A system of practical medicine. By American authors. Vol. 5 : $b Diseases of the nervous system
Science
A system of practical medicine. By American authors. Vol. 5 : $b Diseases of the nervous system
Medicine -- Practice
Hysteria in men may take on almost any form that it shows in women. It
may occur in the strong, although more likely to be seen among the
weak and effeminate. Even strong, vigorous workmen are susceptible, at
times, to hysteria. According to Charcot, the duration of the
affection differs somewhat in the two sexes. In male patients it lasts
a long time and the symptoms are troublesome; in females the contrary
is usually although not always the case. The occurrence of hysteria in
the male sex has probably been overlooked through the tendency to
class symptoms which would be regarded as hysterical in women as
hypochondriacal in men.
One of the most typical half-purposive hysterical attacks that has
ever come under my observation was in a literary man of some
prominence. Hysterical syncope, contracture, hysterical breathing,
hysterical hydrophobia, coccygodynia, hemiparesis, hemianæsthesia, and
blindness are some other forms of hysteria in the male of which there
are clinical records the result of personal observation. A remarkable
case of hysterical motor ataxy was seen in a boy who was for some time
a patient at the Philadelphia Polyclinic. Wilks[39] records several
interesting cases of hysteria in boys. One simulated laryngismus
stridulus, with paroxysmal suffocative attacks and barking. Another
was a case of hysterical maniacal excitement; another was an example
of malleation, or constant movement as in hammering; still others were
instances of extreme hyperæsthesia, of anorexia, and of nervous
dyspnœa. The same author also dwells on the hysterical perversion of
the moral sense found in boys as in girls. He gives some instances
clipped from English newspapers—attempts to poison, murder or attempts
to murder, confessions false and true. Many instances could be added
from our own sensational American sheets.
[Footnote 39: _Op. cit._]
No age is free from a liability to hysteria. Its occurrence, however,
at certain periods of life with great frequency is well known. The
following table has been arranged from tables given by Briquet and
Jolly, and shows that it is of most frequent occurrence between the
ages of fifteen and thirty:
Age. Landouzy. Georget. Beau. Briquet. Scanzoni. Total.
0-10 4 1 ... 66 ... 71
10-15 48 5 6 98 4 161
15-20 105 7 7 140 13 272
20-25 80 4 3 71 |
25-30 40 3 ... 24 | 64 289
30-35 38 ... ... 9 |
35-40 15 ... ... 9 | 78 149
40-45 7 1 ... 1 |
45-50 8 ... 1 3 | 44 65
50-55 4 ... ... 3 |
55-60 4 ... 1 2 | 11 25
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