St. Vitus's dance, and wounds of nerves. On one side of me lay a poor
fellow, a Dane, who had the same burning neuralgia with which I once
suffered, and which I now learned was only too common. This man had
become hysterical from pain. He carried a sponge in his pocket, and a
bottle of water in one hand, with which he constantly wetted the burning
hand. Every sound increased his torture, and he even poured water into
his boots to keep himself from feeling too sensibly the rough friction
of his soles when walking. Like him, I was greatly eased by having small
doses of morphia injected under the skin of my shoulder, with a hollow
needle, fitted to a syringe.

As I improved under the morphia treatment, I began to be disturbed by
the horrible variety of suffering about me. One man walked sideways;
there was one who could not smell; another was dumb from an explosion.
In fact, every one had his own grotesquely painful peculiarity. Near me
was a strange case of palsy of the muscles called rhomboids, whose
office it is to hold down the shoulder-blades flat on the back during
the motions of the arms, which, in themselves, were strong enough. When,
however, he lifted these members, the shoulder-blades stood out from the
back like wings, and got him the soubriquet of the Angel. In my ward
were also the cases of fits, which very much annoyed me, as upon any
great change in the weather it was common to have a dozen convulsions in
view at once. Dr. Neek, one of our physicians, told me that on one
occasion a hundred and fifty fits took place within thirty-six hours. On
my complaining of these sights, whence I alone could not fly, I was
placed in the paralytic and wound ward, which I found much more
pleasant.

A month of skilful treatment eased me entirely of my aches, and I then
began to experience certain curious feelings, upon which, having nothing
to do and nothing to do anything with, I reflected a good deal. It was a
good while before I could correctly explain to my own satisfaction the
phenomena which at this time I was called upon to observe. By the
various operations already described, I had lost about four fifths of my
weight. As a consequence of this, I ate much less than usual, and could
scarcely have consumed the ration of a soldier. I slept also but little;
for, as sleep is the repose of the brain, made necessary by the waste of
its tissues during thought and voluntary movement, and as this latter
did not exist in my