Page:A treatise on hysteria (IA b29314513).pdf/20

6 very creditable to the profession, .as evincing an unanimous desire to promote the interests of science, and to impart to others such knowledge and such light as may have resulted from individual experience and research.

Though it may, perhaps, be impossible to determine all the reasons that have operated to prevent these really interesting disorders from undergoing a more particular investigation, it is not improbable that the following may form part of them.

In the first place, Hysteria has been, from time immemorial, looked upon as a very trifling affair, made up of nervousness, fancifulness, and imbecility: not unfrequently it has scarcely been treated with common humanity; often turned into ridicule, and considered altogether undeserving of serious attention.

In the next place, with the exception of that common form which is popularly called "Hysterics," the characters it assumes are so various and indefinite, that they have seemed not to admit of being classed under the same general name, or to bear any resemblance to each other. Further, its pathological conditions have been very little understood; and its multifarious shapes are so