334 
IOWA ACADEMY OF SCIENCE 
sensitiveness is general, having been detected in widely separated areas 
of the body. 
In a series of experiments, attempts were made by the writer to dis- 
cover whether factors of suggestion could be made to produce or to modi- 
fy the results as described above. These suggestions took a variety of 
forms. Verbal suggestions were made by telling the sub jest to focus 
the attention up a proposed figure. Again a certain figure was agreed 
upon and then, without permitting the subject to see the tracery, a dif- 
ferent design was given tactually. Another attempt to make the factor 
of suggestion as potent as possible consisted in having the subject fixate 
a design drawn upon paper while the experimenter executed the design 
close to the surface of the arm but without actual contact. None of 
these efforts to produce the phenomenon under examination through the 
subject’s own attention proved in the least successful. Whatever more 
fundamental reasons there may have been for this failure, the writer 
believes that it was due in part to the subject’s inability to control the 
attention. The means were not at hand to pursue this phase of the 
experiment further by the aid of hypnotic suggestions but it would seem 
to be quite in accord with some of the recent results of hypnotism to 
believe that, were the verbal suggestion made during hypnosis, the 
graphism would result. This so far as any positive data which the 
writer has, is conjectural and is not offered as a deduction from his 
experiments. 
(3) Upon reporting the findings as outlined above to a local physi- 
cian of standing, a professional diagnosis pronounced the disorder to 
be a form of Urticaria or Nettle Rash. This opinion has been corrob- 
orated by the writer, who finds in the descriptions of some: eighteen 
recognized varieties of Urticaria, that the form characterized by the sud- 
den appearance of wheals or marks (autographisms) on. the surface of 
the body, possessed enough points in common with Miss M. ’s case as to 
warrant her disorder being diagnosed as Urticaria Faetitia. An equally 
diversified list of causes assigned to the different forms of Urticaria in- 
cludes poisoning due to certain foods, such as mushrooms, strawberries ; 
deleterious effects produced by drugs ; the crawling of a caterpillar over 
the skin ; certain disorders of menstruation ; by nervous irritability, emo- 
tion, hysteria, etc. 
Some of these causes and, hence, certain forms of Urticaria seem to 
be eliminated by the results of our tests with Miss M. For example, no 
temporary disturbance of the gastro-intestinal tract due to eating of 
certain foods would be likely to give reactions over such an extended 
period. On the same account, a temporary disorder of menstruation 
