Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 85.djvu/573

Rh in manic cases, but if anything more fatigable. It is much slower in the depressed phase of the psychosis, and increases somewhat as it is kept up, and the retardation is partially overcome by the continued work. E. K. Strong has recently followed this and other functions through different clinical stages of the disorder. Nothing particular has appeared in the other psychoses, save that in terminal cases of dementia præcox a disorganization of control is sometimes seen, similar to what appears, and would be expected, in coarse nervous lesions. W. G. Smith found a rate averaging a little above the normal in epileptic cases, owing to a notable persistence of speed.

The most psychologically interesting observation of choice reactions is that of Franz, in which the psychomotor retardation produces a longer simple than choice reaction time, owing, apparently, to a greater overcoming of retardation in the more complex process. A similar finding is reported by Marie and Vaschide.

The tremors of the "steadiness test" play no part in mental pathology outside of the coarse nervous lesions. Defectiveness in the speech movements, where it is a real defect and not a mannerism, is usually also produced in this way. For the same considerations as apply with the eye-movements, accurate registration should enhance their diagnostic significance. Something of the sort has already been reported by Scripture in reference to epilepsy.

A number of fairly definite motor phenomena of the psychoses ought to be mentioned, though they have not been brought under experimental control. Eetention of the limbs in positions where placed is most common in dementia præcox states, but is also seen in extremely retarded cases of the manic-depressive type, where it has been psychologically interpreted as an extreme ideomotor perseveration. Closely allied to this is the type of motor disorder in dementia præcox known as "waxy," or flexibilitas cerea, in which the limbs are movable from one position to another like those of a wax figure. On the other hand, the resistiveness may be of the spring type, the member strongly resisting displacement, and at once returning to its original position. Extreme motor stupor combined with mental alertness is also met with in this psychosis; while the stereotypy and mannerisms of normal life are often tremendously exaggerated in it.

There is a good deal of ground for suspicion that these phenomena are far from motor in the sense that they originate at the same levels with tremors or reflexes. Thus in some cases the resistance to pressure is begun in anticipation of the pressure, and, if, for example, a finger nearly but not quite touching the forehead be slowly drawn away, the patient, resisting the suggested pressure, may bend forward until equilibrium is lost. There is more likely an ideational element in such phenomena, and like their counterparts that we shall see among the