HYSTERIA HYSTERICS. 345 



nmv puss on to the consideration of other symptoms which are usually 

 present in cases of hysteria. There is often a perverted mental condition, and a 

 marked inability or indisposition to exert the will. The patient believes that she 

 cannot do certain things, and so confident is she in the correctness of her belief that 

 ] tract it-all v sho cannot do them. Perhaps, for example, she takes it into her head 

 that she has lost all power over her legs. She asserts this strongly, and believes it 

 so firmly that she fails to make the requisite effort to move them, and the result is 

 that shf is to all intents and purposes paralysed. But often, under the influence of 

 some unexpected idea or emotion, or sensation, the effort is made, and the very thing 

 is done which a moment before was believed to be impossible. "A patient may be 

 carried into the room, and may fall when left for a moment to herself; tell her to 

 walk, and a wooden doll seems as capable of movement ; but, under the stimulus of a 

 wish that what she is saying should not be overheard, she walks to the open door and 

 closes it. Certain ideas seem rampant in her mind ; she cries about them, and gesticu- 

 lates in the wildest manner ; tell her to be silent, to keep them to herself, or to control 

 her feelings, and you find them exaggerated, and she affirms that all the world shall 

 hear ' what she has to say ; but a gentle tap at the door, that may come from the hand 

 of some one from whom she wishes to conceal her state, is sufficient in a moment to 

 hush this stormy talk, to compose her face, to dry her eyes, and make her speak and 

 smile with placid composure. Sometimes she speaks in a whisper only, and if asked 

 to ' exert herself ' or ' make an effort,' so that some particular friend who is a little 

 deaf may hear what she has to say, the only effect is that the whisper becomes quite 

 inaudible that she makes less sound than ever, and often none at all. She moves 

 her lips, but not even the ghost of a sound is heard to pass them ; and yet this 

 self-same person may, when no attention is directed to the voice, speak loudly enough 

 to be heard and understood in the adjoining room. The fact seems to be that the 

 will can be called into exercise only by some one dominant idea or emotion, and that 

 it is this which determines the varying phases of the mental state." So says one of 

 our leading authorities on this subject. This curious condition may, perhaps, be 

 better realised by the consideration of a case related by another writer on nervous 

 diseases. " A young lady," he says, " came under my charge for what was supposed 

 to be a disease of the spinal cord. She had taken to her bed suddenly, soon after 

 striking her back rather gently against the edge of a table, declaring that she could 

 not walk. On examination, I was convinced that there was no disease whatever of 

 the spine, other than that of a purely hysterical character, and I so expressed myself 

 to her. She nevertheless insisted upon it that her spine was seriously injured, and 

 she continued to keep her bed, lamenting her sad fate at being compelled to pass so 

 long a time shut out from the enjoyments of life. There was no paralysis, or even 

 simulation of it, for she moved her legs about freely enough in bed. But one evening 

 her brother, who had long been absent, returned home. She heard the bustle in the 

 house attendant upon his arrival, but all were too busy to pay any attention to her 

 in her chamber up-stairs. Suddenly exclaiming, ' I can stand this no longer,' she 

 sprang from her bed, rang for her maid, and, hurrying on her clothes, proceeded 

 down-stairs and entered the drawing-room, to the great surprise of all her family." 

 A very common belief on the part of the victim of hysteria is that she is " not 



