Mental Disease and Defect 



47 



unstable nervous make-up may break when leading a quiet coun- 

 try life. 



Other social agencies, mostly those giving relief, have been 

 interested in 24 of these patients. Often, not realizing the nature 

 of the disease, these organizations harm the patient and postpone 

 his cure by their aid. It is no wonder that disorders which baffle 

 many general practitoners of medicine are not recognized and 

 properly interpreted by social workers. This only emphasizes 

 the need of securing expert medical attention for all cases. 



That those who have psychoses usually have a rather high 

 grade mentality is illustrated by this group, in which nearly all 

 had completed the fifth grade of school, several finished high 

 school, and one had gone a year to college. Because of their 

 intelligence, they can bring about their own cure under proper 

 supervision, by an understanding of the cause of the difficulty and 

 a real desire to overcome it. 



According to diagnosis, this group falls into two divisions: 

 those who have hysteria, and those who have neurasthenia. This 

 nomenclature is said to be inexact and indefinite in its scientific 

 meaning, leading often to confusion. However, the diagnosis of 

 hysteria here means those individuals having striking physical 

 manifestations of functional nervous disorder such as paralysis, 

 convulsive seizures, anaesthesia, etc. Neurasthenia means the 

 cases showing mental manifestations of exhaustion, obsessions, 

 phobias, etc. 



Table XIX shows a classification by diagnoses. 



TABLE XIX. PSYCHOSES NOT TRUE INSANITY- 

 CLASSIFICATION BY DIAGNOSIS 



NEURASTHENIA HYSTERIA TOTAL 



Males 



9 



2 



11 





15 



16 



31 



Total 



24 



18 



42 



Jean C, a girl of sixteen, was brought to Juvenile Court 

 charged with delinquency. She became very excited and lost her 

 voice in an hysterical attack. Her history showed that she had 

 run away from home to escape a cruel father. Whenever she 

 became excited, she again lost her voice, and this condition sub- 

 sided only after Jean married and went to a home of her own. 



Dora G. is a Russian Jewess of twenty-four years, a tailoress 

 by trade, who developed neurasthenia following a pdvic operation. 



