Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.64.1003120306300.22110@panix3.panix.com>
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>
To: Cyb <cybermind@listserv.aol.com>, Wryting-L <WRYTING-L@listserv.wvu.edu>
Subject: Ecstasy
Date: Fri, 12 Mar 2010 03:06:50 -0500 (EST)
Ecstasy In this form of nervous derangement the patient is not wholly lost to external impressions, but rapt and absorbed in some object of the imagination. The muscles are sometimes relaxed, sometimes rigid, as in slight tetanus: but the loss of voluntary power over them is not complete or universal, for he sometimes speaks in a very earnest manner, or sings. The patient is, as it were, out of the body at times, engrossed in some high object of contemplation. This is the state in which nervous subjects - more commonly females - are sometimes thrown when under the influence of animal magnetism; and, as a medical teacher of celebrity remarks, "grave authors assure us that the intelligence which then deserts the brain, concentrates itself in the epigastrium, or at the tips of the fingers; that people in that state read letters which are placed upon their stomach or applied to the soles of their feet; answer oracularly enigmatical questions, describe exactly their own internal organic diseases, and even foretell future events." I take it that all who are able to take on what is called the "clairvoyant state," are in the ecstatic state when in that condition; and I am well persuaded that it is a morbid one which had in all cases better be avoided. I have long noticed that the more mesmeric subjects are operated upon, the more nervous and feeble they become. Treatment. - So much has the imagination to do in causing this state, it can usually be avoided if the patient wishes to do so. As a preventive measure, the nerves should be strengthened in all possible ways, and all forms of nervous excitement should be avoided. (From the chapter, Diseases of the Nervous System, in The Hydropathic Family Physician, A Ready Prescriber and Hygienic Adviser with reference to the Nature, Causes, Prevention, and Treatment of Diseases, Accidents, and Casualties of Every Kind, by Joel Shew, M.D., New York, Fowlers and Wells, Publishers, 1854.)