Stigmata

“ THE STIGMATA AND ECSTASIES OF LOUISE LATEAU OF BOIS D’HAINE.
Since the days of St. Francis of Assisium, whose life in the thirteenth century was one constant succession of marvels, the occasional appearance upon favored individuals of the stigmata, [45] and the occurrence of ecstatic visions, have excited the deepest interest in devout minds.
To the eye of faith, these departures from the ordinary laws of nature, like the miracles which God has vouchsafed in all ages of the church, have seemed fresh and brilliant illustrations of this divine power. ”

“ The stigma, therefore, has not the value of a definitely pathognomonic sign like the crepitating râle of pneumonia, or the transient unconsciousness of epilepsy; but if we compare a group of normal children with a group of abnormal, the total number of the stigmata will be much greater in the second group; and, moreover, the multiplicity of stigmata in a single individual constitutes a strong probability that that individual is abnormal. ”

“ Concurrently with the motor phenomena, stigmata [81] may become developed by vascular and nutritive troubles produced under the influence of a strong excitation or by the imagination.
Spitzka, [82] who approached maternal impressions from an actively sceptical standpoint, had his scepticism shaken by specimens (preserved in the British Museum) of newly hatched chicks, all of which had a curved beak like a parrot, and the toes set back as in that bird. ”

“ He says that not only are stigmata and ecstasies capable of explanation when taken apart from one another, but that by their union they constitute what in pathology is called aggregate of symptoms. According to this, stigmata and ecstasies would constitute an altogether unique morbid state, to which the professor gives the following name and definition: “Stigmatic neuropathy is a nervous disease, having its seat in the base of the medulla oblongata, the first stage of which consists in the paralysis of the vaso-motor centre, and the second in its excitation.” ”

“ The physical stigmata, which have been enumerated at 436great length by specialist writers, consist in anomalies of the skeleton, the muscular and the digestive system, of the respiratory, circulatory, and genito-urinary apparatus, of the skin, the special sense-organs, of speech, and especially of the central and peripheral nervous system. The detailed lists contain about sixty items.
The psychic stigmata are more vaguely defined. The principal are: irritability, showing itself in a marked disproportion between action and reaction ”

“ In some a serial arrangement of stigmata comparable to that observed in Chilopoda is found. In other cases (some larvae) stigmata are absent; in other cases again a single stigma is developed, as in the smaller Arachnida and Chilopoda, in the median dorsal line or other unexpected position. When the facile tendency of Arthropoda to develop tracheal air-tubes is admitted, it becomes probable that the tracheae of Hexapods do not all belong to one original system, but may be accounted for by new developments within the group. ”

“ Owing to their small size and transparency, it is possible to examine specimens alive under the microscope, the currents passing through the stigmata in the walls of the branchial sac, and the beating of the heart being distinctly visible. The rapid motion of the cilia surrounding stigmata gives the appearance of dark wheels all rotating in the same direction. The heart beats so as to drive the blood current so many times in one direction, and then after a short pause, in the reverse direction. ”

“ Thus Francis of Assisi, Louise Lateau, and others, thoroughly excited by passionate devotion and desire to exhibit the stigmata—where such exhibition has been the dominant idea, and the momentary expectation of its outbreak has been entertained—have unconsciously so directed the currents of nervous energy that the very phenomena desiderated have become visible. There may not have been anything but a remote correspondence between these phenomena and the wounds of the Redeemer, but extravagant fancy would at once ignore the discrepancy. ”

“ The study of the various stigmata shows that many of these are present regularly in certain types of individuals. Consequently we may group individuals from an endocrine viewpoint into various types according to the prominent endocrine stigmata which they show. For example, the nervous, thin individual with tachycardia, rather prominent eyeballs, fine, delicate hair, suffering occasionally from gastric symptoms, suggests [206] the thyroid type, as does also the clean-cut, alert individual, and the young woman suffering with amenorrhea and a tendency to obesity and lethargic mentality. ”

“ The Bishop of Olmutz denounced the alleged miracle as irrational. The Dominican, Jacob de Voragine, did not deny the fact of the stigmata, but assigned five causes for them. All resolve themselves into the first, which is imagination. Petrarch, Cornelius Agrippa, etc., attributed the stigmatization of Bernardone to his glowing fancy, or to an excited imagination acting on a body enfeebled by sickness and religious mortifications. ”

“ We find ourselves in all these cases in the presence of pathological phenomena affecting either the species or the individual. On the strength of analogies shown by certain malformations, the tendency to-day is to consider them as "arrests of development" or phenomena of infantilism, such, for example, as macrocephaly, macroscelia, nipples or shoulders placed too high, nose tending to flatness, handle-shaped ears, etc.—a whole series of stigmata which go by the name of stigmata of relative retrogression. ”

“ The stigmata of degeneracy, therefore, most likely to attract attention are in the order given, those of the face, jaws, and teeth; ear, eye, cranium; body, bodily functions; brain and spinal cord. Under these last are to be included their mental and nervous functions.
The following table summarizes in practical form these stigmata [65] :—
The factors producing degeneration act by causing nervous exhaustion in the first generation. ”

“ Now, if by degeneration be meant a more or less pronounced hereditary psychopathic or neuropathic tendency which betrays itself by actual physical or psychical stigmata, then tic patients are unquestionably degenerates. If degeneration unveils itself in multifarious psychical or physical anomalies, the subjects of the tic are undoubtedly degenerates. If a degenerate may suffer from one or other variety of aboulia, or phobia, or obsession, the man with tic is a degenerate too. ”

“ These insensitive areas, known as stigmata, played a very important role in the epidemic of witchcraft hunting of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when the witch was so diagnosed if she felt no pain when a needle was thrust into her. Mankind has often enough worshiped the insane and mentally aberrant and has as often been diabolically cruel to them. ”

“ According to him, the air, upon being forcibly expelled from the stigmata, particularly those of the thorax, by the violent agitation which the animal imparts to its whole body, strikes against the lateral edges of the tegmina; but being unable to escape in that direction, it is forced to ascend, and comes in contact with the membranous areolets, which by being thus struck are thrown into a state of vibration. ”

“ It must not be forgotten either that neurotic patients may develop serious organic disease in the midst of their neurotic symptoms and care must be taken not to miss the significance of special symptoms. When the patient is not well known, the presence of certain stigmata, as they have been called, enable the physician to recognize the probability that a neurotic condition is present. ”

“ In order to breathe, the fully-grown nymph either rises up on the upper side and elevates the end of the body to the surface in order to take the air into the rectum, or it rests with the back of the thorax at the surface in order to breathe through the large stigmata. The young nymphs take in air only through the rectum. The young nymphs of Libellula and its allies, on the other hand, possess large thoracic stigmata, but they prefer to breathe through the rectum. The fully-grown nymphs of Agrion breathe through the thoracic stigmata. (Dewitz, in Kolbe.) ”

“ She is said to spring up again into her former position, as often as her state of ecstacy comes upon her, without disjoining her hands; and this we should have liked to see, but the friar was urgent that we should leave, and we accordingly obeyed. The sleeves she wore round her wrists prevented our being able to see whether the stigmata were visible, which she bears on her hands and on her feet. The Bishop of Trent afterwards told me we should have asked the {139} confessor to order her to show us the former. ”

“ The Stigmata of Degeneration.—Everyone has heard of the physical malformations which are called the stigmata of degeneration. Some of these are very apparent, such as a sixth finger on the hand, or a hare-lip, or those deformities of the head, which are called plagiocephalus (obliquely oval cranium) , scaphocephalus (boat-shaped cranium) , etc. Other stigmata are less apparent, such as abnormal shapes of the ear, irregular growth of hair, of the teeth, alterations in the eye, etc. Some doctors, not all, have made a study of these various stigmata. ”

“ The mouth is at the extremity of the beak, and is furnished with a straining apparatus of complicated hairs.
The abdomen possesses ten free segments, marked off by dorsal and ventral plates, with a wide membranous lateral interval. The ventral plates are paired, the first pair forming the genital opercula, while behind the second and third are two pairs of stigmata. Some species have a single median stigma on the fourth segment, but this is in some cases permanently closed, and in the genus Rhagodes entirely absent, so that it would seem to be a disappearing structure. ”

“ All the brood of negative, fearful, selfish, hateful thoughts manifest themselves in physical conditions. Stigmata or marks upon the body, caused by fear or desire, are quite common in the annals of medical science and psychology. ”

“ The representatives of the family Tarsonemidæ are minute mites, with the body divided into cephalothorax and abdomen. There is marked sexual dimorphism. The females possess stigmata at the anterior part of the body, at the base of the rostrum, and differ from all other mites in having on each side, a prominent clavate organ between the first and second legs. The larva, when it exists, is hexapodous and resembles the adult. A number of the species are true parasites on insects, while others attack plants. Several of them may be accidental parasites of man. ”

“ No genuine stigmata were discovered, but on some of the mesosomatic somites a curved ridge running obliquely outwards and backwards on the sides of the segments was traceable. The ridge on the second somite Laurie interprets as the impression of the outline of the pecten, those on the others as the outline of a plate-like gill-bearing appendage. ”

“ The same influence must equally affect functions of the structures. Furthermore, expressions of degeneracy will, as already stated, be influenced by the periods of stress; the first and second dentition, puberty, the climacteric and the senile period. In a general way these stigmata are divisible into mental and physical, and are best observable in their relations to the periods of stress. In certain races, as in certain animals, conditions appearing before puberty was completed cannot be considered as settling the position of the animal in evolution. ”

“ Thus the Dominican Paula de St Thomas was said to have had the stigmata on her heart. The heart of Clare of Montfaucon (1308) was said to have been as large as a child’s head and impressed with the cross, the scourge and the nails. Similar appearances were found in Margaret of Citta di Capello and Johanna of Yepes (1591) .
The instances of masculine stigmatization are few. Benedict di Rhegio, a Capuchin at Bologna, had the marks of the crown (1602) ; Carolus Sazia, an ignorant lay brother, had the wound in his side. ”

“ Sub-order d. Prostigmata.—Integument soft, strengthened by special sclerites, those on the ventral surface of the prosoma apparently representing the basal segments of the legs embedded in the skin. Tracheae, except in the aquatic species in which they are atrophied, opening by a pair of stigmata situated close to or above the base of the appendages of the 1st pair (mandibles) . ”

“ In all, some eighteen women, married and single—the charge was generally made against women, as probably less capable of self-defence, and more [Pg 252] impressionable than men—were brought to trial at Lancaster Assizes. There was really no evidence against them but the boy Robinson’s, and to sustain it his unfortunate victims were examined for the stigmata, or devil-marks, which, of course, were found in ample quantity. ”

“ Dr Enderlein found seventeen specimens of this species in the skin behind the ears of a rat from Brazil.
The belief that the eggs are laid in the flesh of the victim is mistaken. The hind segments of the body and their stigmata are always exposed to the air. The stigma of the eighth abdominal segment is particularly large. As soon as the eggs have been laid, the body of the mother dies, withers, and falls away from the skin of the host. The fact that several females are often found where one has buried herself, led to the notion that these parasites bred in the wound. ”