HYSTERIA AND DEMONISM. 163 



horrible drama. In reality, all is foreordained, regulated. The tumult 

 goes on with the mathematical precision of a well-adjusted clock. 



Fantastic as the delirium of the patients during their attack may 

 appear, it always has a cause and occasion. The hallucinations of a 

 demoniac resemble the real episodes of her life, particularly the one 

 which has had the most influence in the development of her malady. 

 It is true, as we have already said, that the principal cause of hysteria 

 is hereditary predisposition ; still, an accident is needed, an exterior 

 provocation for the first nervous crisis, some event which may be grave 

 or light, to determine the outbreak of a malady which has been brood- 

 ing for a long time. This event is often a fright, a violent emotion, 

 some grief, a disillusion. Then, in the attacks of delirium, the things 

 and persons that were the occasion of the emotion fright, grief re- 

 appear as hallucinations. This influence of what has happened in the 

 past establishes an important difference between the delirium of the 

 insane and that of persons suffering from hysteria. The visions of 

 the insane, whatever they may be, generally have no immediate rela- 

 tion to anterior events, while the form of delirium in hysteria is nearly 

 always determined by an incident which has formerly played an im- 

 portant part in the life of the patient. The visions of beasts and mon- 

 sters are common to all delirium. They appear whenever a fever has 

 deranged the cerebral functions, and are the generally recognized 

 marks of alcoholic delirium. 



The period of delirium which indicates the ending of the attack is 

 sometimes quite short. More often it is prolonged for several hours, 

 and not rarely it persists for some days. The cerebral functions have 

 been deeply troubled, and they return very slowly to their normal 

 condition. It is, however, hardly proper to use this expression to de- 

 scribe the intelligence of the hysterical patients as it is observed dur- 

 ing the intervals between their fits. Intelligence, it is true, is not ex- 

 tinguished ; the memory, the keystone of the intellectual arch, is pre- 

 served ; but the other faculties are singularly perverted. We can 

 gain a good idea of their condition by studying the manners and the 

 conversation of the demoniacs in the Salpetriere. They pass the day 

 in continual laughing at things that have nothing laughable in them 

 at the servant-maid who passes by, for example, at a badly made bed, 

 at a bird that perches near the window, at a badly fastened bonnet. 

 The same causes will as readily provoke tears. Interminable conversa- 

 tions are always going on, recriminations, with indignation drowned 

 in a flood of words. With all this is combined an unceasing move- 

 ment which has no real object and can not be explained. The woman 

 must put flowers on the bolster of her bed, a ribbon in her hair, she 

 must decorate herself with gewgaws ; and the busy carefulness in 

 these little matters contrasts with the negligence and disorder of the 

 general keeping ; a patient whose hat is adorned with ribbons will go 

 out barefooted into the court. Odd ideas prevail, and absurd antipa- 



