Extraordinary Trance.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume I, Issue 18, 6 November 1879, Page 4

Extraordinary Trance.

The sight to which all is anxious to oh tain advmttatvc the girl now lying in a trance at tor, ~ ore lon Hospital. This case, which innixies the doctors, and sets medicine altogether at defiance, lias occupied the whole of the medical authorities for the last few weeks. The patient lies still and motionless upon the bed. She eats nothing, neither does she drink, her lips being hermetically closed. Her eyes are closely shut, but when the lids are raised the brightness of them is almost dazzling. The intelligence, too, with which the eye seems to look at you, as if inquiring the reason of this strange visitation—perplexed and terrified, but neither dim nor vague—is mysterious in the extreme. The pulse meanwhile beats with formidable power, although no symptoms of breathing is visible. As the doctors acknowledge their own incompetency to decide upon a case of this kind, they are compelled to leave it in the hands of Nature —their own great Master, to whose will they are com pel led to bow a solution of the terribe enigmas which now and then sets their science at nought. The symptoms described by the nurse to the visitors who. by the permission of the auth;.cities, are allowed to see the poor girl, urc weird and terrible as a nightmare. The patient had already reen in the bospi'al about a week, wht” l the ward in which she slept was arouse-i by her frantic cries for help. The agony with which she had been suddenly s. wcl in every limb was so intense that she felt sure she must be dying. Before the doctor could be summoned she rose in the bed, uttered one long piercing scream, and fell s' Vienly backwards with extended arms, stiff Vd motionless, as she has ever since remain'd. Every means known to science has been employed to restore her to consciousness, but without .avail. Galvanism, electricity, burning—have all proved useless, and the doctors are fain to own themselves beaten.