psychic fiction as both these processes belong to the realm of the imagination. The value of his endeavor, however, in this new field is no greater than a child's explanation of various phenomena beyond the grasp of its puerile mentality. For the sake of study we may recognize three distinct types of the human mind in spiritual or intellectual matter: The progressive, the stagnant and regressive. 1. The progressive mind knows that matters pertaining to the spiritual are subject to changes and must subscribe to a process of evolution. He studies the past so as to be able to judge the present and shape the future. Religious doctrines, beliefs and practices are the indexes of the spiritual mind. of the past, and in so far as they give information of the spiritual status of the age they are of great historic and educational value. The past teaches us how to avoid erroneous ideas, how to recognize mistakes and guard against them. But the progressive mind while studying the past has his mental vision focused on the future. He rids himself by a slow process of reasoning of all acquired superstitions until he finally becomes emancipated, and with a clear mind analyzes the various phenomena without having recourse to the old accepted theories. The progressive mind knows the ghost stories of the past. He read all the miracles reported in biblical literature, read about angels, devils and the host of seraphim and cherubim, but having subjected them to the critical analytical powers of his psychic faculty he finds the evidence upon which they are based insufficient and he can not accept them as true but inclines to look upon them as fiction, the product of human imagination. The progressive mind therefore turns from fiction to reality, reason supplants mere belief and insists upon more conclusive evidence. 2. The stagnant mind has no initiative of its own and cannot undertake any critical analysis. This type of man is easily impressed by external forces and readily yields to impressions and believes psychic events recorded as literally true. He, too, went to the school of infancy where fiction has been taught for facts, where ghosts, angels, spirits and devils are spoken of as real entities. He investigates neither extremes but readily believes everything learned in the religious. school during childhood. The large majority of mankind harbors this stagnant mind. They can always be relied upon for an audience in matters of spiritism and it is upon these minds that the more aggressive mind plays. This class of human beings is easily impressed and in fact is always looking for the miraculous even in matters of medical science. These are the victims of the mental jugglers. 3. The regressive mind in contradistinction to the stagnant mind is an active mind but unfortunately does not move forward but backward. Men of this type of mentality have no power of projecting new independent ideas but always use their mentality in regressive process. They always endeavor to prove that the old miracles reported in the Bible are literally true. They will employ all modern knowledge in their arguments to prove the verity of biblical supernatural stories. There is doubtless a hereditary influence in these regressive minds. They never enter the sphere of progressive mentality. There is also an atavistic type of regressive mind. This is the type of man who has emancipated himself from early impressions and has entered the sphere of progressive mentality. Men of this type may become leaders in science and I use become famous and stay in the progressive sphere up to a limited time when as a result of hereditary influence they reverse the early impressions of mysticism. The brain has used up all its latent progressive force and enters the stage of regression. There is a rebound in the mental elasticity holding it at its childish extremity. The man has no longer power to project himself into the progressive sphere of mentality. The man enters the stage of second childhood when fancy, and not fact, dominates his mentality. There is no doubt that some of the great men expounding spiritism belong to this type of mind. By spiritism as it is used today we mean the claim that mortal man can communicate with departed spirits either directly or thru a medium. the word epidemic spiritism to indicate the sudden reappearance and spread of this mental disorder. Recently two schools of spirit communication have developed. The one holds that communication with spirits can only be accomplished thru a medium. The expounder of this system is Sir Oliver Lodge. The other school maintains that mediums are not necessary but that we can communicate with the spirit directly. Both of course assume the existence of the spirit in some form somewhere and that they know what is going on in the world and may be of great help to us. I suppose both these factions find some support in the biblical narratives. The ancient Israelites believed in mediums altho it has been strictly forbidden by Moses. At one time during the reign of Saul it became necessary to rid the country of the pretending mediums and they were all expatriated. Of course the only story of spiritualistic communication thru a medium is found in the book of Samuel where Saul, King of Israel, consulted the witch of Endor to com The story however municate with Samuel. is not very convincing. Let us for the sake of argument admit the existence of a spirit incarnate and discarnate. The questions arise: Where is the habitat of this spirit? How does it enter the human body? At what time in embryonic life does the spirit enter the human body? What are the movements, functions and destiny of the departed spirits? Do they retain consciousness? Are they conscious of their surroundings? Are they free agents to act at will, or are they under some supervision? Are they at liberty to communicate with their former associates, or must they wait for permission and orders to revisit this earth? Do they appear in the form of matter as they existed before? Why must they communicate thru a medium? Why are these communications so trival and so rare? These are questions that are not readily answered by either exponent of spiritism. To us it would appear since we never saw spirits as such that we could never recognize them if they would appear. Whenever we see a spirit we always see it in human form-in the form of matter. This accounts for the fact that all apparitions known appeared in corporeal form. Even the spirit of Conwell's wife appeared in bodily form dressed in her old garment. Now one must ask, how did the spirit regain the bodily form? Where did the spirit regain the bodily form? Where did the spirit get the old garment that was probably destroyed long ago? ably destroyed long ago? This would lead us to the conclusion that the apparitions are of our own creation, the product of our imagination. We see the spirit in our consciousness altho the spirit is not present, by a process of mental imagery even as we can see other images by the aid of our visual memory, altho these images are really not present to stimulate our visual apparatus. We must look upon the so-called spiritism as a disturbed mentality which at present appears in epidemic form. All epidemics today are attributable to natural causes. Those affected have a lessened power of resistance and are susceptible to the disease. There are those who are susceptible to the physical epidemic conditions, while others are susceptible to mental epidemic conditions. This form of epidemic can be cured or prevented by mental hygiene. Like all epidemic diseases. this disease is also self-limited. It seems that the Anglo-Saxon is most susceptible to this epidemic. As a result of the great war we suffer from two forms of mental diseases: The one is Bolshevism, the other spiritism. The one affects the vanquished the other the victors. The Slavic and Germanic races become the victims of the one. The Anglo-Saxon race is becoming the victim of the other. The one disturbs the mental and the other the governmental equilibrium. Bolshevism is the result of poverty and is curable. It will readjust itself as production is increased and the material growth of the community is enhanced. But this epidemic spiritism appears in places of prosperity, of material progress where idols and oracles are consulted as a result of some disturbed mentality. It will require a strong antidote to re-establish the mental balance of the Anglo-Saxon race and prevent their degeneration and return to the early ages of mysticism. 917 Spruce St. Chronic Cases.-When adjustment of pelvic articulations fail to relieve symptoms in chronic cases, Lund (Boston Med. and Surg. Jour.) says to remember the possibility of tumors on the anterior surface of the sacrum. These are discoverable by rectal palpation. SYMMETRICALLY OCCURRING VENTRICULAR EXTRA SYSTOLES AND THEIR RELATION TO A SLOW PULSE. BY LOUIS FAUGERES BISHOP, A. M., M. D., Sc. D., F. A. C. P., Clinical Professor of Heart and Circulatory New York City. Unquestionably there is no detail or phase of heart work more interesting than electrocardiology. There is no phenomenon more puzzling than an unusually low pulse count in a person who is apparently perfectly well in other respects. The electrocardiagram of a few such pulses are shown and are to be explained as follows: Each of these came under our notice as examples of very low pulse, but examination showed them to be symmetrically occurring ventricular extra systoles, in which every other normal pulse beat was replaced by a premature contraction. Of course, the most interesting point in these examples of irregular pulse is the symmetrical recurrence of the irregularity, the extra beat not reaching the pulse at all, or else in such feeble form as not to be ordinarily noticed. There are other points in this group that are worthy of notice. One is that when the irregularity takes on this symmetrical 'form it seems to mean that a new center for the heart beat has been started, and as a rule it has turned out that these people have lived for a long time with very little inconvenience. There is no fundamental disorder of the mechanism from which the normal heart beat comes, it being simply FIG. 1. Taken by lead 2. After the waves P, due to the auricular contraction, and R and T, due to a normal ventricular contraction, are seen the larger waves I and F, due to a premature contraction of the ventricles, starting within the ventricle itself. These waves occur regularly, coming almost immediately after each normal beat. The ventrical lines at the bottom of the cardiagram represent 1/25 of a second's time and are produced by the time marker. FIG. 2. Taken by lead 3. This shows the same thing as FIG. 1, but in this record the P and T waves are directed downward instead of upward, and the R wave is very small. The large waves, due to a premature ventricular contraction, are in the opposite direction to the waves of FIG. 1, showing that this contractionstarted in a different place in the ventricle, probably nearer the apex. R FIG. 3. Taken by lead 1. This record shows a premature ventricular contraction occurring after every second of the normal heart beat. In this record the waves I of the premature beat are directed downward and the waves F upward, as in FIG. 2, but their size is much smaller. The size has no significance, for if the waves are small in one lead they are large in another. This is a very different matter from true heart block, where the impulse never reaches the ventricle, or true bradycardia, in which the natural pacemaker of the heart a premature beat, which does not reach the wrist. The heart rate should always be counted at the heart itself and not at the radial pulse. R IIII FIG. 4. This record shows all three leads of the electrocardiagram of a person in whom the premature beats were followed either after every one of the normal beats or after every second normal beat, altho the waves I and F are small in lead 3 they are quite large in lead 1. FIG. 5. Shows the same things as FIG. 1, the only difference being that the heart rate is slower. |