Page:Freud - Selected papers on hysteria and other psychoneuroses.djvu/84

70 was followed by neither temporary nor permanent relief. At that time the neuralgia raged for months. Even while under my care whenever she had neuralgia the dentist was called and he always declared he found diseased roots. He commenced to get ready for such work but usually he was soon interrupted, for the neuralgia suddenly ceased and with it the desire for the dentist. During the intervals the teeth did not ache at all. One day just while another attack was raging I put the patient into a hypnotic condition and placed an energetic interdiction on the pains, and from that moment they ceased. I then began to doubt the genuineness of this neuralgia.

About a year after this hypnotic remedial success the condition of Mrs. Cäcilie M. took a new and surprising turn. There suddenly appeared other states than those that had been characteristic of the last years, but after some reflection the patient declared that all these conditions had existed in her before and were really scattered over the long period of her disease (thirty years). Indeed a surprising abundance of hysterical incidents were unrolled which the patient was able to localize correctly in the past and soon the frequently very entangled thought connections which determined the sequence of these incidents became recognizable. It was like a series of pictures with an explanatory text. Pitres, on describing his délire ecmnésique, must have had in mind a similar case. The way such a hysterical condition belonging to the past was reproduced was most remarkable. In the first place while the patient was in the best of condition there appeared a pathological mood of special coloring which was regularly mistaken by the patient and was referred to a banal occurrence of the last hours. This increasing obnubilation of consciousness was followed by hysterical symptoms, such as hallucinations, pains, convulsions, and long declamations, and finally an event of the past attached itself to this hallucinatory manifestion which could explain the initial mood and determine the occasional symptoms. With this last part of the attack lucidity returned, the ailments disappeared as if by magic and good health again existed—until the next attack which was half a day later. Usually I was called at the height of this condition. I produced hypnosis, evoked a reproduction of the traumatic events, and by artificial aid I curtailed the attack. Having gone through with the patient