DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE.

A London Doctor's Strange Patient -- Two Girls in One.

London Daily Mail, March 21, 1897.

A young girl who is two different persons in one body has just been exhibited by Dr. Albert Wilson to the members of the Clinical Society of London, and this most interesting case of dual states of consciousness is exciting much attention in the medical world.

The girl is fourteen and a half years of age, and there was nothing unusual about her until in 1895 she was attacked by influenza. It was a very bad attack, accompanied by delusions hallucinations, ald at such times she manifested great strength.

As the mania pased off her mental condition was found to have changed, and among other things she gave fresh names to those around, calling her father "Tom," her mother "Mary Ann," one "Jim," and another "Sam." Physically she improved; the sight got much better, but she remained paralyzed in the legs.

After the fifth week the curious condition of dual personality began to show itself. While sitting in bed playing with her dolls she would say, "It is coming," and push all the toys to one side, then there would be a shaking of the legs; then she would turn a somersault and sit up in a new personality, generally calling out "Halloa," as if she had just arrived. In this abnormal condition she calle(1 those around by the nicknames she had given them at the time of the mania, which suggested some connection between this abnormal state and the mania which had preceded it. During this abnormal or "28" stage, she talked baby talk, clipping words and not recognizing the names of things. This stage lasted from ten to fifty minutes, and when she recovered she was dazed for two or three minutes, when she would begin playing with her dolls at the point where she had off. Thus, as Dr. Wilson said, "The 'A' or normal stage is continuous, and the 'B' or abnormal stage is also continuous; but 'A' knows nothing of 'B,' and 'B' knows nothing of 'A.'"

After two or three months the girl was almost as frequently the girl "B" as she was the girl "A." Up to the present time, when she is in her normal or "A" state, she knows absolutely nothing of what occurs in the abnormal conditions. She is a good and honest girl as "A," while in her "B" condition she has stolen things. One day outside a shop she took an apple. On seeing a policeman she put it back again, Last January she became quite blind and imbecile, and had to be guided by sound and touch, but a little later on she improved much in health, so that she could walk, and could see things at a distance of about three inches. During the abnormal state there was a certain protrusion of the eyeballs, which, however, disappeared when she returned to the normal mental state.

The Hospital mentions a particularly curious symptom of the case. Although in the normal she was not known to have any knowledge of drawing, she made some rather clever memory sketches while in the "B" state, clearly from remembered fashion plates, and some 'of these she drew when stone blind and. when a book was placed between her eyes and the paper. So that the influenza which treated her so wickedly seems at least to have taught the poor child to draw.

Another newspaper report, dated 1905, about Dr. Wilson's patient

This case was written up in several journals. In Robert Rieber's otherwise execrable book Bifurcation of Self, he mentions that the girl's family name was Shand. There is a bit more about her in Chapter 22 of Boris Sidis' book Multiple Personality, entire book available online here.

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