DR. SEWARD'S DIARY
4 September.--Zoophagous patient still keeps up our interest in him.
He had only one outburst and that was yesterday at an unusual time.
Just before the stroke of noon he began to grow restless. The
attendant knew the symptoms, and at once summoned aid. Fortunately
the men came at a run, and were just in time, for at the stroke of
noon he became so violent that it took all their strength to hold him.
In about five minutes, however, he began to get more quiet, and
finally sank into a sort of melancholy, in which state he has remained
up to now. The attendant tells me that his screams whilst in the
paroxysm were really appalling. I found my hands full when I got in,
attending to some of the other patients who were frightened by him.
Indeed, I can quite understand the effect, for the sounds disturbed
even me, though I was some distance away. It is now after the dinner
hour of the asylum, and as yet my patient sits in a corner brooding,
with a dull, sullen, woe-begone look in his face, which seems rather
to indicate than to show something directly. I cannot quite
understand it.
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