Mary (Putnam) Jacobi
Published: 2013-09
Total Pages: 64
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1888 edition. Excerpt: ... HYSTERIA AND OTHER NEUROLOGICAL PAPERS. I. SOME CONSIDERATIONS ON HYSTERIA.1 Notwithstanding the voluminous literature which exists on hysteria, something always remains to observe and describe in it. And this is to be expected when it is remembered that hysteria implies disarrangement of the functions of any part of the nervous system--in its four spheres of intelligence, mobility, sensibility, and visceral neurility. Every advance in our knowledge of these mysterious functions must, therefore, lead to some new point of view in regard to hysteria, or to mental, motor, sensory, or visceral neurosis. Is it possible at the present day to formulate the fundamental condition of hysteria in such a way as to bring it into harmony with the facts of the hysterical temperament, of the general neurotic diathesis, of the vaso-motor spasms, of the special, mental, motor, and sensory phenomena of hysteria, and of the relations of the developed disease to the reproductive organs on the one hand, and to moral and social conditions on the other? It seems to me that we can assert the following to be the twofold condition fundamental to hysteria: There is in it a congenital or acquired deficiency in the power of nerve-elements to effect the storage of force in nerve-tissues. 1 The nucleus of this paper was read before the Neurological Section of the Academy of Medicine, June 11, 1886. This can only be overcome by increasing the amount of stimulus to which these elements are subjected. Conversely, the elements of those centres, which are subjected to a preponderance of stimulus, will perform the function of storage most effectively, and, in so doing, will acquire preponderance over the others. And this is done by the sensory centres of the brain. These...