priests and monks of the neighbourhood, she became possessed, and, as
it appeared, by a very learned devil. She continued incessantly
talking Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, in very pompous tones and with most
distinct enunciation. This possession was rendered more probable by
the known fact that she was or had been a heretic. Voltaire humorously
advises the devil to decline all acquaintance with medical men; and it
would have been more to his reputation, if he had taken this advice in
the present instance. The case had attracted the particular attention
of a young physician, and by his statement many eminent physiologists
and psychologists visited the town, and cross-examined the case on the
spot. Sheets full of her ravings were taken down from her own mouth,
and were found to consist of sentences, coherent and intelligible each
for itself, but with little or no connection with each other. Of the
Hebrew, a small portion only could be traced to the Bible; the
remainder seemed to be in the Rabbinical dialect. All trick or
conspiracy was out of the question. Not only had the young woman ever
been a harmless, simple creature; but she was evidently labouring
under a nervous fever. In the town, in which she had been resident for
many years as a servant in different families, no solution presented
itself. The young physician, however, determined to trace her past
life step by step; for the patient herself was incapable of returning
a rational answer. He at length succeeded in discovering the place,
where her parents had lived: travelled thither, found them dead, but
an uncle surviving; and from him learned, that the patient had been
charitably taken by an old Protestant pastor at nine years old, and
had remained with him some years, even till the old man's death. Of
this pastor the uncle knew nothing, but that he was a very good man.
With great difficulty, and after much search, our young medical
philosopher discovered a niece of the pastor's, who had lived with him
as his house-keeper, and had inherited his effects. She remembered the