Medicine in the Middle Ages: Extracts from "Le Moyen Age Medical" by Dr. Edmond Dupouy; translated by T. C. MinorDupouy, Edmond
History
Medicine in the Middle Ages: Extracts from "Le Moyen Age Medical" by Dr. Edmond Dupouy; translated by T. C. Minor
Dupouy, Edmond
Medicine, Medieval
1 have likewise determined that these answers cannot be dictated by
the mind of the medium, whose scientific and literary knowledge were
not always equal to the message received. This observation coincides
with the facts observed among pretended Demonomaniacs, who had in their
attacks the gift of language, responding in Latin to the exorcists,
making entire discourses in this language, of which they knew not the
first elements.
Under the name of _phenomena of ecstasy_, Dr. Gibier described, after
his experiments with the medium Slade, his displacement by a stronger
spirit to that of his usual control. Says Gibier, the phenomena
produced from thence were “a certain discoloration of the medium’s
face, which became red, a sort of grin contracting the muscles of the
visage, the eyes were convulsed upwards, and after some nystagmatic
movements of the ball of the eye the eyelids closed tightly, gritting
of the medium’s teeth was heard, and a convulsive sign, indicating the
commencement of his _possession_ by a strange spirit. After this short
phase, which was painful to behold, the medium’s face fell into a smile
and the voice, as well as the attitude, was completely modified to that
of a different person. Slade thus transformed to his regular control,
saluted all our party most graciously.”
Among the experiments made by Dr. Gibier to control this condition of
_incarnation_ (the English call it _trance_), we might cite that of
a comparison of the dynamometric force of the medium in his natural
condition and the _trance_ state. In the first case, by reason of two
previous attacks of hemiplegia, Slade’s muscular force gave 27 kilos to
the right and 35 kilos to the left. In the second state there were 63
kilos to the right and 50 kilos to the left. Meantime, Dr. Gibier, no
more than ourselves, deems it proper to consider the trance state other
than a hypothesis, “a foreign element, introduced in the scene, and
like it present in the experiences of suggestion and catalepsy.”
If we cannot give a scientific explanation of these phenomena, it
is our duty to examine them as others and retrace their history,
especially seeking those points of coincidence with the proofs
furnished by the history of demonomania and diabolic possession of the
Middle Ages; for we are convinced that these phenomena were dominated
by the same unknown force, interpreted differently by reason of the
philosophic and religious ideas of the epoch at which they were studied.
CLASS XIII.—_Varied cases of a complex character._
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