Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 12.djvu/617

601 H Y S H Y T 601 particular parts. On the other hand loss of sensation may be complained of, or, as occasionally happens, hypenesthesia and anaesthesia may be stated by an individual to exist in different parts of the body. The region of the spine is a very frequent seat of hysterical pain. Pain, more especially when referred to a joint, is apt to be accompanied by swell ing. Both the motor and the sensory symptoms are in every instance out of all proportion to any assignable cause, and for the most part disappear suddenly, leaving the patient in perfect health. It is to such cases that the wonderful cures effected by quacks and charlatans may be referred. The mental symptoms have not the same tendency to pass away suddenly. They may be spoken of as interparoxysmal and paroxysmal. The chief character istics of the former are extreme emotionalism combined with a curious obstructiveness, a desire to be an object of importance, and a constant craving for sympathy. This is sought to be procured at an immense sacrifice of personal comfort, and to this may be referred a very large proportion of the motor and sensory symptoms above spoken of. The paroxysmal condition does not materially differ from the transient hysteric attack, except that convulsion is more common and more violent. The special senses of taste, sight, and hearing may be affected, sometimes temporarily obliterated. Hysteria may pass into absolute insanity. Treatment consists in attention to the general health, and to such special symptoms as may arise, notably those connected with the function of menstruation. The submis sion of the patient to the best moral influences is of no mean importance. But it may be admitted that the results are generally unsatisfactory so far as medication is concerned, as the cure is usually spontaneous or dependent on some sudden mental influence. See Ziemssen s Cyclopedia of the Practice of Medicine, vol. xiv. ; l!eyiiohls s System of Medicine, vol. ii. (J. B. T.) HYSTERO-EPILEPSY, a nervous disease of women, occurring during the fertile period of life, first observed and described by Professor Charcot of Paris. As yet it has been rarely observed in Great Britain. Its phenomena are very extraordinary, and serious doubts have been en tertained by eminent authorities as to their substantiality, it being asserted that they are merely manifestations of ordinary hysteria, intensified by a process of education. But these doubts are being rapidly dissipated by the observations of competent observers. The disease is of a paroxysmal nature, and its symptoms may be divided into inter-paroxysmal and paroxysmal. The former consist of extreme sensitiveness over the region of one or (less fre quently) both ovaries, and loss of tactile sensibility and complete insensibility to pain in one lateral half of the body, the side on which, ovarian tenderness exists. Sight is sometimes implicated, manifested by a peculiar form of colour-blindness. Perhaps the most remarkable pheno menon presented in this disease is that all these impair ments of sensation may be shifted to the other side of the body on the application of magnets and plates of metals, the originally affected side regaining sensibility so long as the opposite one is insensible. In some cases the symp toms are permanently bilateral. The paroxysm consists in violent general convulsion, epileptiform in character, which is at once checked by pressure over the tender ovary. The mental faculties are generally weakened, and the disease is for the most part incurable. (See Charcot, Lectures on Diseases of the Nervous System, New Sydenham Soc., 1877.) HYTHE, a municipal and parliamentary borough of Kent, England, and one of the original Cinque Ports, is beautifully situated at the foot of a steep cliff near the eastern extremity of Piomney Marsh, about half a mile from the sea, on a branch line of the South-Eastern Hail- way, GG miles E.S.E. of London, 1C S.W. of Dover, and 5 W. of Folkestone. It consists principally of one long handsome street running parallel with the shore. On the slope of the hill above the town stands the fine old church of St Leonard, partly Late Norman and partly Early English, with a tower rebuilt about 1750. In a vault under the chancel there is a collection of human skulls and bones supposed to be the remains of ancient Britons and Saxons slain in a battle which took place near Hythe in 456. Of late the church has been undergoing restoration at a considerable cost, and it is proposed to complete the chancel, which was originally left unfinished. At Lympne there are the remains of a Roman castrum, and excavations made some years ago brought to light many interesting remains of the old Roman town, the Portus Lemanus. The site of the castrum is now occupied by the fine old castellated mansion of Studfall Castle, at one time the residence of the archdeacons of Canterbury, but at pre sent used as a farm-house. Norman portions of the Lympne church originally built by Archbishop Lanfranc are still standing ; and a small distance east from it is Shipway or Shepway Cross, where the great assemblies relating to the Cinque Ports used to be held until they were removed to Romney. Several bronze implements and weapons were discovered near Hythe in 1873, during the excavation of the railway line from Hythe to Sand- gate. A mile nortli from Hythe is Salt wood Castle, of very ancient origin, but rebuilt in the time of Richard II. Hythe possesses a guild hall founded in 1794, and two hospitals, that of St Bartholomew founded by Haimo, bishop of Rochester, in 133G, and that of St John, of still greater antiquity but unknown date, and founded origin ally for the reception of lepers. A Government school of musketry, in which instructors of musketry for the army are trained, was established in 1854 ; and the Shorn- cliffe military camp is within 2| miles of the town. On account of its pleasant situation and its picturesque and interesting neighbourhood, Hythe has become a favourite watering-place. Baths were erected in 1854 at a cost of 2000, and the sea wall and parade has lately been ex tended eastwards to Sandgate, the total length being 3 miles. From the town to the sea-shore there is a stately avenue of wych elms. The area of the municipal borough is 1744 acres, and of the parliamentary borough 3571 acres. The population of the municipal borough in 1871 was 3383, and of the parliamentary borough 24,078. The latter includes the municipal borough of Folkestone. Hythe occurs in old documents as Hetho, and in Domesday Book as Hede. The word is derived from the Saxon Hytli, meaning a harbour. The present town of Hythe rose to importance after the decay of West Hythe by the withdrawal of the sea, West Hytho having previously succeeded to the Portus Lemanus, vhose decay had been due to a like cause. Since the reign of Elizabeth the harbour has been choked up with sand. It is a theory of some writers that the landing place of Julius Crcsav on his first invasion of Britain was in the vieinity of Lympne. Anciently Hythe, with the parish of AVest Hythe, was within a &quot;hundred&quot; of its own. Along with Sallwood it was given in 1026 by Halfdan, a Saxon thane, to Christ Church in Canterbury; and it was afterwards held for knight s service by Earl Godwine. According to Leland, it at one time had a fine abbey and four parish churches.&quot; It succeeded to the ancient privileges which West Hythe enjoyed as a Cinque Tort, its quota being 5 ships, 10^5 men, and 5 boys. When Earl Godwine ravaged the coast of Kent in 1052 he took several ships from the harbour of Hythe. In 1293 the inhabitants with great valour repulsed the attacks of the sea men of a French man-of-war who had disembarked in the harbour and were beginning to plunder the town. In the reign of Kichaid II. a great conflagration destroyed 200 of the houses and 5 of the ships in the harbour. Hythe and Saltwood were given by Arch bishop Cranmer to Henry VIII. in lieu of other estates, and they continued vested in the crown until the 17th year of Elizabeth, when the town received a charter of incorporation. It is now governed by 4 aldermen and 12 councillors, one of whom is may or. From the 42d year of Edward III. it possessed the privilege of returning two members to parliament, but since 18C2 it has returned only one. XII. 76