IMAGINARY INJURY

Greymouth Evening Star, 27 July 1920, Page 7

IMAGINARY INJURY

CURIOUS CASE OF HYSTERIA

A curious illustration of how the mind cm on occasion triumph over the body was mentioned at a mooting of the South Canterbury Hospital Board. A resident of the country wrote to the Board complaining that ho had sent his wife to the Timaru Hospital with a poisoned hand for treatment. The resident medical officer (Dr. Fraser) had operated on the hand and discharged the patient two days,, later. She left that day for her home by train, but on the journey she had to be taken off the train and placed in a private hospital, where a, doctor had been called in to operate again on her hand. The husband desired to know why an operation at a private hospital was necessary after his wife had been discharged from the public hospital. Dr. Fraser said the explanation was that the woman was suffering from hysteria and not from a .poisoned hand. Her temperature was ' normal, and . thoiudi he had operated ’on her hand twice (expecting to find pus there on account of the intense pain of which she complained) he could lind nothing wrong with it. A letter was received from the country doctor who had operated on the hand after Dr. Fraser, stating that he ton diagnosed the case as one by hysteria. He found no sum of pus lint ho allowed the patient to think that he had done so, and after this site had recovered. The Board accepted their medical officer’s explanation as quite satisfactory.