MANIAS AND HOW TO CURE MEM

Manawatu Times, Volume 61, Issue 237, 7 October 1936, Page 16

MANIAS

AND HOW TO CURE MEM

T KNEW a lunatic who pretended that he was a mushroom, not a man, wrote Leo Tolstoy. Ho sat in a corner, held an onen umbrella over his head, refused nourishment and would not speak. The doctor camo with an umbrella, opened it, held it over his head and quietly sat down beside the lunatic. For a long time they sat without speakin" finally the lunatic broke the silence and asked the doctor: "Who are you? What are you doing hero ” "1 am a mushroom," replied the doctor. The lunatic seemed surprised but said nothing.

The attendant brought dinner and the .doctor began to eat. “Do mushrooms eat?" asked the patient. As you see," said the doctor. "I am a mushroom, yet I eat." The lunatic then ordered dinner for himself and ate it with great appetite. After the meal, the doctor sat with the patient for a little while, then ho got up with the open umbrella in Ms hand. "Can mushrooms stand?" asked the lunatic. "Why not?" said tho doctor. "You sco I stand although I am a mushroom." Then the lunatic also got up and when tho doctor started walking up and down the room, ho followed him. Tho doctor closed his umbrella and the lunatic did the same. Every day the doctor repeated the experiment, gradually widening the sick man’s horinzon. Soon the lunatic becamo a normal man and forgot that he was once a mushroom.

Tolstoy’s little story brings to our

memory two other cases from the famous psychiatric hospital of St. Petersburg, which in Tolstoy’s time was directed by Professor Janowsky,. a psychiatrist of nation-wide reputation. Both cases had been given up as hopeless until they were taken up by Janowsky personally. The first was a university student of twenty-five who insisted that ho was a precious and fragile crystal vase. With outstretched arms, gracefully balancing on tip-toe, he stood on the same spot for hours. He was seized with panic if anybody tried to approach him and burst into convulsive weeping, begging to be left alone. This had gone on for three years and naturally the case was considered hopeless. It was a mystery to tho doctors where the man got his physical resistance, for he would / sometimes stand in the same pose for twenty-four hours.

Determined to try a drastic cure, Janowsky ordered two sturdy attendants to grab the crystal youth and give him a sound thrashing, so that he might convince himself that he was not so fragile after all. The two men dealt

PSYCHIATRISTS’ METHODS

Some Strange Cases

with him as though ho were a punching bail, but except for a few tiozen bruises no harm was done. Shortly afterwards Janowsky camo to seo him ami to his great joy found him reasoning like a normal being. Rather embarrassed but smiling happily the young man confided to him that ‘ he was not of glass after all.” For a few days hereafter he behaved normally but as the bruises were beginning to turn yellow and green, the mem ory of the thrashing became obliterated and lie resumed Ms former poses. A second beating was ordered which brought about complete recovery.

Even moro unusual was the case of "tho man with the mosquito." its hero was an executive of one of the big banks of the capital,’a wealthy and respected father of a family. He had been rather queer for some time and afflicted with morbid manias. A complete breakdown followed and he was incarcerated. His fixed idea was that he had a mosquito in one ear.

He spent five years in tho hospital. Palo and emasciated, he listened and listened and pressing his left ear with

ono hand he went on repeating, it buzzes, it buzzes, it buzzes. . He was completely indifferent to all that was going on around him and only the daily the professor, for whom ho had conceived a Jibing, aroused him from his torpor. Every day he assured the professor that he was perfectly normal and required a treatment for his ear, and every day the professor answered that ho knew it perfectly well but that his colleagues thought differently about

But Janowsky was determined to help the poor fellow and penderea over the case until he had an idea. At the next visit he brought the man a printed form and explained that they had decided to make a last attempt and operate upon him in order to remove the insect. He warned him that it was a matter of life and death and that for this reason his written consent was required. He urged him to think it over during the night and IT he agreed, to sign the form.

The patient spent an agitated night and the next morning he handed the professor his consent. Everything was then staged as for a real operation; he was wheeled on a stretcher to the operating room where he was taken in charge by several doctors and nurses dressed in white. An anaesthetic was administered, his head was bandaged and a few minutes later ho was awkened and shown a mosquito swimming in a tube with alcohol. His face was beaming with happiness as the professor congratulated him upon the successful operation.