A CONTRIBUTION TO THE PSYCHOLOGY OR AW AVA? 70145 
Crass III—As illustrating this class I make use of O’Brien’s 
description (No. 11 Straits Branch, Rk. A. 8. Journal p. 150). 
“A Malay woman of respectable position and exceedingly res- 
pectable age was introduced to me some time ago as a strong 
latah subject. I talked to her for at least ten minutes without 
perceiving anything abnormal in her conduct or conversation. 
Suddenly her introducer threw off his coat. To my horror, my 
venerable guest sprang to her feet and tore off her kabayah. My 
entreaties came too late to prevent her continuing the same course 
with the rest of her garments, and in thirty seconds from her 
seizure, the paroxysm seemed to be over. What struck me most 
in this unsavoury performance was the woman’s wild rage against 
the perpetrator of this outrage. She kept on calling him an 
abandoned pig and imploring me to kill him, all the time she was 
reducing herself to a state of nudity.” 
There are several points in this type to be elucidated and I 
Shall.take the classes in order. Class I is very instructive and it 
gives the key to the explanation of all this type. Even in a state 
of expectation in which he undoubtedly was, as he had voluntarily 
submitted himself in the interests of science, he could be sur- 
prised into a “ latah” act in its completeness. But note the action 
which followed. The arm was again rapidly extended with the 
hand open and the fingers in the prehensile position, as if to grasp 
and take something back, and this was accompanied by an 
apologetic expression, the picture of a delayed inhibition which 
had arrived too late to restrain the impulsion which generated the 
blow. This attempt established a condition of awareness which, 
on a second attempt being made, called up the inhibitory act in 
time to arrest the blow, though not the spoken command, and, on 
the third attempt, was in time to annul the impulsion altogether. 
As to the “ latah mulut,” it is essentially similar. Hach of 
the interruptions to the flow of speech is an attempt at inhibiting 
it, and it is interesting to watch them becoming more frequent and 
of longer duration, really to watch the controlling factors of the 
conscious mind gradually asserting themselves, until they assume 
dominance of the automatic, reflex or subconscious, accepting 
those terms as being in this connection synonymous. This also is 
an instance of delayed inhibition. 
There remains yet to be explained the “language.” The 
Malay term “ latah mulut ” is really intended to convey the mean- 
ing of a lapse of the mouth from reason, in contra-distinction to 
other types of “ latah,’ where the lapse from reason is in the acts, 
and such an interpretation is justified, the language used being of 
such a nature as to deserve the term obscene, the one applied to it 
by almost every writer. We have to seek our explanation in the 
subconscious. The science of Psycho-analysis, based chiefly on 
the work of Yung and Freud, has shewn us that the subconscious 
R. A. Soc., No. 85, 1922. 
