Lecture Under Chloroform

Manawatu Times, Volume 59, Issue 218, 18 September 1934, Page 4

Lecture Under Chloroform

STRANGE CASE IN LONDON HOSPITAL PATIENTS TALK Patients in the Charing Cross Hospital, London, were recently given a lecture on Oliver Cromwell and Napoleon. But the lecturer knew nothing of wliat was tailing place —lie had just been operated on and was still under the anaesthetic. The lecturer is the Rev. Walter Wynn, of Chesliani, Buckinghamshire. “At first, when f was complimented oil my lecture bv Mr. Towns, tho patient

in tho next bed, who was also from Che,sham,” iMr. Wynn said. “1 llt ought, he was joking. I made careful inquiries, Jiowever, before I left the hospital and there is no doubt that I delivered tlio lecture. “This seems to mo to raise important physiological and psychological problems and to give key to what is known as a trance, of which there are several Biblical records. I have since submitted the facts to a man of wide medical and pathological knowledge. 110 admitted ho could give no rational explanation. “But another doctor, who deals with mental cases, said the brain must have been at work, bccauso it 'reeled off’ latent memories. .Still a third was of opinion that it was the ‘subliminal self using the brain and voice, but he was uriablo to explain how this was possible when tlio body was insensitive under chloroform.

“There aro people who pass into the trance state, and claim to bo used by spirits,” Mr. AVynn concluded. “My experience cannot be of this class, but it certainly raises the question of what power in tlio human body can defy the influence of chloroform.”