The Middlebury register and Addison County journal. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1883-1885, 1883-04-20
Remarkable Decisions.

Recent Giro umstances have directed
attention to certain remarkable delu-
sions to which females of unstable
nervous equilibrium are subject, either
through hysteria or through similar
disorders of the V system.
Charcot and Bonneville give instances
of the ezra ;rdinary self-deceptions
that are frequent among hysterical pa
tents. DR.. Legrand du Saulle, ply
stefan to the Salpetriere, Paris, de-
scribes in his standard work, Lies
Hysteriques," some remarkable cases
of halluclnation, where females labor
under the belief that they have been
struck or stabbed by 9th rs, even after
having inflicted blows and wounds
upon themselves. In one instance a
young woman vas found by her hus-
band lying IN the floor of her room
in a fainting fit, her face covered with
blood. On reviving from her wCon
she stated that she had been attacked
by armed men; the Paris newspapers
related the case, and within three weeks
two similar events occurred in the
French metropolis. All these cases
proved to be fabricated by the sup
posed victims. A young girl wounded
herself slightly with pistol. She gave
the police authorities the most minute
details about an imaginary assassin,
who, according to her account, fired
the weapon, but she was found to be
highly hysterical, and it vas proved
that she had willfully wounded herself.
Inathird case in DR.. Du Saulle's expert
ence, a young woman was found in a
railway carriage, stabbed in the
left side. The incident caused
great excitement, but it was
proved, contrary to her asser-
lions, that she had inflicted the
wound herself and was a hysterical
subject. A housemaid was found
lying behind a door, bound, gagged and
covered with bruises. She stated that
she had been brutally attacked by two
burglars with blackened face, but she
was a highly hysterical woman, and
there appears to have been strong
evidence that she had contrived to tie
her own hands and gag and bruise her
self. Perhaps the strangsst case of
all occurred in NJ. Tardieu's practice.
A young lady living at Courbevoie
wished to make herself an object of
public interest by passing as a victim
of a political conspiracy which she
pretended to have discovered. One
night she was found in a state of the
greatest mental perturbation at the
door of her apartment. She could not
talk, but stated in writing that she had
been attacked outside her own house
by a man who had attempted to
garrote her, at the same time striking
twice with a dagger. Only the lady's
clothing was injured, and the body of
her dress and her corset were found to
be cut through, but at different levels.
She tried to make out chat the attempt
at strangulation had caused dumbness.
NJ. Tardieu remarked. in her hearing,
that this infrmity rapidly disappeared
when produced under circumstances of
this kind. She soon managed ~toregain
her speech and, in a short time, ad-
mitted that the whole narrative had
been developed out of her inner con-
seriousness. Eccentricity in relatives
is ever strongly %presumptive of self
deception, when a female makes any
statement or charges Of ill-treatment
of any kind. The constant fear of
assassination, especially if based on
reasonable grounds, is particularly
liable to predispose ervou or excit-
able subjects to extraordinary decisions
of this kind.-BritiSh Medical Journal.