Hysterical Women

1918

By The Medical Editor

A woman writes that a nerve specialist has pronounced her hysterical and she wants to know the nature of the malady. Professionally this is a much discussed subject. Not that there is any great disagreement about its nature and manifestations but regarding the real cause of it. There are many features about the disease that cannot be discussed frankly in a lay paper, but there are some generalizations which are perfectly proper to propound.

Those suffering from hysteria which is closely allied to other mental disorders, seem unable to properly adjust themselves to their environment. They seem to be lacking in the ability to exercise good judgment in ordinary matters of everyday life. They are likely to concentrate their energy on some emotional subject and go far astray in their deductions.

Hysterical people are those in whom the elements that go to make up personality are loosely bound together.

In mental organization the victims of hysteria are children.

This mental defect leads its victims into strange pathways. They become converts of peculiar creeds and sects. They aspire to be reformers and defenders and what not and they are invariably on the wrong side by virtue of their warped judgment.

—The Bridgeport Telegram, Bridgeport, CT, March 18, 1918, p. 12.