CATALEPSY. 173 



without showing the slightest tendency to drop. It does not matter how absurd 

 or inconvfiiiriit or apparently fatiguing the position may be, it is maintained until 

 altered by some one, or until the fit is over. In these attacks there are no con- 

 vulsions, but on the contrary the patient remains perfectly immobile. She is just 

 like a waxen figure, or an inanimate statue, or a frozen corpse. 



The following description of a case is nearly a hundred years old, but it presents 

 a more ^raphio picture of the disease than any modern account with which we are 



In the latter end of last year (1781), I was desired to visit a young lady 

 I'm nine months had been afflicted with that singular disorder termed catalepsy. 

 Although she was prepared for my visit, she was seized with the disorder as soon as 

 my arrival was announced. She was employed in netting, and was passing the 

 needle through the mesh, in which position she immediately became rigid, exhibiting 

 in a very pleasing form a figure of death-like sleep, beyond the power of art to 

 imitate or the imagination to conceive. Her forehead was serene, her features 

 perfectly composed. The paleness of her colour, her breatliing at a distance being 

 also scarce perceptible, operated in rendering the similitude to marble more exact 

 and striking. The positions of her fingers, hands, and arms were altered with 

 'litlieulty, but they preserved every form of flexure they acquired; nor were the 

 muscles of the neck exempted from this law, her head maintaining every situation in 

 which the hand could place it, as firmly as her limbs. About half an hour after my 

 arrival, the rigidity of her limbs and statue-like appearance being yet unaltered, 

 she sang three plaintive songs in a tone of voice so elegantly expressive, and with 

 such affecting modulation, as evidently pointed out how much the most powerful 

 >n of the mind was concerned in the production of her disorder, as indeed her 

 history confirmed. In a few minutes afterwards she sighed deeply, and the spasm in 

 her limbs was immediately relaxed. She complained that she could not open her 

 eyes, her hands grew cold, a general tremor followed ; but in a few seconds, re- 

 covering entirely her recollection and powers of motion, she entered into a detail of 

 her symptoms and a history of her complaint." In. this case we are told the fits 

 occurred once or twice a day, and sometimes more frequently, but they never came 

 on at night. They frequently occurred without warning, but were sometimes 

 ushered in by a fluttering at the pit of the stomach, or by a fixed pain at the top of 

 thf head. The onset was usually very sudden, and on one occasion she was seized 

 whilst cany ing a cup of tea to her mouth, and remained rigidly fixed in that 

 position. 



The most common cause of catalepsy is mental emotion. A young girl who 

 was in the hospital recovering from typhoid fever was greatly frightened one ni^ht 

 ly the occurrence of a fire in an adjacent building. She was awoke by the blaze 

 flashing in at the windows, and at once exclaimed that the day of judgment had 

 omo. She remained in an excited state all night, and the next morning grew 

 gradually stiff like a corpse, whispering before she became insensible that she was 

 I":ul. If IUT arm were raised, it ivmuinrd extended in the position in which it was 

 placed for several minutes, and then slowly fell. This strange condition gradually 

 i nissed off in the course of the morning, and there was no return of it. 



