The handwriting
varied from complete competence to complete incompetence. His
character varied between childish timidity, courteous reserve,
and reckless arrogance; and to four of his conditions there was a
form of hysteric paralysis attached. Mere suggestion would not
only induce any one of these varied forms of paralysis, but also
the memories, capacities, and characters habitually accompanying
it.
A young man named Spencer, an inmate of the Philadelphia
Hospital, was exhibited before the American Neurological Society
in June, 1896, as an example of dual personality. At the time of
writing he is and has been in apparently perfect health, with no
evidence of having been in any other condition. His faculties
seem perfect, his education manifests itself in his intelligent
performance of the cleric duties assigned to him at the hospital,
yet the thread of continuous recollection which connects the
present moment with its predecessors--consciousness and
memory--has evidently been snapped at some point of time prior to
March 3d and after January 19th, the last date at which he wrote
to his parents, and as if in a dream, he is now living another
life. The hospital staff generally believe that the man is not
"shamming," as many circumstances seem to preclude that theory.
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