Tin of green tea, removed from the study of the Reverend
Robert Lynder Jennings and entered in evidence during the
inquest into his self-inflicted death, the jury reaching a verdict
of "hereditary suicidal mania." By his own account, Jennings,
while working upon a scholarly study of the religious
metaphysics of the ancients, had fallen into the habit of
imbibing considerable quantities of green tea between eleven
o'clock and three in the morning. When he began to be
tormented by the appearance of a spectral monkey of a
peculiarly malignant and distressing appearance, he retained
the services of the famous Dr. Hesselius in the hope that he
might cure him of his affliction. Though unable to prevent
Jennings's death, Hesselius concluded that his overindulgence
in green tea had disturbed the equlibrium of a certain etherial
fluid which circulates through the nervous system, leading to
the exposure of a surface of the brain which enabled the
disembodied spirit to influence the thoughts and eventually the
actions of the unhappy man. See Hesselius's "The Cardinal
Functions of the Brain" and various papers upon Metaphysical
Medicine. See also the passages in Emmanuel Swedenborg¹s
Arcana Coelestia relating to the ability of evil spirits to present
themselves to human beings in the direful and atrocious form
of the beast (fera) which represents one's particular sin.
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