The work and the counterwork, or, The religious revival in Belfast : with an explanation of the physical phenomena / by Edward A. Stopford.

  • Stopford, Edward Adderley, 1809-1894.
Date:
1859
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The work and the counterwork, or, The religious revival in Belfast : with an explanation of the physical phenomena / by Edward A. Stopford. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    submit to being outdone by others. If they hear of deafness in others, they will be deaf. I cannot look on this as ordinary imposture. It is the diseased moral action of hysteria. The chief censure should fall on those who first seek to produce hysteria, and then stimulate its worst propensities by invoking for it a morbid and mischievous sympathy. The foretelling of the duration of dumbness, &c., or the time of recovery, is easily explained. The patient has heard of this means of exciting admiration and sympathy ; a morbid desire is excited to do the same. That desire does itself induce the hysteric action, and can equally determine its cessation. This notion of fixing a time for personal changes in oneself is neither new nor uncommon. I have read of several instances in medical books; and of some instances, too, in which the performance, though perfectly sincere, was entirely baffled by altering the clock. It seems very desirable that the clergy should carefully observe and note down their observation of cases. In some cases the observation of hysterical symp- toms can only be made by persons previously con- versant with them. The record of observed facts is always useful ; but such notes as “ no hysterical symptoms present,” from one who has not been trained to observe them, are of no value. The points which the clergy can most usefully observe are perhaps these :— (1) How hysterical affections have been introduced