She even prescribed for herself with success, yet was not a Spiritualist.
She was a somnambulist; and, though weak enough when awake, threatened
several times to pull the house down, by her violence in this condition.
She had strength like a lion, and no man could manage her. I saw the same
thing in the hospital later. This aunt is now healthy; not cured by her
own prescriptions or the magnetic or infinitesimal doses of Dr. Arthur
Lutze, but by a strong emotion which took possession of her at the time of
my great-aunt's death. She is not sorry that she has lost all these
strange powers, but heartily glad of it. When she afterwards visited us in
Berlin, she could speak calmly and quietly of the perversion to which the
nervous system may become subject, if managed wrongly; and could not tell
how glad she was to be rid of all the emotions and notions she had been
compelled to dream out. Over-care and over-anxiety had brought this about;
and the same causes could again bring on a condition which the ancients
deemed holy, and which the psychologist treats as one bordering on
insanity.

The old aunt was extremely suspicious and avaricious. Eight weeks after my
arrival, she submitted to an operation. The operating surgeon found me so
good an assistant, that he intrusted me often with the succeeding dressing
of the wound. For six weeks, I was the sole nurse of the two; going from
one room to the other both night and day, and attending to the household
matters beside, with no other assistant than a woman who came every
morning for an hour or two to do the rough work; while an uncle and a
boy-cousin were continually troubling me with their torn buttons, &c.

I learned in this time to be cheerful and light-hearted in all
circumstances; going often into the anteroom to have a healthy, hearty
laugh. My surroundings were certainly any thing but inspiring. I had the
sole responsibility of the two sick women; the one annoying me with her