Benign Stupors: A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type — John Shaqi
Benign Stupors: A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction TypeHoch, August
Science
Benign Stupors: A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type
Hoch, August
Manic-depressive illness; Stupor
4. This apathy cleared up too, so that by the middle of
March she was bright, active and smiled freely. With the
nurses she was rather talkative and pleased, though this
was not marked. Towards the physician only was she natural
and free. She then gave the _retrospective account_ of the
onset detailed above. When questioned about her condition
she claimed not to remember the Observation Pavilion,
although recalling vaguely going there in a carriage. She
was almost completely amnesic for a considerable part of
her stay in the Institute. She claimed it was only in
November or December that she began to know where she was
(five months after admission). In harmony with this is the
fact that she did not recall the tube- and spoon-feeding
which had to be resorted to for about four months of this
period. No ideas or visions were remembered. As to her
mutism she said, “I don’t think I could speak,” “I made no
effort,” again “I did not care to speak.” She claimed that
she remembered being pricked with a pin but that she did
not feel it. She remembered yelling when taken to the tub
(towards end of the marked stupor) and claimed she thought
she was to be drowned.
When she went home (March 24, 1908) she got into a more
elated condition. She was talkative, conversed with
strangers on the street, said to her mother that she was
now sixteen years old and wanted “a fellow.” When the
mother would not allow her to go out, she said it would be
better if they both would jump out of the window and kill
themselves. She then was sent back to the hospital. In the
first part of this period after her return, she was
somewhat elated and overtalkative, though she did not
present a flight of ideas, and was well behaved. She soon
got well, however, and was discharged, four months after
her readmission, fully recovered.
After that, it is claimed, she was perfectly well and
worked successfully most of the time with the exception of
a short period in the spring of 1909, when she was slightly
elated.
In 1910 she had a subsequent attack, during which she was
treated at another hospital. From the description this
again seems to have been a typical stupor (immobility,
mutism, tendency to catalepsy, rigidity). According to the
account of the onset sent by that hospital (it was obtained
from the mother), this attack began some months before
admission, with complaints of being out of sorts, not being
able to concentrate and fearing that another attack would
come on. Finally the stupor was said to have been
immediately preceded by a seizure in which the whole body
jerked. She made again an excellent recovery.
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