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.

    45/158 page 35
    is it then?’ Mr. P. complained thus of not being able to will, in spite of the wish that he had to do so. At last, after five days, making a final effort, he succeeded in going out, only to return five minutes afterwards perspiring and panting as if he had been running sev- eral kilometers, and very much astonished himself at what he had just done. “ Instances of this incapacity reappeared every mo- ment. If the patient had the desire of witnessing a play, he could not will to go to it ; when at table among amiable companions he would have wished to take part in conversation, but the same powerlessness always followed him. It is true that this impotence often ex- isted only, so to speak, in apprehension ; the patient feared that he would not be able, and yet succeeded even more than he expected ; but often, too, it must be said, his apprehension was justified.” After six days passed at Marseilles, the patient and the doctor set off for Naples ; “but it was not without extraordinary difficulty.” During these six days “the patient formally expressed a refusal to embark, and a desire to return to Paris, being frightened in advance at the idea of finding himself with his diseased will in a foreign country, and declaring that it would be neces- sary to handcuff him in order to take him. On the day of departure he did not make up his mind to leave the hotel until he believed me determined to resort to a forcing apparatus; and having gone out of the hotel he stopped in the street, where he would doubtless have remained if I had not sent for some seamen that an employe of the packet-boat office had the kindness to place at my disposition, who, however, needed only to show themselves. . . .
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3