880 AUGUST STRAUCH 



and important from matters of secondary import; the judgment remains 

 superficial and is like the irresolute will readily influenced and swayed by 

 suggestion. There is a strong inclination towards superstition, a nai've 

 conception of life and lack of logic. Though overduly impressed by 

 strangers, on the other hand the subjects are often prejudiced, stubborn 

 and inaccessible to the advice of relatives. The memory may be impaired 

 by direct defects or unreliable on account of erroneous additions, exaggera- 

 tions, embellishments of experiences, a pleasure in fabricating adventurous 

 stories and a great indulgence in fairy tales. As among the degenerates 

 also here do we observe inferior and superior types. According to Gaspero 

 one type has a completely childish psyche in its total mapping out and in 

 its detailed manifestations, with deficient development of the psychic 

 transformation of normal puberty ; the other type has the outlines of a 

 qualitatively normal psychic constitution, but combined with a number 

 of characteristics of childhood; the subjects being half adult and half 

 child, with transitions grading up to the normal. The three outstanding 

 characteristics are the following: (1) The associations are not generalized 

 as in the normal adult but individual and only indefinite ; the explanatory 

 associations are subjectively colored. (2) The conceptions of values are 

 childish, the individuals are unable to comprehend big figures of size, 

 space, value and time; they are fond of boundless exaggerations when 

 operating with such figures, and on the other hand underrate objects even 

 of daily use in a childish manner. The patient G. of Peritz, for instance, 

 would buy an umbrella for 35 pfennige (eight cents), one kilo sugar for 

 1.75 mark (40 cents), a clock for 2 pfennigs (Yz cent), and a house in 

 his estimation would cost one million marks. (3) The subjects manifest 

 marked suggestibility. Those examined by Di Gaspero answered per- 

 suasive and pressive questions almost always in accordance with the sug- 

 gestions imparted. This pronounced inductiveness renders infantilism im- 

 portant socially and criminally, since persons thus under the influence of 

 others may readily be made the tools for acts against the law; also their 

 testimony before courts may be entirely valueless or be rated not higher 

 than that of a child. "The psychomechanism renders the individual often 

 a lifelong child; the more so, if also the mimicry, the physiognomy, the, 

 gesticulations, the high-pitch and the modulations of the voice remain 

 infantile." 



Treatment of Infantilism 



The lack of function of one or more endocrin glands suggest the em- 

 ployment of organotherapy. In the thyrogenic forms early and persistent 

 administration of thyroid preparations have proved beneficial as in mani- 

 fest myxedema. However, also in other endocrine-glandular types it may 

 be tried occasionally with some success. 



