86 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



fool; a fault, a defect. Latya, to speak foolishly." I think 

 that this ends the matter so far as going north and west 

 is concerned. The Sanscrit meaning appears to be a general 

 term for any sort of foolish conduct, not for any particular 

 sort, such as hysteria, &c., and the conclusion, therefore, ap- 

 pears to be that there is no radical sense of "hysteria" in 

 lata, and that this is at once foreign and of later growth. 



The matter would be hardly worth consideration if we 

 could get no better light on the subject than the above re- 

 marks. Hysteria is not confined to the Malay Archipelago 

 or mainland, and is of little interest except to specialists. 

 Luckily, however, a book has recently been brought to my 

 notice that puts a most interesting stock of knowledge in our 

 hands. It is a book by the very distinguished Malay scholar 

 Frank Athelstane Swettenham, C.M.G., British Eesident- 

 General of the Federated Malay States, and is entitled " Malay 

 Sketches." Most of the sketches are written in a pleasant, 

 readable manner, and pretend to no more scientific footing than 

 that which must always be commanded by any words of one 

 who shows intimate acquaintance with his subject. This is 

 the reason why I dare to extract a chapter of his book — viz., 

 the fear lest the book might be mistaken for an ordinary 

 series of travelling notes and observations only worthy to 

 wile away an idle hour, whereas they contain many points of 

 deep interest to the student of ethnology, and in this case a 

 particularly well-lighted picture of the sufferers by lata, show- 

 ing at once that lata is a distinct mental affection, and that it 

 is by no means either hysteria or peculiar to women only. 



" In the spring of 1892 I was privileged, by the kindness 

 of a friend and the courtesy of Dr. Luys, to visit the Hospital 

 de la Charite in Paris, where I witnessed some very remark- 

 able and interesting experiments in suggestion. There were 

 patients undergoing successful treatment for nervous disorders, 

 where the disease was m process of gradual relief by passing 

 from the afflicted person to a medium without injury to the 

 latter. There was the strange power of hypnotising, influenc- 

 ing, and awakening certain sujets whose nervous organizations 

 seem to be specially susceptible ; and there was the astonish- 

 ing influence of the magnet over these same sujets when 

 already hypnotised. There is something more than unusually 

 uncanny in the sight of a person filled with an inexplicable 

 and unnatural delight in the contemplation of the positive 

 end of a magnet, and, when the negative end is suddenly 

 turned towards him, to see him instantly fall down uncon- 

 scious as though struck by lightning. 



" The sujets (there were two of them, a man and a woman) 

 described the appearance of the positive end of the magnet as 

 producing a beautiful blue flame about a foot high, so 



