The major symptoms of hysteria : fifteen lectures given in the Medical School of Harvard University [between the fifteenth of October and the end of November, 1906] / by Pierre Janet.

  • Janet, Pierre, 1859-1947.
Date:
1907
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The major symptoms of hysteria : fifteen lectures given in the Medical School of Harvard University [between the fifteenth of October and the end of November, 1906] / by Pierre Janet. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    The motor disturbances that have the preceding characteristic are very various and irregular; we could range them in two large groups: first, phenomena of at least apparent exaggeration of motion, which seem to exceed the will of the patient and to develop inop- portunely and without his consent, and second, phe- nomena of deficiency, in which, on the contrary, motion seems to fail and not to obey the will and consciousness of the subject. In the first group, which we designate under the general name of motor agitations, are to be ranged tics, choreas, and contractures; in the second, the strange functional paralyses, or paralyses dependent on ideas; to-day we shall study only the first group. You all know the commonplace phenomenon of tics, which is to be met under so many circumstances; I advise you to keep the French word because I do not find in the English language a good translation. You must not fancy that all tics are hysteric. There are some epileptic tics, and even oftener, psychasthenic tics, but, to confine ourselves to our preceding diagnosis, there are some tics that are to be met with in patients who have already had all the preceding forms of som- nambulism, and that alternate with these somnam- bulisms. These tics are essentially constituted by little move- ments of the face, head or limbs, which appear at random, without any relation either to the present cir- cumstances or the consciousness of the patients. This