Boris Sidis Archives Menu     Table of Contents     Next Chapter

PART II

CHAPTER II

THE BIRTH OF THE NEW PERSONALITY

ABOUT seven o’clock in the evening of April 15, 1897, Rev. Thomas Carson Hanna, while returning home in his carriage from the town of M., attempted to alight in order to adjust the harness, lost his footing and fell to the ground head foremost. He was picked up in a state of unconsciousness by his brother, who, for some minutes, vainly endeavored to restore him. His eyelids were closed and his breathing was faint. Not the slightest movement was noticeable, and, but for the feeble respiration, life seemed extinct.

            Mr. Hanna was removed to the house of a friend and medical aid summoned. For a period of about two hours he lay in an unconscious state. Three attending physicians regarded life as almost extinct and heroic means of restoration were adopted. Large doses of strychnine were hypodermically injected. Although no time was lost in speculative diagnosis, the probability of a most serious organic lesion was determined upon.

            Finally Mr. Hanna began to move, then opened his eyes, looked around, moved his arm, then sat upright in bed, arose, reached toward one of the physicians and attempted to push him. Thinking the patient in a state of delirium, and fearing an attack, they seized him and attempted to push him back -upon the bed. Mr. Hanna resisted vigorously and a struggle ensued, in which the three physicians were considerably worsted. The Rev. Mr. Hanna is normally a strong man, but on this occasion his strength seemed herculean. He was finally overpowered, securely bound with straps and placed in bed. He lay perfectly quiet and made no attempts to release himself. At the suggestion of a newcomer, Mr. C., the straps were removed. The patient remained quiet and made no further attempt to rise.

            Although Mr. Hanna’s eyes were open and clear and he was looking about him in an apparently curious and inquisitive way, when spoken to he did not understand the meaning of the words. It was not only that he had lost the faculty of speech so that he could not answer the interrogations put to him, but he had also lost all power of recognition of objects, words and persons. He was in a state of complete mental blindness.

            Although the functions of the sense-organs remained intact and the peripheral sensory processes remained normal, so that he experienced all the sensations awakened by external stimuli, yet there was a loss of all mental recognition and of interpretation of incoming sensations; all recognition of the external world was lost. Stimuli from without acted upon his sense-organs, gave rise to sensations, but perceptions and conceptions were entirely absent. The man was mentally blind. He could feel, but could not understand. He was as a newly born infant opening his eyes for the first time upon the world.

            The world was to Mr. Hanna but a chaos of sensations, not as yet elaborated and differentiated into a system of distinct percepts and concepts; neither objects, nor space, nor time, in the form as they are presented to the developed adult mind, existed for him. So totally obliterated from memory were the experiences of his past life that even the requirements of the simplest mental processes by which the appreciation of distance, form, size, magnitude is acquired, were effaced from his mind.

            Movement alone attracted his attention. He did not know the cause and meaning of movement, but a moving object fastened his involuntary attention and seemed to fascinate his gaze. He made as yet no discrimination between his own movements and those of other objects, and was as much interested in the movement of his own limbs as in that of external things. He did not know how to control his voluntary muscles, nor had he any idea of the possibility of such a control.

            From the more or less involuntary, chance movements made by his arms and legs, he learned the possibility of controlling his limbs. The full voluntary power over his muscles he only learned from instructions by others. He could not co-ordinate the movements of his legs, hence he could not walk.

            Unable to discriminate between his own activity and that of others, the world was not as yet differentiated into the objective and subjective, and he had no idea of ego activity. Movements had for him no differential coefficient—all were alike to him. The three dimensions, length, width and depth, were as yet not appreciated; they really did not exist for him.

            Although impressions were received by his sense-organs, still the only sensations prominent in his mind were darkness, light and color. Everything was close to his eyes,—objects near and far seemed equally distant.

            He did not have the least conception of the flow of time,—seconds, minutes, hours were alike to him. His knowledge and adaptations to environment were so completely obliterated that, like an infant, he most unceremoniously responded to the calls of nature.

            The sensation of hunger, though present in all its intensity, as we afterward learned, could not be interpreted by him, and he certainly did not know how to appease it. When food was offered him he did not understand the purpose of it; nor when it was placed within his mouth did he know how to masticate and swallow it. In order to feed him fluid nourishment had to be placed far back into the pharynx, thus provoking reflex swallowing movements. The sensation of hunger awakened in him an indefinite feeling of discomfort which he could not comprehend or intelligently express. When food was offered to him he made no effort to receive it; when placed within his reach, he did not endeavor to chew, or swallow it. This seeming rejection of food led the attendants to believe that the patient had no desire to eat. It was only when food was forced upon him and thrust far back into the pharynx, and reflex swallowing movements excited, accompanied by relief of his restlessness, it became evident that he was really hungry. It was in this way that Mr. Hanna for the first time realized the purpose of food and learned the way of taking it.