Volume 1

Works on phrenology, physiology, and kindred subjects / by O.S. Fowler, and others.

Date:
[1884?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Works on phrenology, physiology, and kindred subjects / by O.S. Fowler, and others. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    564/592 (page 18)
    HYSTERIA. Hysteria, or, in common parlance, hysterics, one of the neuroses, and a most singular affection, is also to be mentioned as one of the effects of tobacco. Hysteria, although in its original signification an affection belonging exclusively to females, is nevertheless not unfrequently to be found, with all its distinctive features, in the opposite sex. As is well known, it often causes fits of alternate laughing and crying; and at the same time the pitiable subject seems to have a heavy ball in the abdomen, that rises towards the stomach, chest, and neck, producing at the same time a sense of strangulation. There is sometimes partial unconscious- ness and convulsions. This, then, a nervous disease, is sometimes caused mainly, or in part, by tobacco. Be it understood, however, that I admit there are many cases of hysteria where the drug has had nothing to do in the matter, it never having been used. All I claim is, that tobacco is one of the many causes of this most singular disease.* * No persons are more to be pitied than those who suffer from hysteria. That this statement is true will appear from the following facts :— “ In a late number of the ‘ American Joumal of Insanity ’ we find the following remarks made by Dr. Brigham, one of its editors, and physician of the New York State Lunatic A sylum near Utica. We need hardly add that the doctor is a learned and able man, and well qualified to give opinions on medical subjects. The remarks were made in giving evidence in the case—‘ The People v. John Johnson, indicted for the murder of Betsy Bolt,’ tried at Binghampton, May 7th, 1846. On the cross-examination. Dr. B.’s testimony was as follows : ‘ Persons subject to hysterics for years have a tendency to insanity ; and hysterical women do the most strange things of any class of persons, sane or insane. I speak from my own observation, and history attests its correctness. Hysterical women will deceive their friends, and frequently their physi- cians, by inventing stories with little if any regard to truth ; and will in carrying on the deception submit to painful operations by the physician or surgeon, and I am not prepared to say but that they do in fact deceive themselves. I do not attribute their false statements to moral obliquity, theologically speaking, as the obliquity is produced by disease. They are apparently sincere, and I have never known o*e to own the deception. It is a diseased state of the nervous system, and I think the subject is irresponsible. [The doctor here enumerated instances where males and females pretended to be strangely affected, and submitted to painful and unpleasant operations ; and some of those affected in this manner have succeeded in carrying out the deception so adroitly as to deceive the attending physician, the clergyman, and indeed the whole neighbourhood.] Insane persons often inflict injury upon them- selves in order to charge others with the commission of an offence ; and cases have occurred where insane persons have admitted themselves to be guilty of crimes com- mitted by others. Hysterical females see visions and dream dreams, that are so vivid that they take them for realities. There is a person at Utica who, a year after he had recovered from his insanity, could not rid himself of the fancies conceived by him when insane. Nervous persons sometimes feign fits in order to obtain medical advice; and when one hysterical person alleges she is affected in a particular manner, another hearing of it is very apt to be exercised in the same way. Hysterical and nervous woman will perform the most marvellous and mysterious things imaginable. They will cut their flesh, and do other things, and with apparent honesty and sincerity charge their commission upon others.’ “ Direct Examination.—When persons make statements at one time that they forget at another, it is an evidence of a poor memory or a diseased mind. Hysterical fancies and strange delusions are very likely to occur in young females that menstruate, and it is highly probable that they are themselves deceived. The length of time the patient has been subject to hysterics will make no material difference. When any remarkable occurrence takes place in a neighbourhood, and it is much talked over, a nervous female will be apt to dream of it, and after dreaming will mix up facts with what is purely imaginary, and be apparently incapable of separating facts from fancy.’ “ If such things are facts—and few men are as competent to judge of matters of this kind n l>t\ Brigham—how careful should parents be in the physical training and