Old Memories: Amusing and HistoricalMacPherson, Daniel, Mrs.
History
Old Memories: Amusing and Historical
MacPherson, Daniel, Mrs.
Québec (Québec) -- Description and travel
This lady just alluded to, Miss G——, was one of those peculiar patients
one hears of in a lifetime, and, as all her near relatives are dead and
few will recognize the initial, I will inform my readers that Dr. A——,
one of my father’s physicians (now deceased), told me that she was
afflicted with a kind of fit—cataleptic, I think, they called it—when
she fell into a state so closely resembling death that two of Quebec’s
most prominent medical men were about to perform a post-mortem
examination on her, when the slight quiver of an eyelid proved her still
alive, and on her recovering she told them that, though unable to make
the slightest motion, she had heard and seen all that had passed, and
Dr. A—— was exceedingly indignant that such a subject should have been
sent to him as an ordinary patient, as the same thing might have
occurred again. He was, if I mistake not, then residing in Halifax and
he told me that all the instructions he received were to provide a
suitable lodging for a nervous patient, who could afford to pay well for
a quiet private residence. Accordingly, Dr. A—— persuaded a well-to-do
Scotch farmer to take her as a boarder. For a time all went well,
though she would go off into a sort of trance, when she lay apparently
dead for perhaps three days and returned to consciousness, often
cognizant of what had occurred during her semi-deathlike state. But on
one occasion her second sight, if you can so term it, was so great, she
terrified the old people so, they begged the doctor to remove her,
saying she was no canny. The facts were these:—On one occasion Miss G——
fell into her cataleptic state, and the doctor not expecting her to
revive before a certain time, said he would not call till the following
Thursday. But on the Tuesday, receiving a summons from a very old
patient, twenty miles distant, he decided on calling on her _en route_.
The weather being rainy, he asked for a covered vehicle, and the only
one procurable was a shabby, very old-fashioned waggon. In the
meantime, Miss G—— awoke from her trance, and said, "the doctor is
coming." "No," said the mistress of the house; "he is not coming till
Thursday." "He is coming now," said Miss G——, "he is at the red gate"
(a gate some distance from the back of the house, and too far for any
sound to reach)—"what a funny carriage he has." When he really drove up
in this queer-looking vehicle, the landlady was so scared, she uttered
that exclamation, "she is no canny," and insisted that board should be
taken elsewhere. I offer no explanation—let the savants do that—I only
narrate facts I vouch for.
*MY SECOND VISIT TO ST. LEON SPRINGS.*
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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