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.

    91/128 (page 85)
    viction of the entire futility of an issue in this description of <lisease to answer any useful purpose. While on a visit to the house of a friend in the country, I was requested to see one of his daughters who had beea confined to her room for fifteen months, in consequence, as I was told, of diseased spine. She was twenty-one years of age. Her countenance was pale, but not unhealthy. She had been condemned by a court of surgeons to a long confinement to the horizontal position, and she bore the judgment against her with resignation and humility. From the appliances around her, and the general arrangements of the room, it was obvious that the siege was to be long and vigorously maintained. My visit was not a professional one, and I did not propose to myself at the time to discuss the subject of her illness. Accident brought me in contact with her medical attendant, and in the course of conversa- tion with him some features of her case were mentioned, which appeared not very consistent with real disease of the vertebrae. We examined her carefully, and the consulta- tion which ensued terminated in the proposal that his patient should change the horizontal posture for that of a semi-in- clined plane. In a week she sat upright in an easy chair, and within a month she joined the family circle, entered into all their pursuits, and could ride any reasonable distance on horseback without fatigue. I see no advantage in multiplying these painful examples of hysteric disease. They have all general characters in common, and are amenable to the same principles of treat- ment. And so with cases of supposed injury from railway accidents. Again and again have I heard medical men,