in the habit of bringing their horses into high condition by a moderate fustigation; and therefore recommended this practice to give _embonpoint_ to the lean. Antonius Musa treated a sciatica of Octavius Augustus by this process. Elidaeus Paduanus recommends flagellation or urtication when the eruption of exanthematic diseases is slow in its development. Thomas Campanella records the case of a gentleman whose bowels could not be relieved without his having been previously whipped.

Irritation of the skin has been often observed to be productive of similar effects. The erotic irregularities of lepers is well authenticated; and various other cutaneous diseases, which procure the agreeable relief that scratching affords, have brought on the most pleasurable sensations. There exists a curious letter of Abelard to his Eloisa, in which he says, "Verbera quandoque dabat amor, non furor; gratia, non ira; quae omnium unguentorum suavitatem transcenderent."

This effect of flagellation may be easily referred to the powerful sympathy that exists between the nerves of the lower part of the spinal marrow and other organs. Artificial excitement appears in some degree natural: it is observed in various animals, especially in the feline tribe. Even snails plunge into each other a bony and prickly spur that arises from their throats, and which, like the sting of the wasp, frequently breaks off and is left in the wound.

In the monastic orders of both sexes, flagellation became a refined art. Flagellation was of two species, the upper and the lower; the upper inflicted upon the shoulders, the lower chiefly resorted to when females were to be fustigated. This mode was adopted, according to their assertions, from the accidents that might have happened in the upper flagellation, where the twisting lash might have injured the sensitive bosom. In addition to this device, nudity was also insisted upon. In the article Daemonomania I have recorded various abominations of the kind. Nor was it only amongst religious orders and their followers that this custom obtained. It was practised by ladies of high rank amongst their commensals and attendants. Brantome gives us a curious and quaint account of this amusing castigation. Mademoiselle de Limeuil, one of the queen's maids of honour, was flagellated for having written a pasquinade, in company with all the young ladies who had been privy to the composition. And on another occasion he tells us: "J'ai oui parler d'une grande dame de par le monde, voire grandissime, mariee et veuve, qui faisait depouiller ses dames et filles, je dis les plus belles, et se delectait fort a les voir, et puis elle les battait du plat de la main, avec de grandes clacquades et blamuses assez rudes; et les filles qui avaient delinque en quelque chose, avec de bonnes verges, et elle les clacquait ainsi selon le sujet qu'elles lui en donnaient, pour les faire ou rire ou pleurer."