My name is George Miller Beard and I have a strange tale to tell you, a story so bizarre and truly unbelievable that I am certain people will doubt my report and perhaps even question my motives in discussing this subject. Still, what I have to reveal to you is the honest truth, witnessed only lately from my long journey to the northern woods of Maine in this year, 1878. Now, before I reveal my discovery, which I am certain you will doubt, you should know that I am a graduate of Yale College, class of 1862, and I received my medical degree from the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York in 1866. During the War, I was an assistant surgeon in the West Gulf Squadron of the Union Navy aboard the gunboat New London. I have published several articles concerning the mental conditions suffered by so many after the war and was the first to name exhaustion of the central nervous system as Neurasthenia.  My entire professional life has been devoted to helping those afflicted by the stresses of the modern world, a kind of deep anxiety characterized by low energy, headaches, and finally, of depression. I have fought for psychiatric reforms and have diligently tried to care for the mentally ill.  I am, as I am sure you can imagine, not a man prone to flights of fancy or foolish suppositions. But that is precisely why you should listen to my discovery because, as truly remarkable and unbelievable as it is, I could never have concocted such a tale as the one which follows.  I had heard of these lumbermen of Maine from an acquaintance who had returned from a winter spent among them in the region of Maine near Moosehead Lake. This distant outpost was sparsely settled and these people were a singular one, hardly mixing with others. Most of these men he described to me were of French-Canadian descent and many only spoke a smattering of English.  My friend described to me a condition he had witnessed more than once among this population that was at once both unbelievable and inconceivable. It was something that the lumbermen understood as common and not remarkable at all, though they took great pleasure in torturing those poor souls who were afflicted with it.    He explained it to me in this way. “When one of his fellows suddenly shouts an order to one of these Frenchmen, like, ‘Punch the Wall!’ or ‘throw that axe’, why, the poor fellow suddenly drops whatever he is doing and does whatever he had been commanded to do, sometimes harming himself in the process. The poor fellow is always shocked that he did such a thing, but he cannot seem to stop himself whenever he is suddenly shouted an order. It is always an instantaneous thing, and often accompanied by shouting and wild movements. Many will repeat the last word of the order they were given. That is, if he is told to slap his friend’s face, he shouts “Face!” as he gives his friend a whack.” My friend told me that it was something that happened to many of the Frenchmen in the camps of the area and he was troubled because these poor souls were being harassed by those other lumbermen who were not afflicted in such a way. “You really should find your way up there, Beard,” he told me, “if only to see these things for yourself.” After he had related these events to me, I found that the idea of it haunted me day and night. How could such a thing be? I had seen many ailments of the mind in my work, but never anything so odd and unique as the idea that a simple sudden suggestion could elicit such a response from such hardworking but unlearned men. I resolved to make the journey and observe this behavior myself.I would take the train to the end of the line at Moosehead Lake and journey from there to the camps with an acquaintance of my friend. I had to see for myself. It did not take me long to discover that everything I had been told was true. I found myself in an otherwise unremarkable camp in the middle of forest. The lumbermen do most of