Suspension of Thought by Adolphus Smith

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 3, 1871

Suspension of Thought.

By Adolphus Smith

The following cases of suspended reason, or thought, were related to me by Mr. C. Richardson, of Jamestown, Ottawa Co., Michigan. They are, I think, pertinent illustrations of the scripture doctrine of the sleep of the dead.

Rev. Mr. Hendrix, when visiting the patients in a Canadian hospital, a number of years since, discovered therein, a man who appeared to be perfectly demented, but otherwise in good health. Inquiring into the cause of his malady, he was informed that it was occasioned by a depression of the skull upon the brain, by a blow from the falling limb of a tree. Procuring surgical aid, Mr. Hendrix caused the depressed skull to be raised to its natural position, when the patient uttered the concluding word of a sentence that he had begun to address to his son, with whom fourteen years before, he was splitting rails under the tree where he received the injury that deprived him of his senses:—“Put in the——wedge.”

This, I think, is a remarkable example of suspended thought. For fourteen years he had lived perfectly unconscious of the loss of a moment of time. But he ate, drank, slept, awoke, and moved about; but how? Simply as a machine. Like the clock, the human mechanism had been wound up, or set in motion, and must run its allotted time, though a part of its complicated machinery nonessential to its longevity, should cease to move. The hunger, and the act of supplying its demands, were but a part of the natural movements of the intricate machine.

Another case related by Mr. R., is concerning one of his natural sisters. About forty years since, Miss Emily Richardson, a teacher of public schools in the county of Somerset, in the State of Maine, returning home from a visit to a friend, one clear starlight evening, early in September, being thinly clad, took a severe cold, which, in a few hours, rendered her a raving maniac.

It soon became necessary to confine her in a cell prepared for the purpose, and separated from the kitchen by a partition of strong wooden bars. In this condition she remained, being occasionally removed that her cell might be cleaned, until about the 20th of March following, when, in the evening, on being removed from her cell as above, and not very closely watched, she seized a large frozen beet that lay in a corner of the room, and hurled it with great force at her brother’s head, inflicting a severe cut in his face. He threatened her with punishment in case she should repeat the act. In a moment the beet was hurled at him a second time; when in anger, he struck her a severe blow on the back of the head and neck, which felled her to the floor in an instant. She presently arose, seated herself on a chair, and sobbed for some time. She then said she was tired, and would go to bed. Her brother, out of remorse for his rashness, plead that she might be allowed to sleep with her sister. It was granted. Early in the morning she arose, and having robed herself, went to the window, looked out, and started back in amazement, exclaiming, “Why, how it has snowed during the night!” (the snow lay deep on the ground). “I guess not,” said her brother, “there was snow on the ground yesterday.” “No,” said she, “it was clear and starlight last evening, and not a particle of snow on the ground.” She got breakfast ready in good order before the family arose. From that time she was perfectly sane, and soon took another school. It always seemed strange to her, that she should close a summer term of school, and take another so soon. The whole winter had been to her a perfect blank.

In the foregoing examples, by injuries inflicted upon the brain, the first was rendered idiotic, the last insane. Yet, in both, there was an entire suspension of thought, or conscious existence, for a time. Can it be possible, that, if man possesses innate immortality, a slight injury to the brain should suspend consciousness of existence for a time, while a greater injury, resulting in death, should intensify that consciousness, in a ratio that exceeds the action of the healthful human mind, as the spiritual exceeds the natural?

Such is the teaching of popular Christianity, and such the voice of Spiritualism—a doctrine which originated with him who in Eden declared, in contradiction of the word of God, “Thou shalt not surely die.”

After penning the foregoing I submitted it to Mr. R. for criticism. He pronounced it correct. I do not remember to have seen these cases noticed in print. ADOLPHUS SMITH. Ottawa Co., Mich.