A young man in this town, some years since, was in consequence of bathing in water visited with a peculiar kind of disorder, which operated by paroxisms. When a fit seized him he would at first fall down; but in a moment or two rise, possed of an agility far superior to what was natural. In two or three hours, and sometimes sooner, the fit would pass off and leave him in his usual state, and , to appearance, in health. But what was most remarkable in this case, was the state of his mind. While he was in a fit, he perfectly remembered things which had occured in the preceding fits, but nothing which happened in the intervals, or in the time prior to his disorder. In the intervals, all his fits, and everything which had passed in them, were totally obliterated; but he could distinctly recollect the occurrences of the former intervals. The time of his fits appeared to him in continuity, as did also his healthful periods--when one was perfect the other was lost. If in the time of a fit, he took up any business, he would drop it when the fit ceased, without any recollection of the matter; and when the fit returned he wouldresume the business without any idea of his having discontinued it. The case was the same, if he undertook anything in the intervals of his disorder. In short, he seemed to have two distinct minds which acted by turns independently of each other. In the space, I think, of about two years, in the use of a particular remedy, his fits left him, and he was reduced to a simple consciousness. The Remedy whi cured him, or deprived him of one of his souls. I have not been able to learn, the family having lost the recipe. The above account I received from his father, and from others in the family.
Benjamin Rush's Lectures on the Mind, [ed.] Eric T. Carlson, Jeffrey
Wl Wollock, Patricia S. Noel, [American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia,
1981 ]p.669
How did Rush explain why, after he had awoken, the man could not remember in his fit?
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[return
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…every act of memory …[is] produced
by a renewal of motions in the brain, exactly the same in degree and
situation, with the motions which first produced the idea or thought
which is the object of memory. Now, may not the reason why the actions
performed in sleep and in the paroxysms of the disease which I have described
are not remembered be, because a sufficient force of impression is not
applied to reexcite them; or may not this force be directed to a part of
the brain, which is not the seat of that part of the mind, from whence
the action or ideas are forgotten, are derived? Or shall we ascribe it
to all the mind being, according to Dr.
Gall, like vision a double organ, occupying the two opposite hemispheres
of the brain, produce the phenomena which have been mentioned? [The last
sentence was later deleted by Rush]
Benjamin Rush's Lectures on the Mind, [ed.] Eric T. Carlson, Jeffrey
W. Wollock, Patricia S. Noel, [American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia,
1981 ]p. 670.