Jean Vitalis

[Translated from French]

Dr. W.C., of Seranyn, in his work: Contribution to the Study of certain unacknowledged cerebral faculties, reports the following fact, which he personally observed during his long medical career:

Jean Vitalis was a robust, stout, sanguine man, married, childless, enjoying perfect health. He must have been 39 years old when he was suddenly seized by a violent fever and joint pains. I was his doctor, and when I saw him, the symptoms he presented were those of acute articular rheumatism…

I was surprised, on the morning of the sixteenth day, to find Jean Vitalis fully dressed, sitting on his bed, smiling, with his feet and hands completely uncovered and no longer showing any fever.

I had left him the day before in a sad state. The joints of the shoulder, elbow, hands, knee, and feet were swollen and painful. He had a high fever, and I could never anticipate finding him as fresh and comfortable as he was.

Very calmly, he told me that he attributed his sudden recovery to a vision he had had during the night. He claimed that his father, who had died several years earlier, had appeared to him.

Here is what he told me:

My father came to visit me last night. He entered my room through the window that overlooks the garden. He first looked at me from afar, then he approached me, touched me all over to remove my pains and fever, then he announced to me that I was going to die this evening, at exactly 9 o’clock. At the moment of his departure, he added that he hoped I would prepare for this death, like a good Catholic. I called my confessor, who will arrive soon; I will confess and receive communion; then I will have the last rites administered to me. Thank you very much for the care you have given me; my death will not be caused by any lack on your part. It’s what my father wants; he undoubtedly needs me, he will come back for me at 9 o’clock tonight.

All this was said very calmly, with a smiling face and a real expression of contentment, and happiness radiated from his features.

“You had a dream, a hallucination,” I said to him, “and I’m surprised that you believe in it.”

“No, no,” he said to me, “I was perfectly awake, it wasn’t a dream. My father really came, I saw him clearly, I heard him clearly, he looked very much alive.”

“But this prediction of your death at a fixed time, you surely don’t believe in it, since you’re now healed?”

“My father can’t have deceived me. I am certain that I will die tonight, at the time he indicated.”

His pulse was full, calm, regular, his temperature normal. There was nothing to indicate that I was in the presence of a seriously ill patient. However, I warned the family that deaths sometimes occurred in cases of cerebral rheumatism, and Dr. R…, an old and excellent practitioner, was called in for consultation.

Dr. R… made all kinds of jokes about his hallucination and imminent death in front of the patient; but privately, in front of the assembled family, he said that the brain was affected and that, in this case, the prognosis was serious.

“The calm of the patient,” he added, “is bizarre and unusual. His belief in the objectivity of his vision and his imminent death is surprising. Usually, one is afraid of death; he doesn’t seem to care about it, on the contrary, he seems happy and content to die. However, I can assure you that he doesn’t look like a man who will die tonight; as for predicting the moment of his death in advance, it’s nonsense.”

I returned around noon to see my patient, who interested me greatly. I found him standing, walking back and forth in the bedroom, and that with a firm step, without the slightest sign of weakness or pain.

“Ah! he said to me, I was waiting for you. Now that I’ve confessed and received communion, can I eat something? I’m terribly hungry, but I didn’t want to take anything without your permission.”

Since he had no fever and appeared to be in perfect health, I allowed him to eat a steak with apples.

I returned at 8 o’clock in the evening. I wanted to be by the patient’s side to see what he would do when 9 o’clock came.

He was still cheerful; he took part in the conversation with enthusiasm and reason. All the members of his family were gathered in the room. They talked, they laughed. His confessor, who was there, told me that he had to give in to the patient’s repeated requests, and that he had just administered the last rites to him.

“I didn’t want to contradict him,” he added; “he insisted so much; besides, it’s a sacrament that can be administered several times.”

There was a clock in the room, and Jean, whom I didn’t lose sight of, occasionally cast anxious glances at it.

When the clock struck one minute to 9, and while everyone continued to laugh and talk, he got up from the sofa on which he was sitting and said calmly:

“The time has come.”

He kissed his wife, his brothers, his sisters, then he jumped onto his bed with great agility. He sat down, arranged the pillows, then, like an actor who greets the audience, he bowed his head several times, saying: “Goodbye! Goodbye!” was heard without haste and did not move anymore.

I approached him slowly, convinced that he was hastening death.

To my great surprise, he was dead, without anguish, without a rattle, without a sigh; he died a death that I have never seen.

At first, we hoped that it was only prolonged syncope, catalepsy; the burial was long delayed, but we had to face the evidence in the face of the rigidity of the corpse and the signs of decomposition that followed.

---

Ernesto Bozzano, Phénomènes Psychiques au Moment de la Mort (JMG éditions, Agnières, 2001), p. 24-27.