Magnetic, Phosphorescent, and Electric Anomalies.--There have been certain persons who have appeared before the public under such names as the "human magnet," the "electric lady," etc. There is no doubt that some persons are supercharged with magnetism and electricity. For instance, it is quite possible for many persons by drawing a rubber comb through the hair to produce a crackling noise, and even produce sparks in the dark. Some exhibitionists have been genuine curiosities of this sort, while others by skilfully arranged electric apparatus are enabled to perform their feats. A curious case was reported in this country many years ago, which apparently emanates from an authoritative source. On the 25th of January, 1837, a certain lady became suddenly and unconsciously charged with electricity. Her newly acquired power was first exhibited when passing her hand over the face of her brother; to the astonishment of both, vivid electric sparks passed from the ends of each finger. This power continued with augmented force from the 25th of January to the last of February, but finally became extinct about the middle of May of the same year.
Schneider mentions a strong, healthy, dark-haired Capuchin monk, the removal of whose head-dress always induced a number of shining, crackling sparks from his hair or scalp. Bartholinus observed a similar peculiarity in Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua. In another case luminous sparks were given out whenever the patient passed urine. Marsh relates two cases of phthisis in which the heads of the patients were surrounded by phosphorescent lights.
Kaster mentions an instance in which light was seen in the perspiration and on the body linen after violent exertion. After exertion Jurine, Guyton, and Driessen observed luminous urine passed by healthy persons, and Nasse mentions the same phenomenon in a phthisical patient. Percy and Stokes have observed phosphorescence in a carcinomatous ulcer.
There is a description of a Zulu boy exhibited in Edinburgh in 1882 whose body was so charged with electricity that he could impart a shock to any of his patrons. He was about six-and-a-half years of age, bright, happy, and spoke English thoroughly well.
From infancy he had been distinguished for this faculty, variable with the state of the atmosphere. As a rule, the act of shaking hands was generally attended by a quivering sensation like that produced by an electric current, and contact with his tongue gave a still sharper shock.
Sir Charles Bell has made extensive investigation of the subject of human magnetism and is probably the best authority on the subject, but many celebrated scientists have studied it thoroughly. In the Pittsburg Medical Review there is a description of a girl of three and a half, a blonde, and extremely womanly for her age, who possessed a wonderful magnetic power. Metal spoons would adhere to her finger-tips, nose, or chin. The child, however, could not pick up a steel needle, an article generally very sensitive to the magnet; nor would a penny stick to any portion of her body.
Only recently there was exhibited through this country a woman named Annie May Abbott, who styled herself the "Georgia Electric Lady." This person gave exhibitions of wonderful magnetic power, and invited the inspection and discussion of medical men. Besides her chief accomplishment she possessed wonderful strength and was a skilled equilibrist. By placing her hands on the sides of a chair upon which a heavy man was seated, she would raise it without apparent effort. She defied the strongest person in the audience to take from her hand a stick which she had once grasped. Recent reports say that Miss Abbott is amusing herself now with the strong men of China and Japan. The Japanese wrestlers, whose physical strength is celebrated the world over, were unable to raise Miss Abbott from the floor, while with the tips of her fingers she neutralized their most strenuous efforts to lift even light objects, such as a cane, from a table. The possibilities, in this advanced era of electric mechanism, make fraud and deception so easy that it is extremely difficult to pronounce on the genuineness of any of the modern exhibitions of human electricity.
The Effects of Cold.--Gmelin, the famous scientist and investigator of this subject, says that man has lived where the temperature falls as low as -157 degrees F. Habit is a marked factor in this endurance. In Russia men and women work with their breasts and arms uncovered in a temperature many degrees below zero and without attention to the fact. In the most rigorous winter the inhabitants of the Alps work with bare breasts and the children sport about in the snow. Wrapping himself in his pelisse the Russian sleeps in the snow. This influence of habit is seen in the inability of intruders in northern lands to endure the cold, which has no effect on the indigenous people. On their way to besiege a Norwegian stronghold in 1719, 7000 Swedes perished in the snows and cold of their neighboring country. On the retreat from Prague in 1742, the French army, under the rigorous sky of Bohemia, lost 4000 men in ten days. It is needless to speak of the thousands lost in Napoleon's campaign in Russia in 1812.
Pinel has remarked that the insane are less liable to the effects of cold than their normal fellows, and mentions the escape of a naked maniac, who, without any visible after-effect, in January, even, when the temperature was -4 degrees F., ran into the snow and gleefully rubbed his body with ice. In the French journals in 1814 there is the record of the rescue of a naked crazy woman who was found in the Pyrenees, and who had apparently suffered none of the ordinary effects of cold.
