42 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



intellectual young man of about sixteen, and he came in on a single 

 crutch, with the left or affected limb swinging limp and wholly useless, 

 and when I laid him on his back, and took hold of the leg to examine 

 it, I found it utterly resistless to every motion. The muscles were 

 wasted, soft, and without tonicity, and, there being a large outward 

 bending in the middle of the bone with lapping of more than two 

 inches, it would roll about, when touched, like a crooked stick on the 

 floor, and it was almost impossible to keep it still long enough to make 

 a diagram. The attenuation of the soft parts was so great that the 

 bone was easily examined, and no line of union or the slightest evi- 

 dence of callus being fert at the seat of the alleged second fracture, 

 and being assured that one of the remarkable things in the case was 

 that there had never been any callus, I concluded that the bone had not 

 been fractured at the last injury. There was no doubt that an unfrac- 

 tured bone had been hastily put in splints, and for a year, and up to 

 that time, three eminent men had been devising and using various 

 splints for securing apposition of a fracture which did not exist. That 

 it did not exist is proved by the fact that three days after his arrival 

 he was walking on that leg. 



The explanation of this case is exceedingly simple : he thought he 

 had refractured his femur at the second accident. This impression 

 caused him instinctively and quite unconsciously to withhold muscular 

 action in that limb that is, he did what he ought to have done if the 

 limb had been fractured. It was the completeness of the control over 

 the muscles, the utter restraint of all muscular action, causing the to- 

 tally relaxed and powei'less condition, which was mistaken for a broken 

 bone. Of course, the trouble was purely mental. But it was not a 

 condition of mind of which he was in the slightest degree conscious. 

 He was not aware of the fact that he was restraining the muscles from 

 acting during this long time ; so effectually restraining them that all 

 spontaneity was destroyed by a direct and positive effort of the will. 

 He held his limb in a mental vise of such force and persistency that its 

 nutrition was interfered with, and it was wasted to the last degree. 

 And yet he did not know it. There was no shamming. His condition 

 \vas a great distress to him. He was also at an age when male persons 

 are the least liable to morbid sentiments. At any rate, I could find 

 none in his case. A mere explanation of his condition was not suffi- 

 cient to enable him to relax his mental hold en the limb. The mental 

 impression subordinated his will and the ordinary desire. His treat- 

 ment consisted in providing situations which would assist him to let go 

 of his leg. I caused him to take certain violent exercises with his 

 upper extremities. The intention was to make them so violent that 

 his whole attention would be required for the upper, and there would 

 be none left for the lower extremity. The plan succeeded. Within 

 three days he gave up restraining the limb let go of it ; in fact, spon- 

 taneity was restored, and he began to walk ; began involuntarily, and 



