' A DOUBLE PERSONALITY.

Otago Witness, Issue 2810, 22 January 1908, Page 89

' A DOUBLE PERSONALITY.

One of the most remarkable cases of •double personality on record is described by Professor Pierre, Janet in his work on "The Major Symptoms of Hysteria." The patient,, whom he calls Marceline, first came to him about twenty years ago. For several months she had not taken any food, and was on the verge of starvation. After trying other methods of treatment she was hypnotised, and a secondary state "Was induced, -which, although "apparently artificial, differed altogether from tie state in which she had been on her entrance to the hospital. She immediately began to eat, and soon, regained her strength. 1 When she seemed on the road to recovery it •was thought necessary to awaken her from the hypnotic state, which was considered artificial. Immediately the patient fell back into her- preceding state. She was again unable' to' eat, '" and in order to save liev life it "was" necessary to reinduce the hypnotic state.. ' The same experience was repeated over and over again, and, as Professor Janet explains, "things continued in this way for fifteen years. Marceline would come %p me in order to be put to sleep> enter into her alert -state, .and/ then go ~away very happy, with complete activity, sensibility, and memory. She would remain thus for a few weeks then, either slowly or suddenly, in consequence of some emotion, fall bact'inf'o her humbness, return to the state we had considered primitive and natural, with the same visceral disturbances. The forgetfulness n&vr extended, over whole years, and disturbed her existence completely. She would hasten to come to jae to get herself transformed again. Things continued thus for years together, till the death of the poor girl, ■who succumbed'to pulmonary tuberculosis."