414 GENERAL NEUROSES, OF UNKNOWN ANATOMICAL ORIGIN. 



of smell developed to a degree usually found in brutes alone. They 

 are able to distinguish persons and things in the most remarkable 

 manner merely by their olfactory sense ; or they may be able to hear 

 and to recognize the step of a person who is still far off. Similar 

 acuteness of the sense of taste has also been reported. Fortunately, 

 however, hysterical hyperaesthesia very rarely takes the form of ab- 

 normal acuteness of the senses, or else the number of clairvoyants 

 would be still greater than it is. Far more frequently the hyper- 

 sesthesia of hysteria shows itself in the annoyance produced by a very 

 slight degree of stimulation of the nerves of special sense. While, in 

 a healthy person, it requires a very loud sound, a very strong smell, a 

 very bitter or acrid substance, or a very bright light, to produce an un- 

 pleasant effect upon the senses, hysterical persons complain if we 

 elevate our voice a little in speaking, and beg us to talk in a whisper. 

 They will often banish all flowers from their room because they can- 

 not endure their odor ; or will reject their food if it contain the slight- 

 est particle of spice. To some hysterical persons bright daylight is 

 quite intolerable, so that they constantly keep their eyes closed ; to 

 others a red color is unendurable, and no one must approach them with- 

 out first putting off any red ribbon or article of clothing they may be 

 wearing. This great sensitiveness to comparatively slight stimulus is 

 often associated with idiosyncrasies. Certain forms of irritation, which, 

 from their quality rather than from their intensity, are repulsive to 

 healthy subjects, afford a sense of gratification to hysterical persons, 

 and conversely stimulants, which are pleasant to a well person, often 

 offend the senses of one who is hysterical. It is notorious that many 

 hysterical people love the smell of burnt feathers, and take assafcetida 

 without repugnance, while the odor of hyacinths, violets, and other 

 most agreeable perfumes is insupportable, to them. 



Besides these signs of morbid irritability, there are other states of 

 excitement of the sensory nerves which must be regarded as of a dif- 

 ferent character. In the first place, there are neuralgias, especially 

 prosopalgia, migraine, mastodynia, and ischias, all of which are of com- 

 mon occurrence in hysteria. Closely related to these there is a form 

 of pain which is also very common, and which is generally confined to 

 one small point in 'the head (usually to one side of the sagittal suture), 

 and which is known by the name of davits hystericus. Besides this, 

 there is the almost never-failing tenderness, on pressure, of the back, 

 and finally those very peculiar hysterical affections of the joints 

 (Arthropathia hysterica) which consist in pain in the articulation, 

 ofteu of such exquisite severity and so obstinate a duration as to be 

 liable to be mistaken for grave inflammation. Morbid excitement of 

 the nerves of special sense may also occur, which cannot be accounted 



