[3]
[Footnote 3: "Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases," vol. vii.,
1880, p. 487.]
In June, 1880, Dr. Beard visited Moosehead Lake, found the "Jumpers,"
and experimented with them. He ascertained that whatever order was
given them was at once obeyed. Thus, one of the jumpers who was
sitting in a chair with a knife in his hand was told to throw it, and
he threw it quickly, so that it stuck in a beam opposite; at the same
time he repeated the order to throw it with a cry of alarm not unlike
that of hysteria or epilepsy. He also threw away his pipe, which he
was filling with tobacco, when he was slapped upon the shoulder. Two
jumpers standing near each other were told to strike, and they struck
each other very forcibly. One jumper, when standing by a window, was
suddenly commanded by a person on the other side of the window to
jump, and he jumped up half a foot from the floor, repeating the
order. When the commands are uttered in a quick, loud voice, the
jumper repeats the order. When told to strike he strikes, when told to
throw he throws whatever he may happen to have in his hand. Dr. Beard
tried this power of repetition with the first part of the first line
of Virgil's "AEneid" and the first part of the first line of Homer's
"Iliad," and out-of-the-way words of the English language with which
the jumper could not be familiar, and he repeated or echoed the sound
of the word as it came to him in a quick, sharp voice, at the same
time he jumped, or struck, or threw, or raised his shoulders, or made
some other violent muscular motion.
Pages:
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155