A MIRACLE AND ITS FATAL SEQUEL.

Evening Post, Volume XLVIII, Issue 131, 1 December 1894, Page 1 (Supplement)

A MIRACLE AND ITS FATAL SEQUEL.

♦ Writes a London correspondent: — The death of a young girl whilst being made the medium of hypnotic experiments has re-drawn attention to the little that is really known about mesmerism and the danger attendant on ordinary meddling with its mysteries. 'The deceased was the daughter of a well-to do people in Festh, and on several occassions before, with the consent and in the presence of her parents had been hypnotised with remarkable results. On the- fatal evening several medical men as well as the mesmerist Noukom were present. The experiment fixed upon by the hypnotiser had to do with the condition of a consumptive brother of one of the guests, resident at a town hundreds of miles away, whose condition Neukom undertook the medium should describe accurately. Neither mesmerist nor medium knew or had ever seen the subject. Dr. Yon Bragassy (a spectator) writes to The Times that what followed was startling and incredible. The hypnotiser ordered the sleeping girl to go to Werehoz, whore Herr X lives, and report fully on his illness and the means to be taken to alleviate it. A few moments passed, and the girl began a scientific deecription of the lungs, giving a minute account of their diseased condition, with technical particulars which even an ordinary doctor would not give, and which could only be expected from an axperienced specialist. With a full command and correct use of technical expressions she gave the closest details, extending to a full diagnosis of inflammation of the lungs and declared that the prognosis was very unfavourable, as against that kind of disease medical skill wbs powerless. In conclusion, she described the end of the patient in the usual Latin terminology. Immediately afterwards she fell back senseless, uttering a piercing shriek. The doctors at once tried every known means of bringing the poor girl to, but all in vain. Within eight minutes her pulse began to fail, and death followed shortly. A post mortemshowed concussion ofthe brain to be the cause of death. In other words, the strain of the experiment killed her. I i ! I '<] f i