III

SOMNAMBULISM AND HYSTERIA AS MENTAL RELICS

Fear as the primary cause of hysteria-Natural somnambulism-Doubling of personality-Some examples of somnambulists-Analogy between somnambulism and the life of anthropoid apes-The psychology of crowds-Importance of the investigation of hysteria for the problem of the origin of man

THE study of fear is interesting in other respects than those with which I have been dealing. It is also a primary cause of the obscure and complicated phenomena of hysteria.

Thus, for instance, amongst twenty-two hysterical women observed by Georget1 the primary causes were: terror, 13 cases; extreme grief, 7 cases; extreme annoyance, one case. A patient of M. Pitres, of Bordeaux, first exhibited hysteria after being extremely terrified. A man with a tame bear had come to the village. The patient went to see the performance and elbowed her way through the crowd until she got to the front row. The bear, whilst dancing, passed so close that its cold muzzle touched the cheek of the young girl. Marie-for that was the patient's name—was terrified. She ran quickly home, and almost on her arrival fell on her bed in an attack of convulsion and extreme delirium. Since then the attacks have been repeated many times, and the delirium associated with them always turns upon the terror caused by the bear touching her.

1 Quoted by M. Pitres in Leçons cliniques sur l'hystérie, 1891, vol. i.

A hysterical woman at the Salpétrière is haunted by terrifying dreams. She thinks someone is trying to murder her, or to cut her throat, or that she is falling into water, and she keeps crying for help.1

Some of the most curious phases of hysteria are the paradoxical and extraordinary cases of so-called natural somnambulism, in which the patients, whilst asleep, perform all sorts of acts of which they remember nothing in their waking hours. Cases of duplication of personality are also known, in which the patients live in two different states without, in one of these, having the slightest remembrance of what takes place in the other. One of the most curious observations was that of the somnambulist who became enceinte whilst in her second state. In her first, or normal condition, she was ignorant of the reason of her physical changes, although in the second state she knew about it quite well and spoke freely of it (Pitres, op. cit. II, 215).

In the state of natural somnambulism the patients generally reproduce the normal acts of their daily life which they have acquired the habit of performing unconsciously. Artisans devote themselves to their manual work, sempstresses begin to sew, maid servants brush shoes or clothes, lay the table and so forth. Educated persons devote themselves to intellectual work to which they are accustomed. Clergymen have been known to compose their sermons in the somnambulistic condition, and to read them over to correct mistakes in style or in spelling.

However, besides somnambulists who during slumber simply repeat the usual acts of their life, there are others who do special things to which they are unaccustomed.

1 Bourneville et Regnard, Iconographie photographique de la Salpétrière, 1879-1880, vol. iii, p. 50.

It is these cases which are most interesting from my point of view. I shall take one case which has been specially well reported. A hysterical patient, a girl of 24 years of age, was admitted as an in-patient to the hospital Laënnec. One Sunday, she got up about one o'clock in the morning. The night watchman, who was alarmed, went for the night doctor, who witnessed the following scene. "The patient went to the staircase leading to the nurses' quarters, then suddenly turned round and walked towards the washhouse. The door of that being closed, she then groped for a time and turned towards the women's dormitory in which she had formerly slept. She went up to the top of the house where this dormitory was, and when she got on the landing, opened a window leading to the roof, went out of the window, walked along the gutter, under the horrified eyes of the nurse who followed her and who did not dare to speak to her, went in again by another window and went down the stairs." "It was at this moment that I saw her," said the night doctor; "she was walking noiselessly, her gait was automatic, her arms hanging by her sides, a little bent, the head erect and fixed, her hair disordered, her eyes wide open; she seemed like some strange apparition." This is obviously the case of a hysterical subject, who in a normal condition was not accustomed to climb upon roofs and walk along the gutters.

Another observation, reported by Charcot, related to a young man, seventeen years old, the son of a large manufacturer, and of good address. Tired out by working for his final examination, he had gone to bed early. Some time later he rose from the bed in his college dormitory, 1 Stéphanie Feinkind, Du somnambulisme dit naturel, Paris, 1893, P. 55.

went out by a window, and without accident climbed on the roof and took a long and dangerous walk along the gutters. He was awakened before any accident occurred (Feinkind, p. 70).

A case observed by Dr. Mesnet and M. Mottet was still more interesting. A lady thirty years old and extremely hysterical got out of bed in the night, "dressed herself, completed her toilet without help, removed the furniture in her way without stumbling against it. She was indifferent and idle by day, but strenuous at night in performing the most varied acts. I have seen her walking about in her rooms, opening doors, going down to the garden, leaping on seats with the utmost agility, running about, in fact doing all these things much better than in her waking hours, in which she got about only slowly and with aid" (Feinkind, p. 84).

Horst has related an extraordinary incident which took place in the sixteenth century. "A soldier walked in his sleep to a window, and with the help of a rope climbed a high tower, secured a jackdaw's nest with its young birds, and regained his bed, where he remained asleep until the morning." Unfortunately there are not sufficiently detailed facts regarding this incident, and for fully described cases we must return to modern times. Dr. Guinon has related one case in ample detail. A man thirty-four years of age, by occupation an interpreter, was taken into hospital for hysterical attacks. "One night soon after he came under the care of the physicians, this patient, towards one o'clock in the morning, suddenly arose from bed, threw open a window and jumped across the sill into the courtyard of the hospital. The attendants on duty ran after him, and saw him hurrying away, undressed and carrying a pillow 1 Dictionnaire des sciences médicales, 1821, vol. lii, p. 119.

in his arms. He traversed a series of gardens and walks, with the topography of which he was unacquainted, climbed a ladder and got on the roof of the hydrotherapeutic establishment, up and down which he proceeded to run with the greatest agility. Sometimes he stopped in his flight and rocked the pillow he was carrying, kissing and soothing it as if it were a child. Then he retraced the route he had taken." On being questioned next morning, he had not the faintest remembrance of his nocturnal exploit. "A similar fit came on him five or six times" (Feinkind, p. 108).

The same patient, "after having turned over in bed several times, seized a pillow and held it to his breast. He then got out of bed, and, in his nightgown, ran through the dormitory to a door leading to the lavatories. He opened the door, readily but with violence, and entered one of the closets. Then, still holding the pillow against his chest with one arm, by a gymnastic feat both difficult and dangerous, yet which he performed with the utmost precision, using his feet and the free arm, he got hold of the edge of the frame of an open window, through which he swung himself to the sill, alighting on both feet, after which, preserving the pillow carefully from contact or shocks, he jumped to the ground (the infirmary ward was on the ground floor). He then ran quickly to the opposite corner of the courtyard, passing the whole length of the great building at full speed, holding the pillow carefully. By a path which led round the building, he reached a corner where there was a tower supporting a great watertank. A kind of metallic ladder, placed almost vertically and with rounded steps, led up the side of the tower to a sort of observation-landing which at one point was adjacent to the edge of the roof of the bath-house.

"The patient set himself to climb this ladder without any