DUAL IDENTITY.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 10638, 14 April 1906, Page 1 (Supplement)

DUAL IDENTITY.

MYSTERIOUS CASES THAT ARE PUZZLING DOCTORS.

It is alarming to think that any one of us may suddenly lose his individuality and become a person of totally different character, acting in a way, perhaps, that would shock his ordinary sense of propriety. Such cases have happened frequently, and they seem to be increasing in number.

Une of the strangest of cases is that of a Baptist minister, the Rev. Mr. Brown. Going out one day with a promise to be back for dinner, he withdrew ±■.1.00 from a bank to pay for a piece ot land, and was seen to enter a tramway car. After tliat nothing was heard oi him until, two months later, he found himself in a Southern American town, one thousand miles from home.

It seeifts that six weeks before a man calling himself Bourne came to the town, rented a small shop, and commenced business as a grocer, tie attended diligently to his work, and was regarded as an intelligent, sensible man.

j At the end of the term his neighbours were surprised to hear him ask where he was. He had "woke up," returned to his former self, and was amazed to find himself behind a counter, selling groceries, in a strange town. He could give no account of how he got there. But on being hypnotised later on he said his name was Brown that he had heard of Bourne the grocer, but did not know him j that one day he left home, spent a night in New _ork, a week or so in Philadelphia*; and then had wandered south. A curious case, is given by Dr Tuke of a lady — superintendent of a sewing establishment. She was extremely shortsighted, but about eight o'clock everA evening she lost consciousness for ail seconds, then crossly pulled off her^^H tacles, and was no longer short-si^^^H At the same time her character c^^^^| and she became more energetic, and talkative. In a quarrelsome, violent, *^^^^| young man of seventeen, a moinl^HP unconsciousness was followed by tnWippearance of a new character. The physician who relates the case says that he was now a gentle, honest, obliging individual, who had forgotten his past life, his associates, and even his trade — that of a tailor. This state continued for a year, when he again became a thief, vicious and arrogant once more. But only for a time. Later on another fit of unconsciousness came on, and he was the good young man again. Life iS unusually speculative for a man lately li%*ing in North London. About five years ago he left his home one day to go to work, but did not arrive at his destination. He remembers having breakfast before starting, but has no idea what happened from then until thirty hours later, the following aiternoon, when he ' found himself in Hampstead. As he had spent two shillings and was not hungry, it is clear that in his second personality he knew how to take care of himself.

In IQO3 occurred his second strange adventure. Leaving King's Cross at 6.45 on Monday morning to go to work in Wardour-street, he remembers looking ( at the clock on the Euston Hotel as he passed at 6.50. Then his other self took control, and of the next five and a half days he can give no account. At 4 p.m. on Saturday he found himself in a strange town. On asking a policeman, he discovered" that, it was Leighton Buzzard, where he had never been before. His boots were worn down, his feet blistered, and his clothes muddy-

x We are, any of us, subject to such incidents, and may find ourselves unexpectedly in most embarrassing situations. A London policeman narrowly escaped a trip to Australia as the result of one of these curious mind changes. Going out at 4.30 o'clock one evening, he found himself at 5.30 next morning in an Aus-tralian-bound steamer passing Gravesend and was just in time to be sent ashore with the pilot. He had spent a shilling, clear proof that he retained his senses with the change of personality. The most moral-living man has no security for his continued good behaviour. In the case of a Paris barrister, for example, the subject was a man of great ability, highly educated and of good social position. But suddenly changing his personality after a quarrel with his stepfather, he left home and behaved quite rocklessly for three weeks. One of the features of these cases is that the victim has no memory, or at the best, a very hazy one, of the life led* in the second state of consciousness. But this barrister ascertained that he had visited a priest at his native village, had stayed at the house of his uncle, where he had broken a number of things and torn up some manuscript, run into debt to the extent of £20, and was summoned before a police court for theft.