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.

She Swallowed 1,446 Pieces of Hardware

1911

Editorial Quips on the News

A post-mortem examination of a Missouri lady who had a mania for heavy diet resulted in the discovery of 1,446 separate articles of hardware in her little inside. If there is any truth in theosophy the lady was either a goat or an ostrich in her previous existence. (See note below and photo here. Click the photo for bigger version.)

A New York woman says she lost her respect for her husband when she caught him with five aces in his hand. She is perfectly right. A man who allows himself to be caught that way deserves no respect.

If that Buffalo man who would not give up a counterfeit bill to an agent of the government were to get the full penalty of $100 and a year's imprisonment he might think he had committed some real crime.

We have it from a Germany economist that American women will soon be forced to labor on farms like men. Here we have an outlet for the surplus energy of those fair damsels who seek "careers" in preference to husbands.

Most of those who tell about rearing a family and saving money on $1,000 a year do not have to and hence are better able to theorize in the abstract.

A florist in New Jersey turns his hennery into a summer garden with all sorts of flowers and is getting eggs of delicate flavor and various tints, violet, rose and carnation flavors being in the lead. A hen garden of this kind might be a handsome and useful addition to the combination clubhouse for the Ananias members and the nature fakers.

Note: The item about the Missouri lady with a mania for a heavy diet recalls someone who must have been another Missouri lady with the same problem, who I heard about while touring the psychiatric museum at St. Joseph, Missouri. At this site there's a small photo of the items, said to be more than 1,400, which were taken from the patient in 1929. Since I'm pretty sure my article is from 1911, and it specifically says "post-mortem," obviously this would have to be a different Missouri lady. The photo at the top is a photo I took of all the screws and things they said she had ingested. If you're ever in the area of St. Joseph, the museum is worth going to! Just don't let them keep you, which was what I was legitimately most afraid of.

Slays Sweetheart, Called Moron, Imbecile, Inferior, Insane

1920

NEW HAS MENTALITY OF 12 YEAR OLD BOY

ALIENISTS ASSERT THAT SLAYER OF SWEETHEART IS A "HIGH CLASS IMBECILE"

By United Press Leased Wire

Los Angeles. -- Harry S. New has the mentality of a boy slightly under 12 years of age.

He is a moron, a "high class imbecile."

His mind began to deteriorate about two years ago when he was on the Mexican border.

His mind "exploded" in Topango Canyon on the night of July 4 when Frieda Lesser is supposed to have refused to marry him because of circumstances surrounding his birth.

These were the opinions of Dr. Ross Moore, alienist, called by the defense in New's trial on the charge of murdering Miss Lesser in an attempt to prove the accused man was insane when he shot the girl.

Prospects today were that the trial would continue for another week.

Dr. E. B. Hoag of Pasadena, mental expert and special lecturer for the University of California, analyzed New's case as:

New is constitutionally an inferior person; is of a psychopathic personality; a paranoic; suffers from dementia praecox; is feeble minded and insane."

He based his testimony on an examination of New, a study of New's history and of the evidence and depositions presented at the trial.

It was learned the prosecution will not deny the allegation that New is of an inferior mind, but will attempt to prove he is only dull not demented.

"Frieda Lesser must have been a remarkable girl not to have realized New's mentality," Dr. Hoag declared.

--The Appleton Daily Post, Appleton, Wisconsin, January 3, 1920, page 4.