Providentia

The Perpetual Motion Man

You can't get something from nothing.

Despite the popularity of this well-known adage, the dream of perpetual motion, i.e., building machines that could produce more usable energy than you put into them, people have a tendency to pay attention (albeit with some skepticism).   During the early 18th century, for example, Johann Bessler, a.k.a., "Orffyreus",   shot to fame across much of Europe with his claims to have invented several "self-moving wheels" that seemed to keep working without any external force applied.   Despite testimonials from various notables, including Gottfried Leibnitz and Joseph Bernoulli, Bessler's refusal to explain how his wheel worked (along with his habit of smashing his creations to keep them from being analysed) caused him to fade into obscurity.  Ironically, while the modern consensus is that Bessler's wheels were fakes, nobody is quite sure how he did it.  

But that's hardly the case with a more recent example.    In 1812, a Philadelphia inventor named Charles Redheffer quickly gained fame and fortune by exhibiting his own version of a perpetual motion machine and charging hefty fees for anyone who wanted to see it.   While the principles of thermodynamics had yet to be formulated, there was already enough scientific consensus about the impossibility of such devices that most newspapers were skeptical of  Redheffer's claims.   Certainly Thomas Jefferson, who had recently stepped down from his position as President of the United States, publicly stated that  Redheffer "seems to be reaping a rich harvest from the public deception."  

While few scientists took up Redheffer's offer to have them come in and see for themselves that there was no trickery involved, this overconfidence would be his undoing.   After appearing before the Pennsylvania Legislature and asking for the princely sum of $1000 to perfect his discovery, the politicians were naturally skeptical.  After much pleading and deliberation, the officials finally agreed to have Redheffer's discovery be independently assessed by a team of scientists they would appoint. 

Unfortunately for Redheffer, this committee decided to test his claim by dropping into his Lancaster workshop unannounced.   After finding the door locked and with no sign of the inventor around, they decided to break a window to see what could be spotted inside.   One of the more athletic committee members stood on another member's shoulders as he peered inside the small window that he broke.   Though he saw Redheffer's device from a distance, there was no way to get any closer.   Exercising some Yankee ingenuity, he borrowed the glasses of several of the other committee members and used them to fashion a makeshift set of binoculars to study the machine in greater detail.   Based on the lack of wear on some of the wooden cogs (which had supposedly been kept running at all times), the committee members agreed that the device couldn't work the way its inventor had claimed.   

After making a rough sketch of what they saw, the visitors were preparing to leave when spotted a young boy lurking around the outside of the workshop.   After stopping him for questioning, the boy agreed to talk about his job in the workshop in exchange for some money.   He admitted that his main job was to operate a crank from underneath the floor to make the engine run.     When the committee made their report to the Legislature, Redheffer fought back with a rather nasty letter which was published in local newspapers.   The letter basically accused the committee head, Henry Voight, of giving a fake report to force Redheffer to reveal how his invention worked so that Voight could steal the idea.   Redheffer also added that he "strong in conscious integrity, repels the foul reproach cast upon him by the committee as an infamous piece of calumny.   It is the committee who have impardonably descended to state an absolute falsehood who have been guilty of deception."   He did offer to display his machine for inspection, but only if he was able to take "the proper steps for the security of [my] discovery."   

Though Redheffer still had his defenders, he likely concluded that he would have better luck in New York City where he was still unknown.   And so, he promptly moved his workshop, wonder machine and all, to a new site in New York City.   After redesigning his machine to make the trickery less obvious, he then proceeded to put it on display the way he had in Philadelphia.   Unfortunately for him,  there were skeptics in New York as well.   One of them was Robert Fulton, already famous for building the world's first steamboat,  who  had no problem insisting that the machine was a fake, sight unseen.    

In 1813, Fulton was part of the audience when Redheffer displayed his machine as usual.  After closely observing the machine in action, Fulton became suspicious enough to put his ear to the wall next to where the machine was running.   He then announced that he was hearing the sounds of a hand crank and concluded that Redheffer's machine was a fake.   Despite Redheffer's "anger and bluster", the other people in the audience became excited and insisted that part of the wall be removed to prove Fulton's claims.   While Redheffer objected, Fulton offered to pay for the costs of repairing the wall. After going ahead, Fulton found a "cat-gut cord embedded in the wall." 

 This cord was traced to another part of the house where Fulton and the others found what later reporters described as a  "poor old man, with an immense beard, who appeared to have suffered a long imprisonment, and when the searchers broke in upon him was so unconscious of what had happened below, that he remained seated on his stool gnawing a crust, and with one hand turning a crank."  The audience members were reportedly so outraged by Redheffer's trick that they destroyed his machine.   They likely would have done the same to him if he hadn't quietly disappeared.  And, that was pretty much it for Charles Redheffer.   There doesn't seem to be any record of him turning up in any other cities to promote his perpetual motion device.  Apparently, he chose to fade into obscurity instead.  

 Not that the dream of free energy faded with him, of course.   Certainly, there have been other perpetual motion schemes since Redheffer's day, including a rather ambitious effort during the late 19th century by John Ernst Worrell Keely whose "etheric force machine" eventually cost his investors millions.  Fortunately for Keely, his timely death in 1898 saved him from Redheffer's fate.

While there have been numerous patents for perpetual motion machines filed with patent offices around the globe in the last century alone, none of them have ever attracted the kind of following that Redheffer and Keely once had.   In fact, the United States Patent and Trademark Office(USPTO) has established a formal policy of refusing patents for perpetual motion machines without a working model, something that patent offices in other countries have done as well.   Future inventors hoping to transform the world with the promise of free energy will likely have to get used to dealing with  skepticism.

Life can be hard for innovators.

The King and the Cook

It was an assassination attempt that shocked all of Italy.

King Umberto I of Italy and his Queen were both beloved public figures despite his harsh conservatism. Still, the role he played in the brutal suppression of various reform movements during his reign made him a natural targets of Italy's many left-wing and anarchist factions.   And they soon got their opportunity on  November 17, 1878 as the king and queen during a lavish royal procession through the city of Naples.

As King Umberto and Queen Margarita rode in an open carriage, a would-be assassin name Giovanni Passannante approached the royal couple and jumped onto the carriage's running board. His left hand was covered with a red handkerchief and, after he came within reach of the king, he pulled it off to reveal a small box-cutter knife. The queen screamed at the sight of the knife which alerted the Prime Minister, who had been sitting with the king in his carriage. Prime Minister Cairoli threw himself forward to protect the royal couple and was wounded in the thigh.The king in turn, was cut in the arm as he attempted to pummel Passannante with his sword while the queen beat him over the head repeatedly with the bouquet of flowers in her hands.  Eventually, the police managed to restrain Passannante and took him into custody.

They soon learned that the 29-year old Passannante had apparently been  involved with the anarchist movement (and already spending time in prison for his political activities).  Having lived his entire life in poverty, he had been working as a cook when he formed his plan to assassinate the king. Selling his jacket to buy the small knife, Passannante inscribed it with the statement, "Death to the King, long live the Republic Universal". Although he had almost certainly been acting alone, the arresting officers subjected him to brutal interrogation and torture to make him confess to being part of a conspiracy and to name the others involved. He insisted that he had not intended to kill the king and that no one else was involved in his plan. As part of the massive investigation while awaiting trial, his mother and most of his siblings were placed in a lunatic asylum (only one brother managed to escape). The rest of his family was harassed and eventually forced to move out of their home town of Salvia Lucania (which changed its name to distance itself from the would-be assassin). While pro-monarchists held protest marches against the would-be assassin, anarchists rallied to Passannante's defense with attacks across the country.

After nearly a year in prison, Passannante's case finally came to trial and the outcome seemed a foregone conclusion.  Passanante's defense was half-hearted at best and all those associated with the trial, including the judge and his defense counsel, were monarchists. He was sentenced to death in court (despite the fact that attempted assassination wasn't a capital offense under Italian law). It was only as a result of international pressure that the king personally issued a Royal Decree changing the sentence to life imprisonment. This was little comfort for Passannante who flatly stated that he would rather have been executed. Given that he had already had a taste of what life in prison would be like, he was probably right...

Giovanni Passannante was taken to a prison in the town of Portoferrario (the main town on the island of Elba).His cell was below sea level with a ceiling so low that he couldn't even stand upright. There was no latrine or light and he was shackled to the wall with a heavy chain. It was there that he spent the next ten years of his life. Aside from the attendants who watched him carefully (and who were under strict orders not to speak with him under any circumstances), there was no other contact with the outside world.   Were it not for the occasional screams that even the sailors on nearby boats could hear,  nobody would have had any idea that he was still alive.

As you might expect, the horrendous prison conditions left him broken mentally and physically. Not only did he waste away to the point that his kidneys were severely damaged by the weight of the chain he was forced to wear, but his mental deterioration left him catatonic. While left-wing politicians and sympathizers argued for his release, right-wing politicians opposed any attempt at lightening his sentence. After a psychiatric assessment was ordered by the government, it was determined that Passannante had gone insane and he was finally transferred to the criminal asylum at Montelupe Fiorentino.

Passannante was in good company there since he was later joined by another would-be assassin, Pietro Acciarito, who had also tried to kill the king in 1897.   Held under conditions as barbaric as what Passannante experienced, Acciarito also went insane in prison.  By contrast, Gaetano Bresci,, the anarchist who actually succeeded in assassinating the king in 1900, died in prison less than a year after being given a life sentence (Italy had abolished the death penalty by then). Passannante and Acciarito were likely in no condition to appreciate the irony.

When Giovanni Passannante died on February 4, 1910, an autopsy was held and his brain and skull were sent to the Superior Institute of Police at Regina Coeli Prison in Rome. Although the criminologists who examined the brain attempted to find some physical basis for his "deviance" (Cesare Lombroso's theories were still in vogue), no real evidence was found.The remains were later placed on display in Rome's Criminological Museum until May 11, 2007 when they were finally transferred to his hometown for burial.

More than a century after his death, Giovanni Passanannte  is still regarded as a hero in many circles, largely due to the brutal prison conditions he had to endure.   There was even a recent controversy over whether to restore the town's name to "Salvia Lucania" in Passannante's honour.  No final decision has been made so far.

Can Narrative Training Help With Dementia?

Multiple areas in the cerebral cortex are active during the listening of narrative material, and these activations in the brain produce significant changes in connectivity. In a pathological population living in nursing homes, patients who underwent daily narrative training showed some improvements in many psychological and cognitive aspects. A new study published in the journal Psychology and Neuroscience examines the effects of such training in many cognitive aspects. At the beginning and end of a 40-day narrative training, participants with cognitive decline were tested with the Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status to quantify any improvements in individual performance. Results were compared with those of a control group of patients. Results show a significant increase in performances of the experimental group in domains such as immediate memory, language, attention, and delayed memory. Results replicate and expand previous findings, indicating that this type of training could increase cognitive performance and could be implemented as an effective nonpharmacological treatment for the cognitive wellness in both the pathological and nonpathological elderly. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved)

For the abstract

Mass Exorcism Planned for Colombian City

As part of a plan to "drive the devil" out of the port town of Buenaventura in Colombia, the local bishop will be conducting a mass exorcism using a military helicopter. 

Monsignor Rubén Darío Jaramillo Montoya, Bishop of the Diocese of Buenaventura, will be personally dropping holy water on the town in a helicopter provided by Colombia's military.    In explaining his rationale for the exorcism, Monsignor Montoya stated that "We have to drive out the devil out of Buenaventura, to see if we can restore the peace and tranquillity that our city has lost due to so many crimes, acts of corruption and with so much evil and drug trafficking that invades our port. We want to go around Buenaventura from the air and sprinkle holy water and see if we can exorcise, drive out these demons that are destroying the port so that the blessing of God comes and removes all this evil that invades our streets.”  The exorcism will be scheduled for July 13 or 14 around the time of the town's patron saint festivities.  

The exorcism is apparently a response to Buenaventura's soaring crime rate, a legacy of  decades of armed conflict dating back to the 1960s as well as the port town's role as a hub for criminal cartels smuggling drugs into the United States.  While its homicide rate has dropped slightly in recent years, 51 murders have been reported this year alone.    The calls for action have become louder following the torture-murder of ten-year-old Diana Tatiana Rodriguez and the arrest of her uncle for the crime.  

 

The Magdalene Industry

Long before Dan Brown and his DaVinci Code, the legend of Mary Magdalene was a strong part of early Church doctrine.

Despite the lack of any scriptural basis, the tradition of Mary Magdalene as a reformed prostitute who found salvation through repentance made her the natural patron saint for convents in which "problem" women could be redeemed. The notion of the inherent sinfulness of women and their need to atone for their inappropriate behaviour through acts of penitence had the full backing of the Catholic Church.  Cloistered "penitentiaries" could be found throughout most of Europe dating back to the Middle Ages. To be fair, these convents could also be places of refuge for women who needed protection from unwanted marriages or sexual harassment though the ones going there for shelter were often unable to leave afterward.

Beginning as early as the eighteenth century, there was public alarm in the United Kingdom over the joint problems of illegitimate children and prostitution which rose dramatically with the Industrial Revolution. Not only were brothels and street prostitution rampant, but women in "service" (usually as maids or cooks) often faced chronic sexual abuse and the unwanted pregnancies that went with it. Prominent social reformers including Henry Fielding propose the establishment of special "homes" for the reform of prostitutes and other "fallen women". Evangelist movements such as the Society for the Suppression of Vice (founded in 1802) pushed for the closing of brothels and stronger anti-prostitution legislation. 

As a result of this crusade, women were taken off the street and placed in asylums which, from the very beginning, were dubbed "Magdalene" homes after Mary Magdalene. By the end of the 19th century, Magdalene asylums could be found virtually everywhere (including in North America). In the United Kingdom alone, there were more than 300 asylums caring with an estimated 6,000 inmates annually by 1900.

While Magdalene asylums were meant to be an alternative to the prisons or poorhouses that sex trade workers often endured, there was little doubt that they were prisons in their own right. Placement in the asylums was supposedly voluntary but the fact that women were locked in and police would often bring back anyone who tried to escape showed otherwise. The inmates were typically retrained for "useful work", i.e., domestic service, despite the fact that domestic workers were often targets for the sort of abuse that led to their becoming "fallen" in the first place.

While in the asylums, women were subjected to various attempts at "redemption" including shaved heads, institutional smocks, supervised visits, flogging and poor diet. They were also put to work (typically in laundries) which provided money for the religious and social agencies that ran the asylums. In addition to the workload, the women were subjected to heavy religious indoctrination stressing the various sins to which they were susceptible. In countries where the Catholic Church was strongest, Magdalene asylums quickly came under church control.

Run by the orders such as the Sisters of Mercy in Ireland, the asylums became even more prison-like in nature with women being actively discouraged from leaving (and often staying for decades). Asylum life was harsh with women being expected to stay silent throughout the day and to address all of the sisters as "Mother", regardless of age. They also worked long hours in the laundry without compensation. Not only were the laundries the primary financial support of the asylums but "penitents" were often told that they needed to "scrub away their sins" through laundry work.

Although the original idea of the asylum was the reform of prostitutes, the admission criteria became even looser over time. Unwed mothers, girls suffering from mental illness or developmental disabilities, and even victims of abuse were often sent to the asylums by parish priests or other community leaders. Pregnant women usually had their babies put up for adoption in other countries without their consent. Lacking family support, women taken into the asylum system could be forced to stay for the rest of their lives.

The Magdalene asylum system in Ireland has probably been the most well-publicized in recent years although allegations of abuse were hardly unique to that country. The devastating Potato Famine in Ireland led to a tremendous upswing in the number of children placed in orphanages and a breakdown in social order. Magdalene asylums seemed ideal for placing girls who were considered sinful and, by the time the last Magdalene asylum was closed in 1996, an estimated 30,000 women and girls had been through the system.

The controversy over Magdalene asylums erupted in 1993 when an order of nuns in Dublin sold of part of their convent to real estate developers. The discovery of 133 bodies of former inmates who had been buried in unmarked graves sparked a major scandal. Although the true number of asylum inmates who had been quietly buried on asylum grounds may never be known, the revelations provided by former inmates who told their stories seemed shocking enough.

The former inmates described how they were sent to the nuns for being (or at least suspected of being) sexually active. Due to the power of the Church in Ireland, there was no possible appeal for their placement in the Good Shepherd Convent in Cork. Their names were changed (to provide a break with their past lives) and they were assigned to work in the laundry for long hours. Not only were they required to do laundry all day long, they were also expected to pray out loud for their sins. Inmates who were unclaimed by family members could never leave.

In 1998, a gripping documentary titled Sex in a Cold Climate first aired in the U.K. The expose on the Magdalene system generated a tremendous uproar (it was never shown in Ireland due to opposition from the Church). Another well-known film titled The Magdalene Sisters was released in 2002.  Although many former inmates have refused to come forward due to the shame that is still associated with having been a Magdalene, hundreds of others have spoken out about their abuse.  Sadly, none them have received any form of compensation or even a formal apology.

As for Magdalene asylums in other countries (including the United Kingdom, Canada,and the United States), information about the number of women who went through the system and when they were finally closed is even scarcer. The legacy of abuse that surrounds the Magdalene asylum system will likely remain hidden until more women speak out.

The Case of Patience Worth

It's hard to say exactly when "Patience Worth" first came into Pearl Curran's life.

Born Pearl Lenore Pollard in 1883, her childhood seemed normal enough. By all accounts, she was extremely sensitive about her appearance and wished that she were more attractive. While not a good student (who eventually dropped out of high school), she had a passion for singing. Pearl's parents arranged for voice lessons and she eventually moved to Chicago to continue her voice training. To support herself, she worked in a music company and taught music herself.  Whatever dreams Pearl had for a career as a singer or actress ended when she married John Howard Curran at the age of 24 and settled down to be a housewife in St. Louis, Missouri. While John wasn't wealthy, he made enough for Pearl to have a comfortable life, a maid to do the housework, and a fair sized home. The first seven years of marriage seemed happy enough.

Except...

Spiritualism was tremendously popular during the early years of the twentieth century with countless occult believers across most English speaking countries. Mediums like Eusapia Palladino and Helene Smith regularly conducted seances for the rich and not-so-rich alike and news of "spooky" happenings definitely sold newspapers. While Houdini's anti-spiritualism crusade helped deflate spiritualist claims, there was still enough interest for ouija boards to be a common item in many homes.

Which brings us to Pearl Curran having a quiet tea with her mother and a family friend at her home in 1913. Pearl was reluctant about using the ouija board that the friend had brought to her home but, after some initial success with messages from "Pat-C", the three of them decided to keep trying. On July 8 of that year, they received the following message: "Many moons ago I lived. Again I come. Patience Worth my name. Wait, I would speak with thee. If thou shalt live, then so shall I. I make my bread at thy hearth. Good friends, let us be merrie. The time for work is past. Let the tabby drowse and blink her wisdom to the firelog."

The "entity" in question identified herself as Patience Worth who had lived in one of the American colonies between 1649 and 1694. Pearl seemed to be the main target for the messages and she stopped using the board when she realized that the sentences were "forming" in her mind at the same time that they were being spelled out. While she would hire a secretary to keep track of Patience's messages, Pearl later just wrote them out herself.

According to Patience, she was born "across the sea" (later identified as Dorsetshire in England) and made an Atlantic crossing in a three-masted schooner to live in one of the American colonies. The details of Patience's life (and her violent death by natives) tended to be sketchy with no real details that could be independently verified. Despite initial skepticism, Pearl (and Patience) were able to gain a considerable following.  During the next 25 years, "Patience Worth" would dictate an estimated 400,000 words including 5,000 poems, a play, various short stories and four novels.

The controversy over Pearl Curran and her writing quickly polarized into two camps. On one side, the skeptics picked up on the various inconsistencies of her story. Not only was there no evidence that Patience Worth had ever existed but at least one of the novels was set in Victorian England,long after Patience "lived".   On the other side, Pearl's supporters stressed her limited education making it unlikely that she could have written everything on her own.

One researcher in particular who took an interest in Pearl's case was Walter Franklin Prince (who had already made a name for himself through the Doris Fischer multiple personality case). He first began studying Pearl Curran in 1926 and, after a thorough investigation, published The Case of Patience Worth in 1927. Prince described the case as representing "an unexpected display of literary genius, ability to carry on complex mental operations, together with apparent divination of other minds". While he was ambivalent about whether Pearl Curran was actually "channeling" Patience, Prince wrote an article that was published in the 1926 issue of Scientific American titled The Riddle of Patience Worth.In the article, he specifically asked anyone with information that could be related to the case to come forward. Nobody took him up on the offer.

Whatever reservations John Curran had about his wife's link to a long-dead women, he would keep careful records of the sessions until his death in 1922. Afterward, Pearl supported herself and her family through lecturing and financial help from friends but the sessions went on. She received her final communication from Patience in November, 1937, a little more than a month before Pearl's death from pneumonia (which Patience reportedly predicted). While later mediums would claim to receive messages from Patience over the years (Pearl didn't seem inclined to make contact herself), nobody would ever match the quality of the original writing.

While Patience Worth is still considered to be a genuine example of spirit writing by true believers, skeptics tend to regard the case as being an example of dissociation (if not an outright hoax). Although automatic writing has long been recognized as a clinical tool by Freudian psychoanalysis, its value has been hotly disputed by other clinicians. Research into automatic writing tends to be limited although the phenomenon has been linked to hypnosis and suggestibility. There have been more recent examples of literary works being produced through automatic writing but the case of Pearl Lenore Curran is still the most well-known of its kind.

In the meantime, ouija boards continue to be sold (Parker Brothers still owns the trademark) but they're not as common as they used to be. Fledgling writers hoping to get published would probably be better off with a good writing class.

The Science of Faking an Orgasm

Considerable work has examined the reasons men and women pretend to orgasm, but few studies have examined how mating motives relate to the various reasons they might do so. Data from an online (N = 656), snowball sample, published recently in Personality and Individual Differences, revealed—through factor analysis—five potential reasons people pretend to orgasm (i.e., positive feedback, enhancing pleasure, avoidance, mate deception, and sexual boredom). These reasons were differentially related to an array of individual differences in mating psychology as captured with the Dark Triad traits (i.e., narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism), sociosexuality, and (self-reported) mate value. There were also sex differences in who pretended for some of the reasons (e.g., women pretended more to offer positive feedback; men pretended more to avoid an awkward situation) and differences depending on whether people genuinely pretended or quasi-pretended (i.e., exaggerated their enjoyment). This study adds to the relevant literature on the reasons people pretend to orgasm but examined how individual differences in mating psychology predict those reasons. It seems that pretending to orgasm may be motivated by different relationship goals and interpersonal styles. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved)

For the abstract

Guilty Verdict in Trial of SC Man Who Killed His Five Children

A South Carolina man has been sentenced to death in the 2014 murder of his five children.

Despite pleading not guilty by reason of insanity, a jury has recommended the death penalty for Timothy Jones Jr.   A week earlier, the same jury had handed down five separate guilty verdicts after two days of deliberation.  

A 37-year-old single parent and computer engineer, Jones admits to killing all five of his children on August 28, 2014.   The first of the children to be killed was six-year-old Nahtahn following an angry confrontation after the child damaged an electrical outlet in their rural trailer.   Though Jones denied intending to kill Nahthan, it was this death that apparently motivated him to strangle his other four children, ranging in age from one to eight.   As he would later tell police, he began hearing voices after Nahthan's death telling him to kill the other children.   He had apparently been afraid that the children would go to his ex-wife and that they would be better off in Heaven.

Following his arrest, Jones told police and forensic psychiatrists that he weighed what to do for several hours after discovering that Nahthan's had died.  He then claimed that he had killed all of his children so that they could "enter Heaven together."    After the murders, he wrapped the bodies in their own bedsheets and placed them in his Cadillac Escalade in a bizarre attempt to escape arrest.   

During the course of the nine days spent on the road, Jones also wrote a series of bizarre notes outlining different strategies for disposing of the bodies, as well as escaping across the Mexican border.  He also researched which countries didn't have extradition treaties with the United States and purchased synthetic marijuana to keep himself going.  Finally, he dumped the decomposing bodies in separate plastic bags along an Alabama logging road.   

During the course of the trial, prosecutors and Jones' defense attorney both argued over his mental state at the time of the killings and whether he knew right from wrong.   Prosecutor Rick Hubbard insisted that Jones was mental competent and acted deliberately.  "The worst of the worst know killing your babies is obscene, outrageous and absolutely morally unacceptable," Hubbard said in court. "Jones did that in a matter of seconds."    As for his defense counsel, they insisted that Jones had mental problems brought on by his chronic synthetic marijuana use as well as his wife's infidelity which had resulted in her leaving him to raise the children alone.  Psychiatrists for both sides provided contradictory opinions.  

Though there are 37 people currently on death row in South Carolina, there have been no executions in that state since 2011.   Given the likelihood of an appeal in the case, Timothy Jones Jr.'s ultimate fate remains in doubt at this point. 

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The Case of the Vampire who Wasn't

There are certain headlines that just naturally draw the eye.  

And, ao it was on November 6, 1892 in newspapers across the United States when readers saw a story with the following heading: 

"HUMAN VAMPIRE

Horrible Practices of a Deranged Portuguese Sailor"

Though the story itself described the more-or-less routine transfer of a prisoner from the Ohio Penitentiary to the National Asylum at Washington, D.C. (now know as St. Elizabeths Hospital),    it also mentioned that the "deranged" inmate "fought like a tiger" when  federal marshals came to take him (he had apparently thought he was going to be hanged).  Six guards were needed to hold him down long enough to be dressed and to secure him for the transfer.  

But it was the bizarre backstory about this particular prisoner that really accounted for the sensational headline.   According to the reporter who wrote the story, the convicted man, who was only known by the name "James Brown", had been convicted of two gruesome vampire-like murders on a ship, twenty-five years earlier.   

Described as a Portuguese sailor (though later accounts disputed this), Brown had been part of the crew of a fishing vessel sailing out of Boston in 1867.  During course of the trip,  a crewman named James Foster went missing.   While nobody had any idea about what had happened to Foster, the disappearance of a second crewman not long afterward led to the ship's captain ordering a shipwide search.    The bodies of both crewmen were found in the ship's hold though accounts seem to differ at this point concerning what happened next.   According to the most lurid account,  Brown was actually "caught in the act" of sucking the blood out of one of  the bodies.   A second account stated that Brown was caught trying to move the bodies to another part of the hold.   Whichever account you believe, there was no disputing the physical injuries were found on both bodies, not to mention reports that they had been drained of blood.

Following his arrest by the crew, Brown was taken back to Boston where he was promptly convicted of murder and sentenced to be hanged  in October, 1866.   Though the date of the hanging had been set for March 15 of the following year, an appeal to then-President Andrew Johnson resulting in Brown's sentence being commuted  to life imprisonment.   Sent to the penitentiary in Charleston, Massachusetts, Brown became well known for his peculiar and, at times alarming, behaviour.   Along with being paranoid about anyone who tried entering his cell, he was also vigilant about his few possessions, especially a Latin book which he used to store important documents.   This included the commutation order signed by the President and Secretary of State William Seward which Brown guarded zealously at all times.   

Even among hardened convicts, Brown apparently stood out.  Described as a "small, dark-skinned man", people who interacted with him also reported that "when enraged, his eyes shine out like coals of fire."  Along with his physical appearance, guards were acutely aware of the crimes for which he had been convicted, as well as his tendency to lash out at anyone who upset him.   In fact, the prison staff were so terrified of him that he spent thirteen years in solitary confinement. Even though guards remained cautious around Brown at all times, he still managed to kill one of them and attack several others (something he would later claim was self-defense). 

Due to questions about Brown's sanity, he was sent to the National Asylum in Washington, D.C. for a psychiatric examination.   Whether because he wasn't showing severe enough symptoms or simply because they didn't want to have to deal with him,  the doctors in Washington soon declared him sane and he was returned to the Charleston penitentiary.  As for Brown, he kept making repeated  complaints about the treatment he was receiving there.   This included sending letters to the governor though all that he got in reply were polite form letters which he included with his other "legal documents."     In 1889, Brown was abruptly transferred to Ohio Penitentiary along with many other prisoners.   Though he was originally leery of the new prison, he would later describe it as  a "paradise" compared to some of the other prisons where he had been housed.   His behaviour improved and he was even allowed to work outside the prison walls for a time.    Still, Brown's mental state deteriorated soon enough and he was eventually placed in restraints after stabbing one guard with a fork and trying to stab several others.

During his more lucid periods, Brown continued to work on his release and even wrote letters to then-President Grover Cleveland in which he tried to set the record straight about his original conviction.  It likely didn't help that he rarely stuck to one story for long and was also prone to bizarre psychotic episodes.  At different times, he would claim to be the president of the New York Central Railroad and to be fabulously rich.   This included offering billions of dollars to have certain of his enemies brought to justice and $150 a day to have servants provide his meals (nobody took him up on this).     He also sent out daily requests for special meals including one memorable note that  proclaimed him to be "Thomas Azzote James Brown, warden of the Ohio penitentiary" and which called for "one barrel of potatoes, one barrel of onions, and one barrel of apples."   Despite his odd requests, there were times when he refused to eat food for days at a time after insisting that a former sweetheart of his, Mary Carey, had touched his food.

When not writing or otherwise acting out, Brown often spent much of his time scrubbing the floor of his cell with a piece of pumice stone.    He also neglected his personal hygiene, including allowing his nails to grow "like talons" and refusing to be shaved.   But the story of James Brown, vampire, largely peters out after his transfer.   

Still, his story wasn't completely forgotten.   In his 1932 book, Wild Talents, Charles Fort wrote about the original shipboard murders for which Brown was convicted though his book failed to shed any light on his eventual fate.   Still, despite the quiet fame Fort's book brought to James Brown's case, the strange lack of publicity surrounding the supposed double murder for which he had been originally convicted seems strange.   Certainly I was never able to find the original news story surrounding his conviction in 1869, something that seems unbelievable considering the bizarre details that were related decades later.   

So, did the vampire murders actually take place?  And how accurate were the later news stories about James Brown's mental state and the reason he was transferred to the National Asylum?  These questions might have gone unanswered if Robert Schneck hadn't explored the actual history of Brown's case in his 2005 book, The President's Vampire.  Not only did Schneck examine many of the original court documents surrounding Brown's trial and conviction but he also went into the actual case files on Brown that are still on record.   

What he learned was that there was only one actual murder on board the ship and, if the eyewitness accounts are to be believed, basically involved Brown retaliating against the victim, James Foster,who made a racial slur.   No vampirism was involved, just a knife which Brown used to stab Foster in the chest.   One eyewitness didn't even realize that Foster had been stabbed until he saw the blood.   As for the rest, it was simply a matter of what usually usually happened in cases of African-Americans killing victims who happened to be white.    It only took a jury seventy-five minutes to sentence him to death.

About the only remarkable thing about the case was that President Johnson commuted the death sentence citing "extenuating circumstances."  Certainly there's nothing surprising about the lack of publicity surrounding Brown's trial or his escaping the death penalty.    Though the rest of his story seems factual enough, there is still the question of how a relatively routine maritime murder was transformed into a lurid tale of high seas vampirism.    Though Shneck suggested that the story may have simply sprung out of the imagination of the reporter who wrote the story, possibly to spice up a slow news day, he did explore Brown's file at the Washington hospital where he had been sent in 1892.   

Brown's file included the many letter he wrote to President Grover Cleveland in which he pleaded to be released.    He also outlined the various mistakes that had been made at his original trial as well as conditions at the hospital where he was being kept.    Brown also wrote numerous letters to his treating physician, Dr. William Godding complaining of the physical abuse he had received from the attendants (which was likely true enough considering he was hardly the only one to report abuse).   And, aside from a brief note in his file indicating that he died in 1895 and buried in the hospital cemetery, that was pretty much it for James Brown.   

As how  the original vampire story even got started and whether or not he was ever the serial killer later stories made him out to be seem impossible to determine today.   Still, there was an unusual amount of vampire hysteria during the early 1880s, including the notorious Mercy Brown case which occurred at around the same time.  Could that have played a role in the how James Brown's story was reported?  At this point, it's anybody's guess.

 

 

The Fliess Fiasco

By 1895, Sigmund Freud's theories of psychoanalysis and the unconscious were still in the formative stage but his revolutionary "talking cure" for treating neurosis had already made him well-known. It seemed only natural that 27-year old Emma Eckstein should seek him out for treatment. She became one of Freud's first analytic patients and he viewed her as a special challenge with her complaints of menstruation-related depression, hysterical anxiety, and frequent nosebleeds. While he believed that Emma's symptoms were psychogenic in nature, he was cautious enough to call in a specialist to rule out possible physical causes.

Enter Wilhelm Fliess. A prominent otolaryngologist who practiced in Berlin, Fliess had already formed a long friendship with Freud since they met at a conference in 1885. In addition to a shared interest in neurosis, Fliess had come up with several, unique, theories of his own which had gained him some fame. Along with his work on biorhythms, Fliess had also developed what he referred to as the nasal reflex neurosis. Essentially, Fliess regarded the human nose as being an important link to sexuality and that sexual problems could be cured by treatment to the nose. Fliess claimed that he could give patients temporary relief by anesthetizing their noses with cocaine but he also advocated a more radical solution with nasal surgery. This operation involved removing several key bones in the nose.

In Emma Eckstein's case, Fliess viewed her as suffering from nasal reflex neurosis brought on by masturbation. Whatever misgivings she might have had about the diagnosis or the radical nasal surgery that Fliess proposed were quickly overcome by Freud's recommendation that she have the surgery. It probably helped that Fliess had also operated on Freud's nose to resolve some cardiac symptoms that he was experiencing. Despite the fact that Fliess had performed few operations of this type in the past and that he would be doing the operation in Vienna where he would not have the chance to follow up on his patient, the surgery went on as planned. He removed the turbinate bone in Emma's nose and instructed Freud to follow up on her after he returned to Berlin.

Emma experienced post-surgery complications from the very beginning. Not only was there considerable pain and hemorrhaging, but pus also began coming from her nose indicating infection (this was in a pre-antibiotic age). Freud called in a specialist who inserted a drainage tube but the bleeding continued along with a "fetid odour". Another surgeon, Ignaz Rosanes, cleaned the infected area and then, as Freud later described in a letter, "suddenly pulled out a thread, and kept on pulling. Before either of us had time to think, at least half a meter of gauze had been removed from the cavity. The next moment came a flood of blood. The patient turned white, her eyes bulged, and she had no pulse." Rosanes was able to pack the cavity and stop the bleeding after a minute but Emma was left "unrecognizable". Seeing what had happened, Freud fled to another room to strengthen himself with a glass of cognac. After returning, "a little tottery" to the room, Emma dryly commented, "So this is the strong sex".

She would need that sense of humour in the months that followed.  Recovery from the near-fatal surgery was extremely slow and left her permanently disfigured. All of which left Freud in an extremely awkward position. Not only had Emma been his patient, but he had referred her to Fliess and recommended the surgery that had nearly killed her. Freud was worried about his patient but he also wanted to protect his friend Fliess from accusations of medical malpractice.  In a letter that he wrote to Fliess afterward, Freud reassured his friend that "You did it as well as one could do it...Of course, no one is blaming you nor would I know why they should".

Freud's determination to protect Fliess took him to remarkable lengths. He wrote to Fliess some time later and concluded in his letter that Emma's bleeding episodes had been hysterical in nature and resulted from "longing, and probably occurred at the sexually relevant times. The woman, out of resistance, has not yet supplied me with the dates." The fact that much of the bleeding was due to the unnecessary surgery that Freud talked her into having seemed irrelevant. Amazingly, Emma Eckstein continued on as Freud's patient and she was the likely inspiration for some his later self-analyses (including his "Irma" dream).  It is a testament to Freud's reputation as a healer that Emma Eckstein viewed her treatment with him as being highly successful despite the disastrous surgery.

Although Emma recovered to some extent, she eventually relapsed and became a bedridden recluse. After seeing another surgeon and having a hysterectomy following treatment for a myeloma, Freud was furious at her belief that her condition was organic and that she had sought treatment from another doctor. In his opinion, this "ruined her for analysis", and he dropped her as a patient. Freud continued to be a significant influence in her life though and she would later recommend her nephew, Albert Hirst, to Freud for treatment in 1910. She also became a psychoanalyst in her own right and wrote a small volume on child sexuality.

While Freud's relationship with Fliess had long since soured, he continued to defend his decision to send Emma to Fliess and described her case as being one of his success stories. When Emma Eckstein died in 1924 at the age of 59, Freud blamed her later relapse and poor health on her hysterectomy. After Fliess' death in 1928, his widow contacted Freud and asked for the letters that Fliess had written to him. Freud tersely told her that he had destroyed them and tried to have his own letters to Fliess destroyed as well.  She sold the letters instead. Orthodox psychoanalysts have restricted access to these letters for decades until Jeffrey Masson succeeded in publishing the complete Freud/Fliess correspondence (he was later fired as Director of the Freud Archives as a result of his controversial works on Freud).

Since the Emma Eckstein case represents one of the few actual examples that Freud ever provided to prove the success of psychoanalysis, the fact that this success story was not such a success seemed an odd omission from Freud's later writings. The disastrous surgery that nearly killed her and the extent to which Freud concealed his own role in damaging her health was largely hidden for decades. The case of Emma Eckstein also represents a warning to health professionals about potentially harmful "fad" treatments that ultimately prove to be more harmful than the conditions they were meant to treat.