I’m too poor to afford the luxury of hysteria right now.
"The ACLU has stood foursquare against the recurring tides of hysteria that >from time to time threaten freedoms everywhere... Indeed, it is difficult to appreciate how far our freedoms might have eroded had it not been for the Union's valiant representation in the courts of the constitutional rights of people of all persuasions, no matter how unpopular or even despised by the majority they were at the time." -- former Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren
There was I, then, mounted aloft; I, who had said I could not bear the shame of standing on my natural feet in the middle of the room, was now exposed to general view on a pedestal of infamy. What my sensations were no language can describe; but just as they all rose, stifling my breath and constricting my throat, a girl came up and passed me: in passing, she lifted her eyes. What a strange light inspired them! What an extraordinary sensation that ray sent through me! How the new feeling bore me up! It was as if a martyr, a hero, had passed a slave or victim, and imparted strength in the transit. I mastered the rising hysteria, lifted up my head, and took a firm stand on the stool. Helen Burns asked some slight question about her work of Miss Smith, was chidden for the triviality of the inquiry, returned to her place, and smiled at me as she again went by. What a smile! I remember it now, and I know that it was the effluence of fine intellect, of true courage; it lit up her marked lineaments, her thin face, her sunken grey eye, like a reflection from the aspect of an angel. Yet at that moment Helen Burns wore on her arm "the untidy badge;" scarcely an hour ago I had heard her condemned by Miss Scatcherd to a dinner of bread and water on the morrow because she had blotted an exercise in copying it out. Such is the imperfect nature of man! such spots are there on the disc of the clearest planet; and eyes like Miss Scatcherd's can only see those minute defects, and are blind to the full brightness of the orb.
The President and the prosecutor, of course, tried to calm her. I can't help thinking that they felt ashamed of taking advantage of her hysteria and of listening to such avowals. I remember hearing them say to her, "We understand how hard it is for you; be sure we are able to feel for you," and so on, and so on. And yet they dragged the evidence out of the raving, hysterical woman. She described at last with extraordinary clearness, which is so often seen, though only for a moment, in such over-wrought states, how Ivan had been nearly driven out of his mind during the last two months trying to save "the monster and murderer," his brother.
_Medicinal Use._--Bromide of potassium is the safest and most generally applicable sedative of the nervous system. Whilst very weak, its action is perfectly balanced throughout all nervous tissue, so much so that Sir Thomas Lauder Brunton has suggested its action to be due to its replacement of sodium chloride (common salt) in the fluids of the nervous system. Hence bromide of potassium--or bromide of sodium, which is possibly somewhat safer still though not quite so certain in its action--is used as a hypnotic, as the standard anaphrodisiac, as a sedative in mania and all forms of morbid mental excitement, and in hyperaesthesia of all kinds. Its most striking success is in epilepsy, for which it is the specific remedy. It may be given in doses of from ten to fifty grains or more, and may be continued without ill effect for long periods in grave cases of epilepsy (_grand mal_). Of the three bromides in common use the potassium salt is the most rapid and certain in its action, but may depress the heart in morbid states of that organ; in such cases the sodium salt--of which the base is inert--may be employed. In whooping-cough, when a sedative is required but a stimulant is also indicated, ammonium bromide is often invaluable. The conditions in which bromides are most frequently used are insomnia, epilepsy, whooping-cough, delirium tremens, asthma, migraine, laryngismus stridulus, the symptoms often attendant upon the climacteric in women, hysteria, neuralgia, certain nervous disorders of the heart, strychnine poisoning, nymphomania and spermatorrhoea. Hydrobromic acid is often used to relieve or prevent the headache and singing in the ears that may follow the administration of quinine and of salicylic acid or salicylates. Entry: BROMINE
By the ancients and by modern physicians down to the time of Sydenham the symptoms of hysteria were supposed to be directly due to disturbances of the uterus (Gr. [Greek: hystera], whence the name). This view is now universally recognized to be erroneous. The term "functional" is often used by English neurologists as synonymous with hysterical, a nomenclature which is tentatively advantageous since it is at least non-committal. P. J. Möbius has defined hysteria as "a state in which ideas control the body and produce morbid changes in its functions." P. Janet, who has done much to popularize the psychical origin of the affection, holds that there is "a limitation of the field of consciousness" comparable to the contraction of the visual fields met with in the disease. The hysterical subject, according to this view, is incapable of taking into the field of consciousness all the impressions of which the normal individual is conscious. Strong momentary impressions are no longer controlled so efficiently because of the defective simultaneous impressions of previous memories. Hence the readiness with which the impulse of the moment is obeyed, the loss of emotional control and the increased susceptibility to external suggestion, which are so characteristic. A secondary subconscious mental state is engendered by the relegation of less prominent impressions to a lower sphere. The dual personality which is typically exemplified in somnambulism and in the hypnotic state is thus induced. The explanation of hysterical symptoms which are independent of the will, and of the existence of which the individual may be unaware, is to be found in a relative preponderance of this secondary subconscious state as compared with the primary conscious personality. An elaboration of this theory affords an explanation of hysterical symptoms dependent upon a "fixed idea." The following definition of hysteria has recently been advanced by J. F. F. Babinski: "Hysteria is a psychical condition manifesting itself principally by signs that may be termed primary, and in an accessory sense others that we may call secondary. The characteristic of the primary signs is that they may be exactly reproduced in certain subjects by suggestion and dispelled by persuasion. The characteristic of the secondary signs is that they are closely related to the primary phenomena." Entry: HYSTERIA
BARTON, ELIZABETH (_c._ 1506-1534), "the maid of Kent," was, according to her own statement, born in 1506 at Aldington, Kent. She appears to have been a neurotic girl, subject to epilepsy, and an illness in her nineteenth year resulted in hysteria and religious mania. She was at the time a servant in the house of Thomas Cobb, steward of an estate near Aldington owned by William Warham, archbishop of Canterbury. During her convalescence she passed into trances lasting for days at a time, and in this state her ravings were of such "marvellous holiness in rebuke of sin and vice" that the country folk believed her to be inspired. Cobb reported the matter to Richard Masters, the parish priest, who in turn acquainted Archbishop Warham. The girl having recovered, and finding herself the object of local admiration, was cunning enough, as she confessed at her trial, to feign trances, during which she continued her prophecies. Her fame steadily growing, the archbishop in 1526 instructed the prior of Christ Church, Canterbury, to send two of his monks to hold an inquiry into the case. One of these latter, Edward Bocking, obtained her admission as a nun to St Sepulchre's convent, Canterbury. Under Bocking's instruction Barton's prophecies became still more remarkable, and attracted many pilgrims, who believed her to be, as she asserted, in direct communication with the Virgin Mary. Her utterances were cunningly directed towards political matters, and a profound and widespread sensation was caused by her declaration that should Henry persist in his intention of divorcing Catherine he "should no longer be king of this realm ... and should die a villain's death." Even such men as Fisher, bishop of Rochester, and Sir Thomas More, corresponded with Barton. On his return from France in 1532 Henry passed through Canterbury and is said to have allowed the nun to force herself into his presence, when she made an attempt to terrify him into abandoning his marriage. After its solemnization in May 1533. her utterances becoming still more treasonable, she was examined before Cranmer (who had in March succeeded to the archbishopric on Warham's death) and confessed. On the 25th of September Bocking and another monk, Hadley, were arrested, and in November, Masters and others were implicated. The maid and her fellow prisoners were examined before the Star Chamber, and were by its order publicly exposed at St Paul's Cross, where they each read a confession. In January 1534 by a bill of attainder the maid and her chief accomplices were condemned to death, and were executed at Tyburn on the 20th of April. It has been held that her confession was extracted by force, and therefore valueless, but the evidence of her imposture seems conclusive. Entry: BARTON
The human instinct to censor thrives, as it always will, living in irrepressible conflict with the human instinct to speak. Outrage, self-righteousness, and paranoia feed the maw of censorship. Squelching speech, however, never reduces society's net paranoia quotient; it simply redirects it, drives it underground, where it festers into more dangerous hysterias. In the words of Justice Brandeis, "Men feared witches and burned women." -- Rodney Smolla, "Free Speech in an Open Society", p. 43.
In recent years the study of various abnormal mental states, especially the investigations by French physicians of severe forms of hysteria, have brought to light many facts which seem to justify this assumption of a secondary stream of consciousness, a co- or sub-consciousness coexistent with the personal consciousness; although, from the nature of the case, an absolute proof of such co-consciousness can hardly be obtained. The co-consciousness seems to vary in degree of complexity and coherence from a mere succession of fragmentary sensations to an organized stream of mental activity, which may rival in all respects the primary consciousness; and in cases of the latter type it is usual to speak of the presence of a secondary personality. The co-consciousness seems in the simpler cases, e.g. in cases of hysterical or hypnotic anaesthesia, to consist of elements split off from the normal primary consciousness, which remains correspondingly poorer; and the assumption is usually made that such a stream of co-consciousness is the psychical correlate of groups and systems of neurones dissociated from the main mass of cerebral neurones. If, in spite of serious objections, we entertain this conception, we find that it helps us to give some account of various hypnotic phenomena that otherwise remain quite inexplicable; some such conception seems to be required more particularly by the facts of negative hallucination and the execution of post-hypnotic suggestions involving such operations as counting and exact discrimination without primary consciousness. Entry: HYPNOTISM
The treatment of hysteria demands great tact and firmness on the part of the physician. The affection is a definite entity and has to be clearly distinguished from malingering, with which it is so often erroneously regarded as synonymous. Drugs are of little value. The moral treatment is all-important. In severe cases, removal from home surroundings and isolation, either in a hospital ward or nursing home, are essential, in order that full benefit may be derived from psychotherapeutic measures. Entry: HYSTERIA
An hysterical attack may occur as an immediate sequel to an epileptic fit. If the patient suffers only from _petit mal_ (see EPILEPSY), unaccompanied by true epileptic fits, the significance of the hysterical seizure, which is really a post-epileptic phenomenon, may remain unrecognized. Entry: HYSTERIA
In the development of hypnotism since the time of Braid we may distinguish three lines, the physiological, the psychological and the pathological. The last may be dismissed in a few words. Its principal representative was J. M. Charcot, who taught at the Salpêtrière in Paris that hypnosis is essentially a symptom of a morbid condition of hysteria or hystero-epilepsy. This doctrine, which, owing to the great repute enjoyed by Charcot, has done much to retard the application of hypnotism, is now completely discredited. The workers of the physiological party attached special importance to the fixation of the eyes, or to other forms of long continued and monotonous, or violent, sensory stimulation in the induction of hypnosis. They believed that by acting on the senses in these ways they induced a peculiar condition of the nervous system, which consisted in the temporary abolition of the cerebral functions and the consequent reduction of the subject to machine-like unconscious automatism. The leading exponent of this view was R. Heidenhain, professor of physiology at Breslau, whose experimental investigations played a large part in convincing the scientific world of the genuineness of the leading symptoms of hypnosis. The purely psychological doctrine of hypnosis puts aside all physical and physiological influences and effects as of but little or no importance, and seeks a psychological explanation of the induction of hypnosis and of all the phenomena. This dates from 1884, when H. Bernheim, professor of medicine at Nancy, published his work _De la Suggestion_ (republished in 1887 with a second part on the therapeutics of hypnotism). Bernheim was led to the study of hypnotism by A. A. Liébeault, who for twenty years had used it very largely and successfully in his general practice among the poor of Nancy. Liébeault rediscovered independently, and Bernheim made known to the world the truths, twice previously discovered and twice lost sight of, that expectation is a most important factor in the induction of hypnosis, that increased suggestibility is its essential symptom, and that in general the operator works upon his patient by mental influences. Although they went too far in the direction of ignoring the peculiarity of the state of the brain in hypnosis and the predisposing effect of monotonous sensory stimulation, and in seeking to identify hypnosis with normal sleep, the views of the Nancy investigators have prevailed, and are now in the main generally accepted. Their methods of verbal suggestion have been adopted by leading physicians in almost all civilized countries and have been proved to be efficacious in the relief of many disorders; and as a method of psychological investigation hypnotism has proved, especially in the hands of the late Ed. Gurney, of Dr Pierre Janet and of other investigators, capable of throwing much light on the constitution of the mind, has opened up a number of problems of the deepest interest, and has done more than any other of the many branches of modern psychology to show the limitations and comparative barrenness of the old psychology that relied on introspection alone and figured as a department of general philosophy. In England, "always the last to enter into the general movement of the European mind," the prejudice, incredulity and ignorant misrepresentation with which hypnotism has everywhere been received have resisted its progress more stubbornly than elsewhere; but even in England its reality and its value as a therapeutic agent have at last been officially recognized. In 1892, just fifty years after Braid clearly demonstrated the facts and published explanations of them almost identical with those now accepted, a committee of the British Medical Association reported favourably upon hypnotism after a searching investigation; it is now regularly employed by a number of physicians of high standing, and the formation in 1907 of "The Medical Society for the Study of Suggestive Therapeutics" shows that the footing it has gained is likely to be made good. Entry: HYPNOTISM
HYDROMECHANICS HYTHE HYDROMEDUSAE I HYDROMETER IAMBIC HYDROPATHY IAMBLICHUS (Greek philosopher) HYDROPHOBIA IAMBLICHUS (Greek romance writer) HYDROSPHERE IANNINA HYDROSTATICS IAPETUS HYDROXYLAMINE IAPYDES HYDROZOA IATROCHEMISTRY HYENA IAZYGES HYÈRES IBADAN HYGIEIA IBAGUÉ HYGIENE IBARRA HYGINUS (eighth pope) IBERIANS HYGINUS (Latin writer) IBEX HYGINUS, GAIUS JULIUS IBIS HYGROMETER IBLIS HYKSOS IBN 'ABD RABBIHI HYLAS IBN 'ARABI HYLOZOISM IBN ATHIR HYMEN IBN BATUTA HYMENOPTERA IBN DURAID HYMETTUS IBN FARADI HYMNS IBN FARID HYPAETHROS IBN GABIROL HYPALLAGE IBN HAUKAL HYPATIA IBN HAZM HYPERBATON IBN HISHAM HYPERBOLA IBN ISHAQ HYPERBOLE IBN JUBAIR HYPERBOREANS IBN KHALDUN HYPEREIDES IBN KHALLIKAN HYPERION IBN QUTAIBA HYPERSTHENE IBN SA'D HYPERTROPHY IBN TIBBON HYPNOTISM IBN TUFAIL HYPOCAUST IBN USAIBI'A HYPOCHONDRIASIS IBO HYPOCRISY IBRAHIM AL-MAUSILI HYPOSTASIS IBRAHIM PASHA HYPOSTYLE IBSEN, HENRIK HYPOSULPHITE OF SODA IBYCUS HYPOTHEC ICA HYPOTHESIS ICE HYPOTRACHELIUM ICEBERG HYPSOMETER ICELAND HYRACOIDEA ICELAND MOSS HYRCANIA ICE-PLANT HYRCANUS ICE-YACHTING HYSSOP I-CH'ANG HYSTASPES ICHNEUMON HYSTERESIS ICHNEUMON-FLY HYSTERIA ICHNOGRAPHY HYSTERON-PROTERON Entry: HYDROMECHANICS
The causes of hysteria may be divided into (a) the predisposing, such as hereditary predisposition to nervous disease, sex, age and national idiosyncrasy; and (b) the immediate, such as mental and physical exhaustion, fright and other emotional influences, pregnancy, the puerperal condition, diseases of the uterus and its appendages, and the depressing influence of injury or general disease. Perhaps, taken over all, hereditary predisposition to nerve-instability may be asserted as the most prolific cause. There is frequently direct inheritance, and cases of epilepsy and insanity or other form of nervous disease are rarely wanting when the family history is carefully enquired into. As regards age, the condition is apt to appear at the evolution periods of life--puberty, pregnancy and the climacteric--without any further assignable cause except that first spoken of. It is rare in young children, but very frequent in girls between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five, while it sometimes manifests itself in women at the menopause. It is much more common in the female than in the male--in the proportion of 20 to 1. Certain races are more liable to the disease than others; thus the Latin races are much more prone to hysteria than are those who come of a Teutonic stock, and in more aggravated and complex forms. In England it has been asserted that an undue proportion of cases occur among Jews. Occupation, or be it rather said want of occupation, is a prolific cause. This is noticeable more especially in the higher classes of society. Entry: HYSTERIA
The inspiration (of which there were four degrees, _avertissement, souffle, prophetie, dons_) was sometimes communicated by a kiss at the assembly. The patient, who had gone through several fasts three days in length, became pale and fell insensible to the ground. Then came violent agitations of the limbs and head, as Voltaire remarks, "quite according to the ancient custom of all nations, and the rules of madness transmitted from age to age." Finally the patient (who might be a little child, a woman, a half-witted person) began to speak in the good French of the Huguenot Bible words such as these: "Mes frères, amendez-vous, faites pénitence, la fin du monde approche; le jugement général sera dans trois mois; répentez-vous du grand péché que vous avez commis d'aller à la messe; c'est le Saint-Esprit qui parle par ma bouche" (Brueys, _Histoire du fanatisme de notre temps_, Utrecht, 1737, vol. i. p. 153). The discourse might go on for two hours; after which the patient could only express himself in his native patois,--a Romance idiom,--and had no recollection of his "ecstasy." All kinds of miracles attended on the Camisards. Lights in the sky guided them to places of safety, voices sang encouragement to them, shots and wounds were often harmless. Those entranced fell from trees without hurting themselves; they shed tears of blood; and they subsisted without food or speech for nine days. The supernatural was part of their life. Much literature has been devoted to the discussion of these marvels. The Catholics Fléchier (in his _Lettres choisies_) and Brueys consider them the product of fasting and vanity, nourished on apocalyptic literature. The doctors Bertrand (_Du magnétisme animal_, Paris, 1826) and Calmeil (_De la folie_, Paris, 1845) speak of magnetism, hysteria and epilepsy, a prophetic monomania based on belief in divine possession. The Protestants especially emphasized the spirituality of the inspiration of the Camisards; Peyral, _Histoire des pasteurs du désert_, ii. 280, wrote: "Il fallait à cet effort gigantesque un ressort prodigieux, l'enthousiasme ordinaire n'y eût pas suffi." Dubois, who has made a careful study of the problem, says: "L'inspiration cévenole nous apparait comme un phénomène purement spirituel." Conservative Catholics, such as Hippolyte Blanc in his book on _L'inspiration des Camisards_ (1859), regard the whole thing as the work of the devil. The publication of J.F.K. Hecker's work, _Die Volkskrankheiten des Mittelalters_, made it possible to consider the subject in its true relation. This was translated into English in 1844 by B.G. Babington as _The Epidemics of the Middle Ages_. Entry: CAMISARDS
Meanwhile the most ardent Jansenists had followed Quesnel to Holland. Here they met with a warm welcome from the Dutch Catholic body, which had always been in close sympathy with Jansenism, although without regarding itself as formally pledged to the _Augustinus_. But it had broken loose from Rome in 1702, and was now organizing itself into an independent church (see UTRECHT). The Jansenists who remained in France had meanwhile fallen on evil days. Persecution usually begets hysteria in its victims; and the more extravagant members of the party were far advanced on the road which leads to apocalyptic prophecy and "speaking with tongues." About 1728 the "miracles of St Médard" became the talk of Paris. This was the cemetery where was buried François de Pâris, a young Jansenist deacon of singularly holy life, and a perfervid opponent of the _Unigenitus_. All sorts of miraculous cures were believed to have been worked at his tomb, until the government closed the cemetery in 1732. This gave rise to the famous epigram: Entry: JANSENISM
c. Hallucinations occasionally occur as symptoms of certain nervous diseases that are not usually classed with the insanities, notably in cases of epilepsy and severe forms of hysteria. In the former disorder, the sensory aura that so often precedes the epileptic convulsion may take the form of an hallucinatory object, which in some cases is very constant in character. Unilateral hallucinations, an especially interesting class, occur in severe cases of hysteria, and are usually accompanied by hemi-anaesthesia of the body on the side on which the hallucinatory object is perceived. Entry: III
DIABETES (from Gr. [Greek: dia], through, and [Greek: bainein], to pass), a constitutional disease characterized by a habitually excessive discharge of urine. Two forms of this complaint are described, viz. Diabetes Mellitus, or Glycosuria, where the urine is not only increased in quantity, but persistently contains a greater or less amount of sugar, and Diabetes Insipidus, or Polyuria, where the urine is simply increased in quantity, and contains no abnormal ingredient. This latter, however, must be distinguished from the polyuria due to chronic granular kidney, lardaceous disease of the kidney, and also occurring in certain cases of hysteria. Entry: DIABETES