Page:The achievements of Luther Trant - Balmer and MacHarg - 1910.djvu/40

22 finding of her father's body, has prostrated poor Margaret," he said.

"I found it so," Trant rejoined. "Her memory is temporarily destroyed. I could make her comprehend little. Yet she knows only of her father's death; nothing at all has been said to her of the suspicions against him. Does his death alone seem cause enough for her prostration? More likely, I think, it points to some guilty knowledge of her father's trouble and whom he was protecting. If so, her very condition makes it impossible for her to conceal those guilty associations under examination."

"Guilty associations?" Dr. Reiland rose nervously. "Do you mean, Trant, that you think Margaret knows anything of the loss of this money? Oh, no, no; it is impossible!"

"It would at any rate account for her prostration," the assistant repeated quietly, "and I have determined to make a test of her for association with her father's guilt. I will use in this case, Dr. Reiland, only the simple association of words—Freud's method."

"How? What do you mean?" Branower and Joslyn exclaimed.

"It is a method for getting at the concealed causes of mental disturbance. It is especially useful in diagnosing cases of insanity or mental breakdown from insufficiently known causes.

"We have a machine, the chronoscope," Trant continued, as the others waited, interrogatively, "which registers the time to a thousandth part of a second, if necessary. The German physicians merely speak a series of words which may arouse in the patient ideas