The diseases of the will / by Th. Ribot.

  • Théodule-Armand Ribot
Date:
1903
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The diseases of the will / by Th. Ribot. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    He was confined in the asylum at Ivry; it was de- cided that he should undertake with Mr. Billod a trip to Italy. “When his approaching departure was announced to him, ‘ I shall never be able to/ he said, ‘though I find it dull here ; will I then remain all my life at Ivry?’ The day before starting, he announced anew that he never could. On the day itself he arose at six in the morning to go and make this declaration to Mr. Mitivie. More or less resistance was therefore appre- hended, but when I presented myself, he did not make the least opposition ; only, as if he felt his will ready to escape him, he said : ‘Where is the cab? let me hurry and get into it.’ “ It would be idle to take the reader with us, and make him a witness of all the phenomena presented by the patient during this trip. These phenomena may very well be resumed in three or four principal ones that I shall give as a criterion of all the others. “The first presented itself at Marseilles. The pa- tient, before setting out, had to execute a power of attorney to authorise his wife to sell a house. He draws it up himself, copies it upon headed paper and pre- pares to sign it, when there arises a difficulty upon which we were far from counting. After having writ- ten his name, it is utterly impossible for him to make the paraph. There is question, it is true, of a com- plicated paraph, but Mr. P. had always executed it with ease. Vainly did the patient struggle with this difficulty. A hundred times at least he makes with his hand above the sheet of paper the movement neces- sary to the act, which proves conclusively that the ob- stacle is not in the hand ; a hundred times the restive will is unable to command the fingers to apply the
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