Story of the sinking of a fishing schooner, by the Belgian steamship, Jean Jadot— twenty-one members of the crew drowned— six of them saved, among them Arthur Burke, aged 52.
"Arthur Burke's hair was streaked with gray before the collision, but was quite gray when Burke landed yesterday, at Pier 2, Erie Basin."
It may be that there have been thousands, or hundreds of thousands, of cases in which human beings have died in violent convulsions that were the products of beliefs— and that, also, merciful, but expensive, science has saved a multitude of lives, with a serum that has induced contrary beliefs— just as that serum, if injected into the veins of somebody, suffering under the oppressive pronouncement that twice two are four, could be his salvation by inducing a belief that twice two are purple, if he should want so to be affected—
Or what has become of hydrophobia?
In the New York Telegram, Nov. 26, 1929, was published a letter from Gustave Stryker, quoting Dr. Mathew Woods, of Philadelphia, a member of the Philadelphia County Medical Society. Dr. Woods had better look out, unless he's aiming at cutting down expenses, such as dues to societies. Said Dr. Woods:
"We have observed with regret numerous sensational stories, concerning alleged mad dogs and the terrible results to human beings bitten by them, which are published from time to time in the newspapers.
"Such accounts frighten people into various disorders, and cause brutal treatment of animals suspected of madness, and yet there is on record a great mass of testimony from physicians asserting the great rarity of hydrophobia even in the dog, while many medical men of wide experience are of the opinion that if it develops in human beings at all it is only upon extremely rare occasions, and that the condition of hysterical excitement in man, described by newspapers as 'hydrophobia,' is merely a series of symptoms due usually to the dread of the disease, such a dread being caused by realistic newspapers and other reports, acting upon the imaginations of persons scratched or bitten by animals suspected of rabies.
"At the Philadelphia dog pound where on an average more than 6,000 vagrant dogs are taken annually, and where the catchers and keepers are frequently bitten while handling them, not one case of hydrophobia has occurred during its entire history of twenty-five years, in which time, about 150,000 have been handled."
My own attention was first attracted, long ago, when I noticed, going over files of newspapers, the frequency of reported cases of hydrophobia, a generation or so ago, and the fewness of such reports in the newspapers of later times. Dogs are muzzled, now— in streets, in houses they're not. Vaccines, or powdered toads, caught at midnight, in graveyards, would probably cure many cases, but would not reduce the number of cases in dogs, if there ever have been cases of hydrophobia in dogs.
In the New York Times, July 4, 1931, was published a report by M. Roeland, of the Municipal Council of Paris:
"It will be noticed that rabies has almost entirely disappeared, although the number of dogs has increased. From 166,917 dogs in Paris, in 1924, the number had risen, in 1929, to 230,674. In spite of this marked increase, only ten cases of rabies in animals were observed. There were no cases of rabies in man."
Sometimes it is my notion that there never has been a case of hydrophobia, as anything but an instance of personal witchcraft: but there are so many data for thinking that a disease in general is very 'much like an individual case of the disease, in that it runs its course and then disappears— quite independently of treatment, whether by the poisoned teat of a cow, or the dried sore of a mummy— that I suspect that once upon a time there was, to some degree, hydrophobia. When I was a boy, pitted faces were common. What has become of smallpox? Where are yellow fever and cholera? I'm not supposed to answer my own questions, am I? But serums, say the doctors. But there are enormous areas in the Americas and Europe, where vaccines have never penetrated. But they did it, say the doctors.
Eclipses occur, and savages are frightened. The medicine men wave wands— the sun is cured— they did it.
The story of diseases reads like human history— the rise and fall of Black Death— and the appearance and rule of Smallpox— the Tubercular Empire— and the United Afflictions of Yellow Fever and Cholera. Some of them passed away before serums were thought of, and in times when sanitation was unpopular. Several hundred years ago there was a lepers' house in every good-sized city in England. A hundred years ago there had not been much of what is called improvement in medicine and sanitation, but leprosy had virtually disappeared, in England. Possibly the origin of leprosy in England was in personal witchcraft— or that if the Bible had never devastated England, nobody there would have had the idea of leprosy— that when wicked doubts arose, the nasty suspicions of people made them clean.
So it may be that once upon a time there was hydrophobia: but the indications are that most of the cases that are reported in these times are sorceries wrought by the minds of victims upon their bodies.
A case, the details of which suggest that occasionally a dog may be rabid, but that his bites are dangerous only to a most imaginatively excited victim, is told of, in the New York Herald Tribune, Nov. 16, 1931. Ten men were bitten by a dog. "The dog was killed, and was found to have the rabies." The men were sailors aboard the United States destroyer, J. D. Edwards, at Cheefoo, China. One of these sailors died of hydrophobia. The nine others showed no sign of the disease.
In such a matter as a fright turning hair gray, it is probable that conventional scientists mechanically, unintelligently, or with little consciousness of the whyness of their opposition, deny the occurrences, as unquestioning obediences to Taboo. My own concatenation of thoughts is— that, if one's mental state can affect the color of one's hair, a mental state may in other ways affect one's body— and then that one's mental state may affect the bodies of others— and this is the path to witchcraft. It is not so much that conventional scientists disregard, or deny, what they cannot explain— if, in anything like a final sense, nothing ever has been, or can be, explained. It is that they disregard or deny, to clip concatenations that would lead them from concealed ignorance into obvious bewilderment.
Every science is a mutilated octopus. If its tentacles were not clipped to stumps, it would feel its way into disturbing contacts. To a believer, the effect of the contemplation of a science is of being in the presence of the good, the true, and the beautiful. But what he is awed by is Mutilation. To our crippled intellects, only the maimed is what we call understandable, because the unclipped ramifies away into all other things. According to my aesthetics, what is meant by the beautiful is symmetrical deformation. By Justice— in phenomenal being— I mean the appearance of balance, by which a reaction is made to look equal and opposite to an action— so arbitrarily wrought by the clip and disregard of all ramifications of the action— expressing in the supposed condign punishment of a man, regardless of effects upon other persons. This is the arbitrary basis of the mechanical theory of existence— the idea that an action can be picked out of a maze of interrelationships, as if it were a thing in itself. Some wisdom of mine is that if a man is dying of starvation he cannot commit a crime. He is good. The god of all idealists is Malnutrition. If all crimes are expressions of energy, it is unjust to pick on men for their crimes. A higher jurisprudence would indict their breakfasts. A good cook is responsible for more evil than ever the Demon Rum has been: and, if we'd all sit down and starve to death, at last would be realized Utopia.
My expression is that, if illnesses, physical contortions, and deaths can be imposed by the imaginations of persons upon their own bodies, we may develop the subject-matter of a preceding chapter, with more striking data—
Or the phenomenon of the stigmata—
Which, considered sacred by pietists, is aligned by me with hydrophobia.
This phenomenon is as profoundly damned, in the views of all properly trained thinkers, as are crucifixes, sacraments, and priestly vestments. As to its occurrence, I can quote dozens of churchmen, of the "highest authority," but not one scientist, except a few Catholic scientists.
Over and over and over— science and its system— and theology and its system— and the fights between interpretations by both— and my thought that the freeing of data from the coercions of both, may, or may not, be of value. Once upon a time the religionists denied, or disregarded much that the scientists announced. They have given in so disastrously, or have been licked so to a frazzle, that, in my general impression of controversies that end up in compromises, this is defeat too nearly complete to be lasting. I conceive of a return-movement— open to freethinkers and atheists— in which many of the data of religionists— scrubbed clean of holiness— will be accepted.
As to the records of stigmatics, I omit the best-known, and most convincingly reported, of all the cases, the case of the French girl, Louise Lateau, because much has been published upon her phenomena, and because accounts are easily available.
In the newspapers of July, 1922— I take from the London Daily Express, July 10th— was reported the case of Mary Reilly, aged 20, in the Home of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd, Peekskill, N. Y. It was said that intermittently, upon her side, appeared a manifestation in the form of a cross of blood. Mostly the appearances are of the "five wounds of Christ," or six, including marks on the forehead. For an account of the case of Rose Ferron, see the New York Herald Tribune, March 25, 1928. According to this story, Rose Ferron, aged 25, of 86 Asylum Street, Woonsocket, R. I., had, since March 17, 1916, been a stigmatic, wounds appearing upon her hands, feet, and forehead. The hysterical condition of this girl— in both the common and the medical meaning of the term— is indicated by the circumstance that for three years she had been strapped to her bed, with only her right arm free.
At this time of writing, I have, for four years, been keeping track of the case of Theresa Neumann, the stigmatic girl of Konnersreuth, Germany: and, up to this time, there has been no exposure of imposture. See the New York Times, April 8, 1928— roads leading to her home jammed with automobiles, carriages, motorcycles, vans, and pilgrims on foot. Considering the facilities— or the facilities, if nothing goes wrong— of modern travel, it is probable that no other miracle has been so multitudinously witnessed. A girl in bed— and all day long, the tramp of thousands past her. Whether admission was charged, I do not know. The story of this girl agrees with the stories of other stigmatics: flows of blood, from quick-healing wounds, and phenomena on Fridays. It was said that medical men had become interested, and had "demanded" Theresa's removal to a clinic, where she could be subjected to a prolonged examination, but that the Church authorities had objected. This is about what would be expected of Church authorities: and that the medical men, unable to have their own way, then disregarded the case is something else that is about what would be expected.
My expression is that, upon stigmatic girls have appeared wounds, similar to the alleged wounds of a historical, and therefore doubtful, character, because this melodrama is most strikingly stimulative to the imagination— but that an atheistic girl— if there could be anything for an atheistic girl to be equally imaginatively hysterical about— might reproduce other representations upon her body. In the Month, 134-249, is an account of Marie-Julie Jahenny, of the village of La Fraudais (Loire-Inferieure), France, who, upon March 21, 1873, became a stigmatic. Upon her body appeared the "five wounds." Then, upon her breast appeared the picture of a flower. It is said that for twenty years this picture of a flower remained visible. According to the story, it was in the mind of the girl before it appeared upon her body, because she predicted that it would appear. One has notions of the possible use of indelible ink, or of tattooing. That is very good. One should have notions.
If a girl drinks a liquid that would harm nobody else, and dies, can a man inflict upon himself injuries that would kill anybody else, and be unharmed?
There is a kind of stigmatism that differs from the foregoing cases, in that weapons are used to bring on effects: but the wounds are similar to the wounds of stigmatic girls, or simply are not wounds, in an ordinary, physical sense. There is an account, in the Sphinx, March, 1893, of a fakir, Soliman Ben Aissa, who was exhibiting in Germany; who stabbed daggers into his cheeks and tongue, and into his abdomen, harmlessly, and with quick-healing wounds.
Such magicians are of rare occurrence, anyway in the United States and Europe: but the minor ones who eat glass and swallow nails are not uncommon.
But, if in Germany, or anywhere else, in countries that are said to be Christian, any man ever did savagely stab himself in the abdomen, and be unhurt, and repeat his performances, how is it that the phenomenon is not well-known and generally accepted?
The question is like another:
If, in the Theological Era, a man went around blaspheming, during thunderstorms, and was unhurt, though churches were struck by lightning, how long would he remain well-known?
In March, 1920, a band of Arab dervishes exhibited in the London' music halls. In the London Daily News, March 12, 1920, are reproduced photographs of these magicians, showing them with skewers that they had thrust through their flesh, painlessly and bloodlessly.
Taboo. The censor stopped the show.
For an account of phenomena, or alleged phenomena, of the Silesian cobbler, Paul Diebel, who exhibited in Berlin, in December, 1927, see the New York Times, Dec. 18, 1927. "Blood flows from his eyes, and open wounds appear on his chest, after he has concentrated mentally for six minutes, it is declared. He drives daggers through his arms and legs, and even permits himself to be nailed to a cross, without any suffering, it is said. His manager asserts that he can remain thus for ten hours. His self-inflicted wounds, it is declared, bleed or not, as he wishes, and a few minutes after the knife or nails are withdrawn all evidence of incisions vanishes."
The only thing that can be said against this story is that it is unbelievable.
New York Herald Tribune, Feb. 6, 1928— that, in Vienna, the police had interfered with Diebel, and had forbidden him to perform. It was explained that this was because he would not give them a free exhibition, to prove the genuineness of his exhibitions. "In Munich, recently, he remained nailed to a cross several hours, smoking cigarettes and joking with his audience."
