HYSTERIA AS AN ASSET 573 



hear of in the faith cures, or such as corporation partisans maintain 

 follow quick on payment, do not come within the range of medical 

 experience. It is always several months, sometimes a year or two or 

 maybe even longer, before disabling symptoms disappear. 



The farmer whose case has already been described suffered pain and 

 disability for a year after his suit was finished and it was four years 

 before he recovered speech and hearing. 



Litigation permits no let-ups in the disease creating suggestions; 

 and the longer the litigation period, the longer, other things being 

 equal, the time required for cure. In the case of a young man injured 

 in Washington, D. C, there were eight years between the accident and 

 final verdict. During this considerable fraction of his life, the plain- 

 tiff was glued to his chair, the victim of paralysis from idea.- I am 

 still confident of his recovery, though even now, eighteen months after 

 the finish of the legal contest, he has not begun to walk. 



The mechanism of recovery in these litigated cases is different than 

 in the ones reported from the shrines of healing. In these latter, the 

 priests make new suggestions, getting at the soul through anticipation, 

 faith and religious fervor. In traumatic hysteria, the cures take place, 

 not so much from fresh suggestions as from removal of those which 

 worked the injury. New springs of action are not tapped; but the 

 stones which blocked the old ones are one by one removed. Once the 

 case is settled, the attorney's sympathy becomes homeopathic in its 

 dosage ; the physician abandons the contingent fee ; family and friends, 

 worn out by watching and satisfied at last that the patient will not die, 

 resume their wonted occupations. The invalid is left, more and more 

 alone. Under the fillip of neglect, the fixed ideas show signs of weak- 

 ening. The patient reflects less and less upon his injury and begins to 

 see, in the distance, perhaps, but every day more clearly, the smiling 

 visage of Hygeia. His interest now is to regain his health and enjoy 

 his money, as before it was to stay ill enough to get it. Little by little, 

 he regains his balance and begins to hobble about the room. New 

 trials and achievements add to his confidence, though he has occasional 

 relapses. 'He gets out on the street and finds himself more capable 

 than they ever let him think he would be. Then under the stress of 

 some emotion, or forced by some sudden danger, the part paralyzed 

 springs into pristine being; and soon after he resumes his work. 



It has long been held that such cases are the products of voluntary 

 creation and that the hysteric is an actor and a fraud. Such a view is 

 surely wrong. No actor can ever equal the mimetic powers of this 

 wonderful psychosis ; and even if the hysteric is a fraud, who, at times, 

 is not? The disease reflects, to some extent, the normal nature of its 

 victims; but it reflects still more the environment in which it is born 

 and lives and dies. 



* Physicians on both sides agreed in this diagnosis. 



