272 



SCIENCE. 



bulism is a mere modification, sometimes a simple repro- 

 duction of them. 



A hysterical woman at first sight cannot be distin- 

 guished from any other, unless we except a rather 

 strange expression of face and a peculiarity of dress. 

 These persons always cover themselves with several loud 

 colors which do not harmonize in the least. I shall scon 

 tell you the reason of this. 



The first thing to be observed in them is anaesthesia ; 

 hysterical women are sometimes paralyzed on one side of 

 the body and sometimes on both. They can then be 

 pierced with long needles without feeling anything what- 

 ever, and fall into all sorts of singular errors as one side 

 of their body seems to be dead. They do not know 

 where their arms or legs are unless they look at them. 

 Sometimes they allow themselves to be burned without 

 percieving it. One day, a hysterical patient at La 

 Salpetriere found a hole in the stocking she was about 

 putting on. She sewed it up, and walked about all day. 

 On going to bed that night she was unable to remove 

 the stocking, and on calling for help it was discovered 

 that she had sewed it to her foot. 



A French physician, M. Bureq, has shown that the 

 application oi metal to the insensible parts render them 

 sensible. This is called metallo-therapy, and singu- 

 larly enough, the committee who examined this phenom- 

 enon affirmed that while sensibility returned to one arm, 

 for example, it disappeared in the other at precisely the 

 same point, so that the subject was in no wise bene- 

 fited. 



Anaesthesia of the skin also extends to the other 

 senses. Hysterical women do not hear well, their sight 

 is defective and, generally speaking, they are unable to 

 dis inguish colors ; sometimes with one eye and often 

 with both they are achromatopsic ; everything looks gray 

 to them. Their senses are therefore in a state similar to 

 sleep, from which certain exciting influences such as 

 metals, electricity, etc., can rouse them' temporarily. 



Their muscles are frequently paralyzed. There is 

 nothing in fact, more common than a hysterical paralytic. 

 Sometimes the muscles are violently contracted, and re- 

 main thus for years. An intense emotion can suddenly 

 stop the paralysis in contraction. I need not tell you how 

 this is achieved. 



These contractions also, can be induced easily. It is 

 only necessary to rudely sieze the arm of a hysterical 

 woman and it will remain contracted in whatever position 

 you place it. In short, these people have periodical attacks 

 in which they reproduce nearly everything that we can 

 obtain from them by magnetism. 



When a hysterical woman is about to have cne of these 

 attacks, the first thing, she experiences is a certain un- 

 easiness and discomfort, as though a ball rose from her 

 stomach and remained stuck in her throat. This is 

 nothing more than muscular contraction of the oeso- 

 phagus. Suddenly, she utters a loud cry and falls back- 

 wards. Her eyes roll wildly and a sort of foam appears 

 upon her lips. Simultaneously, her arms are violently ex- 

 tended and her clenched hands turned towards the inside. 

 The entire body becomes as rigid as in an attack of Te- 

 tanus. Then the patient utters a prolonged scream, 

 bends her body in the form of an arch in such a way that 

 her weight is sustained solely upon the head and heels. 

 This period is succeeded by all kinds of disordered move- 

 ments which last from two to three minutes. Then con- 

 traction begins. Sometimes the whole body contracts, 

 sometimes only a portion. In this way, the contraction 

 of the arms frequently places the patient in the attitude of 

 the crucifixion and this last generally for days accom- 

 panied by complete insensibility. Then intervenes a 

 period of repose. One would say that it was all over and 

 that the patient slept. But indeed it is but the beginning 

 of the final and most interesting period of all, the ecstasy 

 which M. Charcot has termed attitudes passionnelles. 

 The patient absolutely ignorant of all her surroundings, 



neither perceiving sound or light, begins to follow out a 

 dream which has the peculiarity of being always the same 

 and is the reproduction of some event, or series of events, 

 belonging to her existence. My friend M. Bourneville, 

 physician to L'Hospice de Bicetre, and myself have pub- 

 lished a book wherein all these facts are minutely de- 

 scribed. It is called the Sconographic photographique 

 de la Salpetriere and comprises the entire study of 

 hysteria as well as Somnambulism. The descriptions are 

 completed by a series of pictures produced by an instan- 

 taneous photographic process, and these I shall now pro- 

 ceed to show you. 



In the attitudes passionnelles, the hysterical patient is 

 really a spontaneous and automatic somnambulist. You 

 will now understand why it will be so easy presently to 

 put her in a condition of artificial Somnambulism. I will 

 show you some attitudes passionnelles. The patient 

 sees some frightful object as you may imagine by her 

 terrified position. But see, her features relax and here 

 we have religious ecstasy. Once more the scene changes 

 to give way to this when she keeps time to music which 

 she thinks she hears. 



The young girl represented in these photographs has 

 been subject to these attacks for six years. Her hallu- 

 cination or dream has never changed in a single detail, 

 and there are a hundred more precisely like her in Paris. 



Gentlemen, you will probatly ask if this terrible dis- 

 ease, so much talked of at the present day, is new— if 

 it is a production cf this " nervous century," if I may so 

 express myself, or whether it is of ancient date. My re- 

 ply is a simple one. Hysteria is as old as humanity it- 

 self. No matter how far back you may travel in the 

 history of the world, you will always find it. What, in- 

 deed, were the pythonesses, the ancient sibyls, the sor- 

 ceresses and possessed of the middle ages, if not som- 

 nambulists and hysterical women ? The descriptions of 

 their paroxysms cannot leave us in doubt, for their char- 

 acteiistics are plainly shown. Do we not know that they 

 were pricked and burned withcut being aware of it. 

 And did not this very fact prove that the devil had set 

 his stamp upon them, and did it not invariably result 

 in their being butchered alive? Better still, painting as- 

 sists us to form a vivid impression of these attacks. Look 

 at the " possessed " which figure in the works of Rubens, 

 Raphael, Jordaens and Breughel, and you will immedi- 

 ately recognize the attitudes which I have just shown 

 ycu in the photographs. Here are some copies of these 

 famous pictures. Lock at them and see if you can doubt 

 for a moment, 



This long diversion I have made purposely, that you 

 might fully comprehend the precise ground upen which 

 we stand. The means employed to produce Hypnotism 

 can induce hysterical manifestations similar to those pro- 

 duced spontaneously. These manifestations are artificial 

 Somnambulism, Catalepsy and Au/omatzstn. 



To provoke Somnambulism requires a very simple 

 mode of operation. It is the same as that employed to 

 induce Hypnotism. You cau make the person fix her 

 eyes upon a bright object. Ordinarily, however, you 

 seat yourself directly in frcnt ol her and tell her to look 

 at you steadily. Alter a minute or two has elapsed, you 

 see her eyes assume a vague expression, then fill with 

 tears, and finally, in a short time, varying from a minute 

 to a quarter of an hour, according to the subject, they 

 close, the head falls and sometimes a little foam appears 

 upon the lips. Sleep is produced, real sleep accompan- 

 ied by total loss of sensibility. This is, therefore, more 

 than Hypnotism. 



If the subject is restless, her thumbs can be held in the 

 closed hand. As for passes, I have always observed that 

 they retard the sleep instead of ptomoting it. M. Richet, 

 on the contrary, places great faith in these movements. 



You see, gentlemen, that nothing can be more simple. 

 A little patience the first few times and the thing is done. 

 There is no fluid, be it understood ; the maqnetizer has 



