DELUSIONS OF DOUBT. 791 



but a gigantic hallucination. He continues, in the mean time, to exer- 

 cise the different functions of life. He eats, but it is a shadow of food 

 that enters a shadow of a stomach ; his pulse is only a shadow of a 

 pulse. He is perfectly conscious of the absurdity of his ideas but can 

 not overcome them. Along with this profound intellectual trouble 

 the physical functions have remained perfectly normal. He complains 

 of nothing but a slight pressure on his temples, and about the root of 

 his nose. Deeply sensible of his moral condition, he is afraid he is 

 going mad, and comes of his own accord to ask for a place in an asy- 

 lum for the insane. 



Facts of this kind have been known for a long time. Examples of 

 them may possibly be found m antiquity, but the first authentic ob- 

 servation of one is given by Esquirol. He tells of a young woman 

 brought up in trade, who was tormented by a scrupulous fear of doing 

 wrong to others. "Whenever she drew up an account she was appre- 

 hensive of making a mistake to the prejudice of some other one. One 

 day, coming out from her aunt's house which she visited frequently, 

 she was distressed lest she might involuntarily carry off in her pockets 

 something belonging to her relative. Then she began to take much 

 time to verify her accounts and bills, for fear that she might commit 

 some error and do wrong to purchasers. At a later stage she was 

 afraid, when she handled money, that something valuable would re- 

 main in her finders. It was of no use to tell her that she could not 

 keep a piece of money without perceiving it, or that the contact of her 

 fingers could not change the value of the money she touched. " That 

 is true," she would reply ; " my anxiety is absurd and ridiculous, but I 

 can not help it." She had to withdraw from trade. Gradually her 

 apprehensions grew till they domineered over her whole life. Yet she 

 was reasonable, intelligent, and lively. 



The subject has since been studied and examined in all its aspects 

 by Parchappe, Trelat, Baillarger, the two Falrets, Delasiauve, Morel, 

 and Marce. M. Legrand du Saulle published a monograph on it, em- 

 bodying the results of the labors of his predecessors, in 1875. My 

 colleague, M. Ritti, has published an interesting study upon it in the 

 " Gazette Hebdomadaire," and a very complete article in the " Diction- 

 naire Encyclopedique" ; and Griesinger and Dr. Oscar Berger have 

 published essays upon it in Germany. 



Let us pass to the description of the doubting folly (folic du chute). 

 The beginning of the malady is sometimes obscure, but it is rarely 

 abrupt, as in the case we have noticed. Generally the patient, as in 

 the observation of Esquirol, exhibits odd scruples ; he attracts atten- 

 tion by his eccentricities, and becomes incapable of any kind of labor ; 

 he is afraid of compromising himself, reads and rereads what he has 

 just written, and takes infinite precautions not to make a mistake. A 

 doctor, afflicted with this folly, having carefully examined the patients 

 who consult him, gave them prescriptions that he had compiled with 



