WEIGHT OF THE SOUL

Manawatu Times, Volume LXIV, Issue 104, 6 May 1907, Page 6

WEIGHT OF THE SOUL

Dr. Duncan Macdougal, of Haverhill, and four other reputable physicians of Massachusetts, after six years' experiments in a sanatorium, assert that the souls of men and women weigh from half an ounce to an ounce. The physicians themselves regard the publication of the results of their experiments as premature, and had intended to make them public through a medical journal. The investigation, they say, was undertaken reverently, and with the object of determining the existence or non-existence of the soul in the human body, and whether the departure of the soul from the body was attended by any manifestation of nature evident to the material senses. The method employed, says the New York correspondent of the London Daily Mail, was to wheel the bed of a dying patient upon platform scales especially constructed for the purpose. The scales were so delicate that they were sensitive to a weight of less than a tenth of an ounce. In every case loss of weight was shown upon death, after all known scientific deductions for such loss as the respiratory air, moisture, excretions, and secretions of the body had been taken into consideration. The first two subjects were consumptive men, and a difference was shown immediately upon death. The third patient was a phlegmatic man, slow in thought and action, and a minute elapsed before the movement of the scales. Dr. Hereward Carrington, a New York associate, and Dr. Hislop, of the Society for Psychinl Research, say that the conclusive proof that the soul is mutter is of the highest scientific importance. They object to tests on sick persons as inconclusive, and suggest that tests be made with healthy murderers put to death in the electric chair.