MULTIPLE PERSONALITY

Evening Star, Issue 12523, 6 June 1905, Page 7

MULTIPLE PERSONALITY

An extraordinary case of multiple personality has been reported to the Society of Psychical Research. According to the ' Lancet,' the patient was a girl of between twelve and thirteen years of age, and she had developed no fewer than ten varieties of abnormal personality. She came of healthy parents, and was herself healthy in mind and body until Bhe was attacked by influenza. Then the changes of personality manifested themselves. Some of these were complete, others incomplete, £Onie sudden, others gradual in appearance. In some tho.girl was totally, in all partially, ignorant of her life during other states. Aquirements, such as drawing and! writing, and also normal faculties present in certain states were lost in others. While in a blind condition she developed the faculty of drawing with the aid of touch alone, this sense being enormously increased in delicacy. The character and the behaviour in some states differed widely from those in others. The various phases varied in duration from a few minutes to ten weeks. The normal state gradually became less frequent and of shorter duration till it finally disappeared. The various stages lasted abont three years in all,' until ultimately a particular abnormal stage was reached in which tho patient remained at the date of the report. In this she was intelligent and able to work.