WEIGHING THE SOUL.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2072, 6 May 1907, Page 4

WEIGHING THE SOUL.

EXTRAORDINARY EXPEItMENTS 13Y PHYSICIANS.

Thu human soul weighs about an . ouiieo, or LG to tho pound! Such, divested of tlio technical tonus ol medical phraseology, is the substance of a report just made hy -five Massachusetts physicians “of tlio highest professional standing,” who lor six yours have boon studying a problem which had oludod the researches oi all previous scientists and philosophers. Tlio doctors, through tlioir spokesmail, Dr. Duncan Mncdougall, oi Boston, doolaro that tlioy made tlioir investigations reverently and eninostly, “to determine tlio existence or non-oxistonce of a soul in tlio human body, and to dotormino also whether tlio departure of that soul ironi tlio human body is attended by any manifestation of nature that enn bo jnado evident to the material senses. The not result is tho conclusion that tlio human soul weighs about an ounce.

Those Boston scientists say that through their researches the human soul has at last been catalogued upon scientific principles as an actual material thing; that when this soul flits from tlio body it diminishes tho weight of the body hy a certain measurable amount, and that this amount can bo weighed in actual ounces. I lie difToronco between the weight of a live human body and a body the moment alter death, or when the soul has quitted it, was found to be Ironi half an ounce to ail ounce, and to this, it is said, tliore can ho no other I>ossiblo explanation than tliat that is tho weight of tlio human soul. In overy case, it is declared, tlie loss was shown after all known scientific deductions had been taken into consideration:

Both men and women have been tho subjects of experiments. The method of finding the result, as followed by tho doctors, was to place tho dying patients in a bod upon one of tho platforms of a pair of scales, made oxprossly for tho purpose. Those scales wore so delicately constructed as to he sonsitivo to the woiglit of less than ono-tentli of an ounco. It was the desire of Dr. Duncan Macdougall to give no publicity to tlio facts until they were ostijlislied beyond all doubt, but in ail interview ho virtually confirmed all the foregoing. What tho soul is trie doctor hesitates to define, tlie investigators only being acquainted with the soul in so far as the flitting rf tlie same left tho dead body so much lighter. Three cases in particular Dr. Macdougall cited. Tho first, ail ordinary tuberculosis patient, who was dying, was placed on the scales at the instant of death. Tho body lost loz in weight. The second test was that of another tuberculosis patient, and the result was tho same. Tho third test was that of a phlegmatic man, .do v in thought and action, and it was alleged that (lie soul loft slowly. The scales show no loss for one minut" and then tho body loses loz.