Hysteria : the history of a disease / by Ilza Veith.

  • Ilza Veith
Date:
1970, ©1965
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Hysteria : the history of a disease / by Ilza Veith. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    72/128 (page 66)
    poor man runs a race against time, and reaching the goal he drops from fatigue. Offer him at the moment Xioo if he will run one hundred yards farther. He will accept the offer, run the required distance, and then drop. This is reso- lution acting on his muscular powers through his nervous system, screwed up by an extraordinary mental effort. And this law of Nature is applicable to us all in our daily intercourse with the world. A man resolves to accomplish a certain amount of work on a given day, and he completes the task he has assigned himself by virtue of his resolution. Such resolution is eminently protective against fatigue. A question arises to one's mind : is Hysteria what is termed a specific disease, or is it the invariable result of a condition of health into which all persons passin reduced states of bodily vigor, but only modified in degree ? I pre- sume it is associated with a peculiar organism common to man but not involving all, as some persons amenable to the influence of mesmerism pass readily into profound sleep, while others are entirely unaffected by it. It notoriously is far more common in women than in men, and in young per- sons from the age of seventeen to thirty, in the unmarried than in the married. We do not associate hysteric affec- tions with persons of either sex who are characterized by vigor of mind, of strong will, of strength and firmness of character. Such persons may be reduced by protracted ill- ness to a condition of weakness both bodily and mental, but they do not in their reduced strength, so far as I know, ex- hibit any of the peculiar features of hysteric affections. There is a remarkable form of Hysteria which affords evidence on this subject. It is notorious that the sight of