HYSTERIA AND SOMNAMBULISM ?

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LVII, Issue LVII, 12 April 1910, Page 3

HYSTERIA AND SOMNAMBULISM ?

hysterical attacks, an attack can bo brought on by mentioning what caused tho original attack.

Hysteria (says Dr Grainger Stewart ,in tho "Hospital") is 3. condition which, from the very multiplicity of its symptoms and its manifestations, has always presenetd some difficulty; sometimes in the diagonisis, but more seriously in regard to tho interpretation of its cause. A very interesting book has been published in English by Dr Pere Janet ; and that book, I think, contains the best explanation we have, so far, of hysteria. Janet holds that hysteria is practically identical with somnambulism. This latter is the condition in which a person apparently in sleep, walks about, talks, and acts. The ! actions of such people seem to follow i out some special idea, yet the patients are quite unconscious of their surroundings, even when spoken to or touched. j Janet cites one case of a woman who ; was called to see her sick niece. When she arrived she found the niece had jumped out of the window, and was lying dead. She appeared collected, but after the funeral began to have attacks of hysteria. Later she began to talk of this girl, and tell what a good life she had led, and how she had admired her. She would then wander I about and open the window, and if she had not b,een watched she also might have ended nor life. She would suddenly awake from such states, and have no recollection of what had happened, and at ordinary times the prime cause of tho attack is not present to the mind. i quote the case of a woman who had a fright at a zoological garden by a lion or a tigor. In her attacks she apparently imagined herself to be that beast; she would go down on all fours, and growl and prance about; and she even wont the length of getting photographs of human beings and pretending to eat them. On recovery she had no recollection of the occurrence, nor was her visit to the zoological gardens in her

mind. Owing to this abstraction, people in this condition who have lost a relative are sometimes said to be callous and indifferent, whereas there is no doubt tliey f<?©l most intensely. I nave gone thus fully into this aspect, because it is upon this basis that Janet seeks to explain tho Ivarious phenomenon in hysteria. There arc- extraordinary cases recorded in which people have had, apparently, what is known as dual personality. In such people there is a normal state and an abnormal state. In the one the character may be somewhat melancholy and timid, while in the other it is cheerful and bright. In cither of these states there is no knowledge of the other. In a number of cases the condition has been carefully worked out; and psychologists have tested their reactions to see what they would be in similar circiiiiistances, in the two states. In hysteria thore may be a warning, or there may not. As a rule, there is some definite cause; it may be some emotion or nervousness. It may be due to the patient's temperament, to her craving for sympathy, when an idea overcomes them they pass into the hysterical state. It is practically impossible- to make a person have an epileptic fit when you want to, but you can do that with a hysterical patient. I do not think that consciousness is ever completely lost in hysteria, though apparently they are oblivious to external things. An epileptic fit rarely lasts more than two or throo minutes; a hysterical attack may last twenty minutes, half an hour, or hours. "What happens when the fit is over? The hysterical patient wakes up suddenly and at once realises whore she is, but has very little idea of what happened during the fit. "Where there is one definite idea accounting for tho whole seizure the patient may not only _iot know what happened during tho fit, but may forget tne original cause- of it. In the slighter cases patients know little of what happened, but the cause is still in their mind. In trance the patient passes into what seems a very lignt sleep ; the breathing is very light, tho color >s waxy, you may not be able to feel the pulse at the 1 wrist, and the temperature becomes . lowered. Rut as a rule you will be able to see some tremulousness about the eyes; you can detect breathing, and with the stethoscope you can hear the heart beats. I have only seen one such case, and I saw her on two occasions. She was - general servant. In the place she- had been in before, she had had to sleep with another servant, in the same bed, and this servant died during the night. She aroused the ' household. Apparently she illustrated two effects ; the fit and the agitation ; she got tho idea that she was dead, and for ten days she remained in a trance. In tho majority of people who have