RELATIONS OF ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY 749 



excitation in order to distinguish it from the previous agitation 

 which accompanied the depression. An hysterical subject may find 

 herself changed as the result of a crisis, a somnambulism or a sug- 

 gestion. "I am no longer the same," she says, "I feel new life. 

 My head seems new." She is impressed by the fact that she per- 

 ceives things much more distinctly than before. "I seem now to 

 see the present objects for the first time. I saw them before, it is 

 true, but they appeared to be in a distant fog. It is only now that 

 I really recognize them." These feelings extend to other functions; 

 it seems to her that she breathes more freely, that her arms and 

 her legs are stronger, but at the same time she has a much more 

 intensive feeling of fatigue. The subject's conduct has undergone 

 a complete change; she sets to work; she resumes her trade with- 

 out ennui and even with interest. She is capable of making what- 

 ever coordinations are necessary, while in her previous condition 

 she remained passive and inert for an indefinite period of time. 

 Her sociability and her natural feelings return to full activity. I 

 have elsewhere described changes of this sort in connection with 

 the influence of hypnotism, and the necessity of direction in hys- 

 tericals. 1 



It is to be noted that these changes appear in exactly the same 

 form in psychasthenic subjects, as the result of certain emotions, 

 as the result of acts which they have been made to perform, or 

 simply in consequence of exhortation or advice after their con- 

 fidence has been won. Their disorders of perception, their doubts 

 as to the reality of things and of themselves, disappear, and are 

 replaced by feelings of certainty which delight the subject beyond 

 measure. He comes to know himself again, and he experiences 

 deep feelings of emotion, of joy and sorrow, to which he had for- 

 merly been a comparative stranger. This change is accompanied 

 in many cases by feelings of joy and delight which it is very im- 

 portant for us to know if we are to understand the mental states 

 of certain religious ecstatics w r hich science is only now beginning to 

 analyze. 



- I can only indicate the most striking phenomena which I have 

 observed in connection with the influence of toxines in determin- 

 ing these periods of excitation. Of prime importance for the theory 

 of these diseases is the fact that the fever induced by an inter- 

 current disease frequently suffices to cause the disappearance of 

 depression and of all disorders depending upon it. I have called at- 

 tention to certain curious cases in which the development of phthisis 

 has brought about a cure of mental diseases. Women who have 

 been subject to obsessions or agoraphobia for twenty years without 

 interruption, regain their calmness and moral assurance during 



1 Ntvroses et idtes fixes, 1898, i, p. 423. 



