STRANGE DELUSIONS OF IDENTITY.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XII, Issue XIII, 31 March 1894, Page 289

STRANGE DELUSIONS OF IDENTITY.

In all the history of delusion nothing is stranger than the cases, by no means uncommon, where persons, often otherwise entirely sane, get an idea into their heads that they are somebody or something else, and live and conduct themselves as if they were indeed this other person or thing. A case noticed in the medical press not long ago showed bow a gentleman, his mind unhinged by sudden trouble, fancied he was a steam roller, with his attendant used regularly to plod around the square where he resided in the idea that be was levelling the surface of the ground as be passed over it. Endeavouring to root out this mania, his doctor laid down some large flints in his patient’s back garden and asked him to observe that he could not be a steam roller, because after he had passed over them the stones did not sink into the ground. ‘ That’s because I’m not heavy enough,’ replied the madman, and proceeded to fill his pockets with heavy weights and carry others in his arms. Says a famous surgeon :—* Once did I succeed in curing a man afflicted with this sort of mania. He had an idea that his nose had grown suddenly to an enormous length—

so long, in fact that he declared he was unable to enter a room except of the largest size. Other medical men whom he consulted laughed at him and endeavoured to convince him that he was mistaken, but without effect. He only got worse and worse, and at last declared that he was unable to move, bis nose had grown so heavy. When he applied to me I at once declared that all he said was true, but if he followed my directions 1 thought I could cure him. * On a day appointed he came to me, and I tied a handkerchief round his eyes. I had previously provided a large basin filled with bullock's blood, and making him stand over it hit him a violent blow upon the nose. Then saying “ Take it away ” to my assistant, as if he were bearing off the severed nasal organ, I dabbed some of the blood over my hands and patient’s nose, and removed the bandage from his eyes. The plan worked successfully, and the patient was cured of bis delusion.’ Strangely enough, with persons afflicted with such a mania many of the cures are accidental. An old lady living in the north of England got an idea into her head that she was made of china, wore thickly muffled shoes and lived in a padded room for fear of breakage, and would never drink anything warm for fear she should crack. One

morning coming downstairs she fell and rolled down a lengthy flight, and, finding that she had suffered no damage but a few bruises, saw clearly that the idea she had formed of her own composition must be a mistaken one. Similarly an old pauper in a provincial workhouse got the notion into his head that he was, above all things, a codfish. One day the inmates of the workhouse were indulged in a visit to the seaside, and the harmless old lunatic taken with the rest. Walking upon the pier the old man somehow stumbled over a rope and fell into the water, where he floundered for some time, but was eventually rescued, half drowned, but effectually rid of the idea that be was amphibious.