Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 48.djvu/567

Rh —new point, but, once convinced, there is no length to which lie will not go in its application. At any given time lie is a man of one idea, given to a fad, and very apt to be zealous in reform movements of all kinds. He can rarely discriminate the probable from the possible, and consequently can never think of a disaster without fearing it will come to pass. This is especially true of his own health. If he reads a medical book or a patent-medicine advertisement, he discovers in himself the symptoms of most of the diseases of which he has been reading. In a person of this temperament any great shock is apt to bring on a state of disordination with concomitant derangement of the motor coordination what we vulgarly call a "fit of hysterics."

In more serious cases the indisposition to notice things goes further and often culminates in absolute inability to perceive what a normal person would. Entire systems of sensations may be wholly or partly lost. Touch is the sensation most frequently lost in this way, although sight and hearing sometimes go too. Very frequently sensation is lost on one side of the body only. The control exerted by the idea trains over the movements of the body is also partially or wholly lost and the patient is paralyzed. Hysterical losses of this kind are often cured by suggestion, or by any means in which the patient has faith. In the most extreme cases the patient passes hours, days, months, or even years in a state of apparent lethargy, which is probably a chronic disordination.

With the retrenchment of the field of consciousness goes hand in hand a corresponding increase in the subconscious field, and the elements dissociated from the upper consciousness frequently appear to become coordinated with one another, forming subconscious systems analogous to the upper system. They are then sometimes manifested to the patient himself by being obtruded upon the upper consciousness in the form of inner voices, hallucinations of sight or hearing, etc., or to other persons by means of movements. Occasionally they go so far as to produce writing in which the upper consciousness of the patient has no part. Hence arises for outsiders the appearance of two minds existing in one body, while to the patient his body seems to be running like a machine, without his cooperation. All such phenomena may be termed automatic, and upon them the popular belief in "spirit control" and "demoniacal possession" undoubtedly largely depends. When automatic phenomena are numerous and complex, the upper consciousness of the patient is usually profoundly affected. He sinks into a dreamy state, and often loses "consciousness"—i. e., memory—altogether. "Mediumistic trance" may then be regarded as a form of disordination analogous to that of the hysterical crisis.