lost your eye-sight this morning? Do you pretend to say you do not see I have undergone one of the most extraordinary alterations in appearance, that the body of man is capable of-such as never was heard or read of before?" cit. "Once more, Mr. N-," I repeated, in a tone of calm astonishment, "be so good as to be expliWhat are you raving about?" "Raving!-Egad, I think it's you who are raving, doctor!" he answered;" or you must wish to insult me! Do you pretend to tell me you do not see that my head is turned?"-and he looked me in the face steadily and sternly. “Ha-ha-ha !-Upon my honor, N————, I've been suspecting as much for this last five or ten minutes! I don't think a patient ever described his disease more accurately before!" "Don't mock me, Doctor replied N, sternly. "By G-, I can't bear it! It's enough for me to endure the horrid sensations I do!" you "Mr. N―, what do Why, Doctor- ! you'll drive me mad!-Can't you see that the back of my head is in front, and my face looking backwards? Horrible!" I burst into loud laughter. "Doctor it's time for you and me to part-high time," said he, turning his face away from me. "I'll let you know that I'll stand your nonsense no longer! I called you in to give me your advice, not to sit grinning like a baboon, by my bedside! Once more,-finally: Doctor are you disposed to be serious and rational? If you are not, my man shall show you to the door the moment you please." He said this in such a sober earnest tope of indignation, that I saw he was fully prepared to carry his threat into execution. I determined, therefore, to humor him a little, shrewdly suspecting some temporary suspension of his sanity-not exactly madness-but at least some extraordinary hallucination. To adopt an expression which I several times heard him use-" I saw what o'clock it was, and set my watch to the time." "Oh-well!-I see now how matters stand!-The fact is, I did observe the extraordinary posture of affairs you complain of immediately after I entered the roombut supposed you were joking with me, and twisting your head round in that odd way for the purpose of hoaxing me; so I resolved to wait and see which of us could play our parts in the farce longest !-Why, good God! how's all this, Mr. N- ? Is it then really the case? —Are you-in-in earnest-in having your head turned ? "" In earnest, doctor!" replied Mr. N. in amazement. "Why, do you suppose this happened by my own will and agency ? Absurd!". "Oh, no, no-most assuredly notit is a phenomenon-hem! hem!a phenomenon-not unfrequently attending on the nightmare," I answered, with as good a grace as possible. "Pho, pho, doctor!-Nonsense! -You must really think me a child, to try to mislead me with such stuff as that! I tell you again I am in as sober possession of my senses as ever I was in my life; and, once more, I assure you, that, in truth and reality, my head is turnedliterally so. "Well, well!-So I see !-It is, indeed, a very extraordinary casea very unusual one; but I don't, by any means, despair of bringing all things round again!-Pray tell me how this singular and afflicting accident happened to you ?" "Certainly," said he, despondingly. "Last night, or rather this morning, I dreamed that I had got to the West Indies-to Barbadoes, an island where I have, as you know, a little estate left me by my uncle, C; and that, a few mo ments after I had entered the plantation, for the purpose of seeing the slaves at work, there came a sudden hurricane, a more treinendous one trees --- than ever was known in those parts; all were -canes huts swept before it! Even the very ground on which we stood seemed whirled away beneath us! I turned my head a moment to look at the direction in which things were going, when, in the very act of turning, the blast suddenly caught my head, and-oh, my God!-blew it completely round on my shoulders, till my face looked quite-directly behind me-over my back! In vain did I almost wrench head off my my shoulders, in attempting to twist it round again; and what with horand ror, and altogether in and found the short, I awoke frightful reality of my situation! Oh, gracious Heaven!" continued Mr. N-, clasping his hands, and looking upwards, "what have I -done to deserve such a horrible visitation as this?" Humph! it is quite clear what is the matter kere, thought I; so assuming an air of becoming professional gravity, I felt his pulse, begged him to let me see his tongue, made many inquiries about his general health, and then proceeded to subject all parts of his neck to a most rigorous examination; before, behind, on each side, over every natural elevation and depression, if such the usual varieties of surface may be termed, did my fingers pass; he, all the while, sighing, and cursing his evil stars, and wondering how it was that he had not been killed by the "dislocation!" This little farce over, I continued silent for some moments, scarcely able, the while, to control my inclination to burst into fits of laughter, as if pondering the possibility of being able to devise some means of cure. "Ah,-thank God!—I have it I have it ". "Oh, God be praised !-Deardear doctor!-if you do but succeed, I shall consider a thousand pounds but the earnest of what I will do to evince my gratitude!" he exclaimed, squeezing my hand fervently. "But I am not absolutely certain that we shall succeed," said I cautiously. "We will, however, give the medicine a twentyfour hours' trial; during all which time you must be in perfect repose, and consent to lie in utter darkness. Will you abide by my directions? Oh, yes-yes- yes! — dear doctor!-What is the inestimable remedy? Tell me tell me name of my ransomer. divulge it-never! 66 the I'll never "That is not consistent with my plans, at present, Mr. N-,"I replied, seriously; "but, if successful of which I own I have very sanguine expectations - I pledge my honor to reveal the secret to you.' "Well-but-at least you'll explain the nature of its operation-eh? Is it internal-exter nal-what?" The remedy, I told him, would be of both forms; the latter, however, the more immediate agent of his recovery; the former, preparatory-predisposing. I may tell the reader simply what my physic was to be three breadpills (the ordinary placebo in such cases) every hour; a strong laudanum draught in the evening; and a huge bread-and-water poultice for his neck, with which it was to be environed till the parts were sufficiently mallified to admit of the neck's being twisted back again into its former position; and, when that was the case-why-to ensure its permanency, he was to wear a broad band of strengthening plaster for a week!! This was the bright device, struck out by meall at a heat; and, explained to the poor victim with the utmost solemnity and deliberation of manner-all the wise winks and knowing nods, and hesitating "hems" and "has" of professional usage-sufficed to in spire him with some confidence as to the results. I confess I shared -he" he chuckled, in a sort of the most confident expectations of sotto voce, "him massa head turned ! success. A sound night's rest- -him back in front! him waddle! hourly pill-taking-and the clammy-he-he-he!"-and he twitched saturating sensation round about his clothes-jerking his jacket, and his neck, I fully believed would pointing to his breeches, in a way bring him round-and, in the full that I did not understand. On enanticipation of seeing him disabus- tering the room where N-, with ed of the ridiculous notion he had one of his favorite silent smoking taken into his head, I promised to friends, (M -, the late wellsee him the first thing in the morn- known counsel,) were sitting at ing, and took my departure. After breakfast, I encountered a spectaquitting the house, I could not help cle which nearly made me expire laughing immoderately at the re- with laughter. It is almost useless collection of the scene I had just to attempt describing it on paperwitnessed; and Mrs. M- who yet I will try. Two gentlemen sat happened to be passing on the opposite each other at the breakfast other side of the street, and observ- table, by the fire the one with his ed my involuntary risibility, took face to me was Mr. M; and occasion to spread an ill-natured N sat with his back towards rumor, that I was in the habit of the door by which I entered. A making myself merry at the expense glance at the former sufficed to of my patients!"-I foresaw, that show me, that he was sitting in should this "crick in the neck " tortures of suppressed risibility. He prove permanent, I stood a chance of was quite red in the face-his fealistening to innumerable conceits of tures were swelled and pussy—and the most whimsical and paradoxical his eyes fixed strainingly on the kind imaginable for I knew fire, as though in fear of encounN's natural turn to humor. tering the ludicrous figure of his It was inconceivable to me how friend. They were averted from such an extraordinary delusion could the fire, for a moment, to welcome bear the blush of daylight, resist my entrance-and then re-directed the evidence of his senses, and the thither with such a painful effortunanimous simultaneous assurances such a comical air of compulsory of all who beheld him. Though it seriousness-as, added to the preis little credit to me, and tells but posterous fashion after which poor small things for my self-control, I N had chosen to dress himself cannot help acknowledging, that at the bedside of my next patient, who was within two or three hours of her end, the surpassing absurdity of the "turned head" notions glared in such ludicrous extremes before me, that I was nearly bursting a blood-vessel with endeavors to suppress a perfect peal of laughter! About eleven o'clock the next morning, I paid N- a second visit. The door was opened as usual by his black servant, Nambo; by whose demeanor I saw that something or other extraordinary awaited me. His sable swollen features, and dancing white eyeballs, showed that he was nearly bursting with laughter. "He-he completely overcame me. The thing was irresistible; and my utterance of that peculiar choking sound, which indicates the most strenuous efforts to suppress one's risible emotions, was the unwitting signal for each of us bursting into a long and loud shout of laughter. It was in vain that I bit my under lip almost till it brought blood, and that my eyes strained till the sparks flashed from them, in the vain attempt to cease laughing; in full before me sate the exciting cause of it, in the shape of N-, his head supported by the palm of his left hand, with his elbow propped against the side of the arm-chair. The knot of his neck-kerchief was tied, back at the nape of his neck; his coat and waistcoat were buttoned down his back ;-and his trowsers, moreover, to match the novel fashion, buttoned behind, and, of course, the hinder parts of them bulged out ridiculously in front !-Only to look at the coat-collar fitting under his chin, like a stiff military stock-the four tail buttons of brass glistening conspicuously before, and the front parts of the coat buttoned carefully over his back-the compulsory handiwork of poor Nambo! N-, perfectly astounded at our successive shouts of laughter-for we found it impossible to stop suddenly rose up in his chair, and, almost inarticulate with fury, demanded what we meant by such extraordinary behavior. This fury, however, was all lost on me; I could only point, in an ecstacy of laughter, almost bordering on frenzy, to his novel mode of dress-as my apology. He stamped his foot, uttered volleys of imprecations against us, and then ringing his bell, ordered the servant to show us both to the door. The most violent emotions, however, must in time expend their violence, though in the presence of the same exciting cause; and so it was with Mr. M with its customary formal precision, tested that the laws of locomotion were utterly inexplicable to hima practical paradox; that his volitions as to progressive and retrogressive motion neutralized each other; and the necessary result was, a cursed circumgyratory motion-for all the world like that of a hen that had lost one of its wings! That henceforward he should be compelled to crawl, crab-like, through life, all ways at once, and none in particular. He could not conceive, he said, which was the nearest way from one given point to another; in short, that all his sensations and perceptions were disordered and confounded. His situa-tion, he said, was an admirable commentary on the words of St. Paul"But I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind." He could not conceive how the arteries and veins of the neck could carry and return the blood, after being so shockingly twisted-or "how the wind-pipe went in," affording a free course to the air through its distorted passage. In short, he said, he was a walking lie! Curious to ascertain the consistency of this anomalous state of feeling, I endeavored once more to bring his delusion to the test of and simple sensation, by placing one hand on his nose, and the other on his breast, and asking him which was which, and whether both did not lie in the same direction. He wished to know why I persisted in making myself merry at his expense. I repeated the question, still keeping my hands in the same position; but he suddenly pushed them off, and asked me, with indignation, if I was not ashamed to keep his head looking over his shoulder in that way-accompanying the words with a shake of the head, and a sigh of exhaustion, as if it had really been twisted round into the wrong direction. "Ah!" he exclaimed, after a pause, "if this unnatural state of affairs should prove permanent-hem!-I'll put an end to the chapter! He-he-he! He-he myself. On seeing how seriously affronted N was, we both sat down, and I entered into examination, my whole frame aching with the prolonged convulsive fits of irrepressible laughter. It would be in vain to attempt a recital of one of the drollest conversations in which I ever bore part. N's temper was thoroughly soured for some time. He declared that my physic was all a humbug, and a piece of quackery; and the "d-d pudding round his neck," the absurdest farce he ever heard of; he had a great mind to make Nambo eat it, for the pains he had taken in making it, and fastening it on-poor fellow! Presently he lapsed into a melancholy reflective mood. He pro he!" he continued, bursting suddenly into one of those short abrupt laughs, which I have before attempted to describe. "He-hehe how dd odd!" We both asked him, in surprise, what he meant, for his eyes were fixed on the fire in apparently a melancholy mood. "He he he! exquisitely odd, Hehehe!" After repeated inquiries, he disclosed the occasion of his unusual cachinations. "I've just been thinking," said he, "suppose-He, he, he !-suppose it was to come to pass that I should be hanged he, he, he! God forbid, by the way; but, suppose I should, how old Ketch would be puzzled !-my face looking one way, and my tied hands and arms pointing another! How the crowd would stare! He, he, he! And suppose," pursuing the train of thought, "I were to be publicly whipped-how I could superintend operations! And how the devil am I to ride on horseback, eh? with my face to the tail, or to the mane? In short, what is to become of me? I am, in effect, shut out from society!" "You have only to walk circumspectly," said M; "and as for back-biters-hem." "That's odd-very-but impertinent," replied the hypochondriac, with a mingled expression of chagrin and humor. "Come, come, N, don't look so steadily on the dark side of things," said I. "The dark side of things?" he inquired" I think it is the backside of things I am compelled to look at !" "Look forward to better days," sion during the conversation to use his pocket-handkerchief, he suddenly reached his hand behind as usual, and was a little confused to find that the usual position of his coatpocket required that he should take it from before! This I should have conceived enough to put an end to his delusion, but I was mistaken. "Ah! it will take some time to reconcile me to this new order of things-but practice-practice, you know!" It was amazing to me, that his sensations, so contradictory to the absurd crotchet he had taken into his head, did not convince him. of his error, especially when so frequently compelled to act in obedience to long accustomed impulses. As, for instance, on my rising to go, he suddenly started from his chair, shook my hands, and accompanied me to the door, as if nothing had been the matter. "Well now! What do you think of that?" said I, triumphantly. “Ah—ah !” said he, after a puzzled pause, "but you little know the effort it cost me !" * * * He did not persevere long in the absurd way of putting on his clothes which I have just described; but even after he had discontinued it, he alleged his opinion to be, that the front of his clothes ought to be with his face! I might relate many similar fooleries springing from this notion of his turned head, but sufficient has been said already to give the reader a clear idea of the general character of such delusions. My subsequent interviews with him, while under this unprecedented hallucination, were similar to the two which I have attempted to describe. The fit lasted near a month. I happened luckily to recollect a device successfully resorted to by a sagacious old English physician, in the case of a royal hypochondriac abroad, who fancied that his nose had swelled into greater dimensions than those of his whole body beside; and forthwith resolved to adopt a similar method of cure with N |