The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1896-04-05
CURES ILLS OF FANCY,
Modern Physicians Do What Old
Miracles Did.
From the New York Press.

from the New York Press.
Considerable attention recently was at
tracted by the case of young woman
who suddenly became dumb, and who.
after fortnight at Bellevue recovered
her power of speech as suddenly as she
had lost it.
DR.. R. f. Brown of the hospital STAFF.
who had charge of the case, when asked
what treatment he applied, said: None.
1t was case of hysteria. 1 simply tried
to convince her that there was nothing
the matter with her, and when l sue
ceeded in doing that she talked again.
Her case is not an uncommon one
Hysteria viii simulate almost any dis
ease or afiiction. The patient may mag
Inc ne can't walk or talk or breathe, or
something else, and he can't as long as
he thinks so. Convince him that he can.
and he is all right.
Other physicians told many curious
Facts about hysteria. One who has a
large practice among Italians said: ''I
ma Ino considerable Of It among my pa
the Italians and French, are more sub
Ject to it than others. 1t is in all races
more prevalent among women than men"
Another said: THE so-called faith
cures are nothing more nor less than
hysterla cures. Persons suffering appar-
emily from oil known diseases go to a
Ialth cure meeting, and, after a certain
amount Of ceremony, throw away their
crutches or recover their speech. The
fact is their Affections were only imagin-
airy, and, being convinced that they are
cured, why, cured they arei"
one doctor told Of the case of a man
VINO suddenly became dumb and remained
SO for TWO yeais. Then he began to speak
again There was no reason except hys-
terra. why he should not have spoken all
the time. Another man was lame for a
year. though there was nothing eXcept
hlysteria 10 make him so. The ordinary
mysteries" in which people laugh and cry
without cause and with no power to stop
is only another form of the same disease
but anodynes will stop that
had a curious case of Mysteries the
other day." said still another doctor. "A
working girl of sound health suddenly be-
came convinced that she could not eat or
swallow. thought she would die of suffo-
cation before l could get into her enough
morphine by simultaneous injections to
put her to sleep. When she got drowsy
she breathed all right, and after her sleep
she could swallow all right"
An interesting question arises in connec-
ton with hysteria, as to the difference
between the nervous organization of men
and of women. The old medical books de-
scribe 1t as a disease peculiar to women.
Even as late as 1874, DIR. Dunglison in his
practice of Medicine" takes some pains
to combat the theory that men never had
nySterla. In one place he says: well
marked hysteria is met with in men of
which the author had a striking example
lately. Such cases Ii is true are rare, but
a single case is sufficient to show that it
is not necessarily a Woman's disease
What doctor now would think he had dis
covered something rare in man afflicted
with hysteria?
The old medical writers do not seem to
have recognized as a form of hysteria such
symptom as dumbness. 1t was left for
modern medical science to discover that
many apparent diseases which had baffied
the curative powers of the physicians Of
comparatively few years ago were not or
ganic diseases at all, but merely hySteria.