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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    look at an object while touching it, and appreciate the contact without having consciousness of the surrounding noises. At the third moment, he will write at dictation, having the perception of the sound of the voice, of the vision of the letters and of the muscular movements, but forgetting and neglecting all the other elementary sensations, as T, V, T, M', M, V, V, A', A. This individual is absent-minded, and this (Figure 22) is an attempt to schematize what is called normal absent- mindedness. Let us suppose that the field of consciousness becomes still more contracted. The patient can no longer perceive more than two elementary sensations at once. Of necessity too, he reserves this small share of per- ception for the sensations which seem to him, whether right or wrong, the most important, the sensations of sight and hearing. To have consciousness of what is seen or heard is of paramount necessity, and he neglects to perceive the tactile and muscular sensations, thinking he can do without them (Figure 23). At the outset, he might perhaps still turn to them and take them into his field of personal perception, at least for a moment; but, the chance not presenting itself, the bad psychological habit is slowly formed. Nothing is more serious, more obstinate than these moral habits. There is a crowd of maladies that are only psychological tics. One day the patient (for he has truly become one now) is examined by the physician. The latter pinches his left arm, and asks him if he feels it, and the patient, to his great surprise, is obliged to confess that he can no longer feel consciously. The too long-neg-