Some ocular manifestations of hysteria / by Walter Baer Weidler.

  • Weidler, Walter Baer.
Date:
[1912]
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Credit: Some ocular manifestations of hysteria / by Walter Baer Weidler. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)

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    BY WALTER BAER WEIDLER, M.D. WEW YOEK CITY The ocular manifestations of hysteria should be of great interest to the physician as well as to the ophthalmologist. Charcot was the first one to insist that our investigations and studies of hysteria should be from a physiological standpoint instead of an anatomical one. In other words, we might say that hysterical symptoms do not necessarily imply a lesion of an organ, nerve or of a nerve-centre, but rather a disturbance of function. The latter-day studies of hys- teria from the psychological side of the question have been the means of clearing up many doubtful points in the diagnosis of this most complex disease. The more we study our hysterical patients the more we are convinced that the hysterical subject is not a clever simulator, as was formerly believed, but a sufferer from a genuine disease. Considered from the ophthalmologist's point of view, the ocular manifestations of hysteria are singularly constant and de- pendable, the symptoms being quite definite in many of the cases. De Schweinitz has given a very good classification of the ocular manifestations of hysteria, but I have changed his classification to some extent in this paper. The different affections of hysteria have been placed in their anatomical order; that is to say, hysterical affections of the eyelids, of the extra-ocular muscles, of the intra- ocular muscles, i.e., the iris and the ciliary body, of the retina, and the optic nerve. Let us therefore classify these various affections more in detail as follows: 1. Those affecting the movements of the eyelids and extra-ocular muscles, such as contractures, spasms, and palsies. •Read before the Tri-Professional Society at Hotel Astor, Dec. 21, 1911.
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