DELUSIONS OF DOUBT, 793 



doctor's coat, or the books on his table. M. Legrand du Saulle tells of 

 a patient who would say, " Excuse me, it is involuntary, but I must 

 count." Some celebrated men seem to have a similar mania. Dr. 

 Johnson never omitted to step on every stone of the walk as he passed 

 them ; and, if by any chance he thought he had forgotten one, he would 

 go back to touch it. Napoleon was in the habit of counting by pairs 

 the windows as he went along the street. Other forms of this mad- 

 ness escape all classification. I have just seen a patient in whom an 

 acute rheumatism has been followed by a special trouble of the will. 

 If he is going into a house, or out of it, he experiences an invincible 

 resistance at the door-sill, and he has to be urged before he can get 

 over the obstacle. Sometimes, on the public road, he can not pass a 

 tree or a stone. He is also persecuted by certain words, and when one 

 of them gets into his head he repeats it through the whole day. 



Some of these patients are described as being affected with an ex- 

 aggerated fear of the contact of exterior objects. This is true. It 

 has been attested by numerous observers, but the doubting folly can 

 exist without such a complication, and our patient, who has no fear of 

 the kind, is a proof of it. On the other side, the fear of contact may 

 exist without the doubting folly. 



A few additional characteristics will complete our view. The 

 doubting folly is a conscious insanity. Persons afflicted with it are 

 perfectly aware of their condition, and able of their own motive to put 

 themselves under medical care. A second important characteristic is 

 that persons afflicted with it seldom labor under hallucinations. When 

 these occur it is the result of some other form of delirium which may 

 be present in addition to this. A third characteristic is the per- 

 petual desire the patients experience of having their doubts quieted 

 by the affirmation of another person. A woman, cited by M. Ritti, 

 was always afraid that she had said or done something reprehensible. 

 If a person who could inspire confidence in her told her nothing of the 

 kind had occurred, she immediately became calm again. A patient, 

 who came to consult me, expressed doubts as soon aa she entered my 

 office as to whether I was really a doctor. Upon my answering that 

 I was, she asked permission to inquire of the persons who were waiting 

 in the parlor if I really exercised the medical profession. Sometimes 

 patients of this class, after having solicited reassuring affirmations and 

 having exhausted all the forms of question that imagination could sug- 

 gest, add the demand, " Will you write it down for me ? " 



One of the most curious instances of this whim is related by M. 

 Baillarger : A man about sixty years old had a passion, whenever he 

 went to the theatre, for becoming acquainted with everything relating 

 to the actresses he saw. He would want to know their age, their 

 address, their family position, their ways of life, their habits, and their 

 responsibilities. Tormented by this fixed idea, he had to deprive 

 himself of the pleasure of going to the play. Soon, however, the 



