A CATALEPTIC JAPANESE.

Press, Volume LVII, Issue 10636, 21 April 1900, Page 7

A CATALEPTIC JAPANESE.

An extraordinary case came under the notice of the Melbourne Hospital staff the other night. About 10 o'clock a cabman on the Swanston street stand noticed that a man standing at the comer of Bourke street, under the verandah of the Leviathan Clothing Company, had not moved for some hours. He watched the figure for a while, and eventually called the attention of Senior-Constable Britt to the strange conduct of the man. Britt and Constable Wright crossed the street, and found a Japanese standing "at attention" on the kerbstone,with his eyes fixed in a glassy stare. The police officers questioned iiim, but received no answer, or no hint that their voices had been heard. Suspecting that tlie man.„A,vas malingering, they attempted to trap him,' but he remained deaf to a baton beaten unexpectedly behind him, and blind to a finger passed rapidly before his eyes. Satisfied that the man was not shamming, the police lifted his rigid form into a cab, and drove him to the Melbourne Hospital. There he was made the subject of an exhaustive examination by Sir Amess, M.8., tlie medical superintendent. He was placed under the influence of the electric battery, and other means were taken to restore him to his normal condition, but all to no avail. The man was at last admitted to the Hospital, where two days later he still lay unchanged—a living man, with apparently every nerve in his body paralysed.