no imputation on
her honesty, or questioning her possession of as high a degree of honor
and trust, as can be claimed by any one. Other women naturally as moral
as she, have under the influence of hysteria perpetrated the grossest
deceptions, and they are not unfrequently manifested in the very same
way that hers apparently are. Her case is by no means an isolated one;
it is not such as has never been seen before; it does not "knock the
bottom out of all existing medical theories, and is in a word
miraculous," as one of the physicians is reported to have said. On the
contrary, similar ones are often met with as we have seen, and the
following which I quote from Millingen,[14] is so like it in many
respects, that the two might have been formed after a common model, as
in fact they were, just as two or more cases of pneumonia follow a well
defined type.

"Another wonderful instance of the same kind is that of Janet McLeod,
published by Dr. McKenzie. She was at the time thirty-three years of
age, unmarried, and from the age of fifteen had had various attacks of
epilepsy, which had produced so rigid a lock-jaw that her mouth could
rarely be forced open by any contrivance; she had lost very nearly the
power of speech and deglutition, and with this all desire to eat or
drink. Her lower limbs were contracted towards her body; she was
entirely confined to her bed, and had periodical discharges of blood
from the lungs, which were chiefly thrown out by the nostrils. During a
few intervals of relaxation she was prevailed upon with great difficulty
to put a few crumbs of bread comminuted in the hand, into her mouth,
together with a little water sucked from her one hand, and, in one or
two instances, a little gruel, but even in these attempts almost the
whole was rejected. On two occasions also, after a total abstinence of
many months, she made signs of wishing to drink some water, which was
immediately procured for her. On the first trial the whole seemed to be
returned from the mouth, but she was greatly refreshed in having it
rubbed upon the throat. On the second occasion she drank off a pint at
once, but could not be prevailed upon to drink any more, although her
father had now fixed a wedge between her teeth. With these exceptions,
however, she seemed to have passed upwards of four years without either
liquids or solids of any kind, or even an appearance of swallowing; she
lay for the most part like a log of wood, with a pulse