Page:Ten Days in a Mad-House (1887).djvu/33

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
TEN DAYS IN A MAD-HOUSE.
31

“I am not sick and never was, I only want my trunks.”

But I put out my tongue, which he looked at in a sagacious manner. Then he felt my pulse and listened to the beating of my heart. I had not the least idea how the heart of an insane person beat, so I held my breath all the while he listened, until, when he quit, I had to give a gasp to regain it. Then he tried the effect of the light on the pupils of my eyes. Holding his hand within a half inch of my face, he told me to look at it, then,


AN INSANITY EXPERT AT WORK.

jerking it hastily away, he would examine my eyes. I was puzzled to know what insanity was like in the eye, so I thought the best thing under the circumstances was to stare. This I did, I held my eyes riveted unblinkingly upon his hand, and when he removed it I exerted all my strength to still keep my eyes from blinking.

“What drugs have you been taking?” he then asked me.

“Drugs!” I repeated, wonderingly. I do not know what drugs are.”

“The pupils of her eyes have been enlarged ever since