AT THE SPECIALIST'S.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 6, Issue 253, 23 February 1917, Page 3 (Supplement)

AT THE SPECIALIST'S.

A MIND PROBLEM. "Suppose," said the young man, leaning back in the leather chair which had iioid so many troubled patient*. "suppose, doctor, that one's memory should bo intensified a hundredfold.

"Suppose that, without any wish to renioiiioer them, one's memory became so keen, by some mischance, that past events overlaid the present—so that the vision supplied by the mind was brighter and more real than the -positive everyday image upon the retina of the

eye '■ ' "That,"' said the doctor, interested and musing, "might be very perturbing." •• It is very perturbing," replied the young man. "That is my own case, doctor. I will tell you precisely what is hapening now. Some years ago, travelling to the north of England, 1 got into conversation with another man in tho same compartment, and we became excellent friends. Naturally, 1 should not entirely If'orget that journey. But at th : s moment 1 seem to be sitting in that railway carirage with that man speaking to me; the noise of the train fills my ears and 1 am conscious of the landscape whizzing past. This impression does not cancel whatever may be actually going on before my eyes, but it is equally vivid, and the result is tl at 1 have to make a very strong ef fort to separate the imaginary from the true, the past from the present."

The doctor frankly confessed himself at a loss, especially when his visitor went on to say that even events cS, Ins childhood were often forced forward by somo trick of Ins brain and displayed extravagantly on the screen of the present. "He's a kind of human kinematograph," said the doctor, comparing notes with a professional friend in the evening. "Though, for that matter, we all are; people won't realise that tho mere reproduction of the moving picture of tho streets within a human eye, the sizo of a large marble, is far more wonderful than any show at a 'picture palace.' But this man is compelled to watch two 'films' at once, and no brain can stand the strain of that for long. Of all the knowledge this war has brought us—strange wounds, new treatments, exploded ideas —these mental cases aie the most interesting."

"And often the most distressing," replied tho other. "i)oe fi he s'eep well?'' "Ye>; that's why he has not collapsed. Any suggestions?"

"So far as I can see, the thins is to stop one of the pictures. My idea is that as he goes about, the ceaseless excitement of his irritated brain by ordinary sights and sounds —which leave littlfl impression on a normal man — keeps it in a state of unnatural activity, culminating in this extraordinary projection of past affairs which it has stirred up. You Know, occasionally wo are surprised to find ourselves suddenly thinking of a person or place we haven't seen or thought of for years; seme pigeon-hole of memory flips open —why, wo don't know, but the record lias been there al lthe time. It's quite conceivable that in your patient this process is carried to excess. I suggest that you .shut off the 'film' of pictures ■wo can' control and try whether casing the strain thus will cause the other, which we cannot control, to fade or to exhaust itself. In three words—temporarily blind him." "Might it not act the reverse way, since he would then see only tlie«o memory-phenomena?"

"It might. But you have to experiment with such a baffling case, and it may bo worth while, especially ff you can explain the theory of the treatment to him and thus enlist his sulieonsoious help. # * # Condemned to blindness and almost to solitary confinement until in the wisdom of his trusted physicians he might once again see the real world, the young man suffered torments of mind compared with which former agonies of the body were as naught. With His eyes bandanged scientifically, on parole not to leave lus darkened rooms, no rays of outer light reached him: but on tho vast screen of blackness played a thousand lurid figures of memory. Trooping forth fiom mysterious hidingplaces, they acted their parts untiringly. Childhood, youth, his deeds, worthy and unworthy, his trivial mishaps, rebuffs, triumphs—they took the. centre of the stage, "stars" of a silent and gloomy theatre, with himself for audience, haunting him till he was utterly weary; and then the dreadful flickering film of lib) mind would liegin again at some stupid, unimportant point—a cut linger, a school lesson —and keep madly whirring until he crept alwut and touched the furniture to recall the existence that seemed slipping away. But iu the third week of his impri-> enment a new and poignant sensation tame. It was tho desperate longing to >ce —to sec something real, tangible; and with this desire his brain began t.) be legitimately busy imagining the things in the room, the streets, the faces of his friends. When lie mentioned this to tho doctor that good friend smiled with a great hope, bub said nothing. In a few more days the longing grew passionate: he implored the doctor to givo him back his sight. if only for a moment, that the darkness might be reliovod. Suppose, when his eyes were unbound, they had no power to .see?

"Nature rebelling against the suppression of a sense she knows is there." said the doetor to his colleague, ''fie said 'darkness'—that shows his mem-ory-film is slowing down."

S(H»n the young man described his condition as intolerable; ho declare 1 that ho could not keep his word of honour much longer but would be compelled to tear off the bandage and SEE— And the doctor promised that on the next monrng the blindness should ho at an end.

The day dawned lat ; . and developed a thick fog: a itrown. miserable light hardly penetrated the atmosphere. Cautiously the doctor removed the bandage, and led his patient to the window The young man peered down nit" the dreary, sloppy street. " How Lrlorious how Leant iful'" h -1 exelainio:!, in the sheer joy of vision re-

Ihe do-tor smiled again " You mu-.t avoid direct bght. [...' several days yet." lie said. ' In' i your eves become ii 0.l to the light von must stav in thi- darkened mom. Bui how about thai old i' .»ble those too-a-thc mem"Oh . f dt.n'l know ... I ~aV. loot C'ere's a lavi i r.ep'n.r thn ugh I! log. How sp', nd!d '"