234 A. The following account of Dr. Morton Prince's patient, "the Misses Beauchamp," is slightly abridged from his report to the International Congress of Psychology, Paris, August, 1900, which was published in the Proceedings S. P. R., vol. xv. pp. 466-83.

... This case has been the subject of a continuous study for at least three years, and has occupied hundreds of hours of time....

When Miss Beauchamp first came under observation she was a neurasthenic of a very severe type. She was a student in one of our colleges, and there received a very good education. But in consequence of her neurasthenic condition it was simply impossible for her to go on with her work. She was a wreck, I might say, in body. In temperament she is a person of extreme idealism, with a very morbid New England conscientiousness, and a great deal of pride and reserve, so that she is very unwilling to expose herself or her life to anybody's scrutiny.

Now she came to see me in this neurasthenic state, but I found treatment was of almost no use. The usual methods were employed with no result, and it seemed as if her case was hopeless. Finally I concluded to try hypnotic suggestions. She proved a very good subject, and the suggestions produced at the time rather brilliant results. In hypnosis she went easily into the somnambulistic state. This somnambulistic state came later to be known as B. II., while the first personality with whom I became acquainted, Miss Beauchamp herself, was known as B. I. Now I used to notice that as B. II. she was continually rubbing her eyes; her hands were in constant motion, always trying to get at her eyes. Still I paid very little attention to it, or placed very little significance in this fact, merely attributing it to nervousness. One day when I hypnotised her and referred to something that she had done in a previous hypnotic state, - that is to say, something that she had said or done in a previous state when I supposed she was B. II., - she denied all knowledge of it, and said it was not so.

This surprised me, and I attributed the denial at first to an attempt at deception. [Finally], it turned out that when she went into the state of which she later denied the facts, she was an entirely distinct and separate person. This third personality, which then developed, came to be known as B. III. We had then three mental states, B. I., B. II., and B. III.

Table Of Louis V.'s Six States At Rochefort, 1885

B. I. knew nothing of the others. B. II. knew B. I., but no more. B. III. knew both B. I. and B. II. Thus far there was nothing very unusual.

Now B. III. has proved to be one of the most interesting of all the personalities that have developed in the case. In one respect it is one of the most remarkable personalities, I think, that has ever been exhibited in any of these cases of multiple personality, as will, I think, presently appear. B. III., like B. II., was constantly rubbing her eyes, so that I was frequently compelled to hold her hands by force to prevent her from doing so. When asked why she did this, she said she wished to get her eyes opened, and it turned out afterwards that it was she who was rubbing the eyes of B. II. in the earlier times. At this time I prevented B. III. from opening her eyes for the reason that I feared that, if she got her eyes opened and was thereby able to add the visual images of her surroundings to her mental life as B. III., these same images of her surroundings which she would also have, of course, when she was B. I., would by force of the association awaken all her mental associations as B. III., and that, in consequence, B. III. spontaneously would be constantly coming into existence of her own accord. This afterwards proved to be the case.