As these scattered reports about benign stupors are so unsatisfactory, one naturally turns to text-books. Little more appears in them. Kraepelin treats stupors occurring in manic-depressive insanity as falling into two groups, the depressive and manic. The former seems to be nearer to our cases, judging by the statements in his rather sketchy account. He regards stupor as being the most extreme degree of depressive retardation. [This possibility has been discussed in the chapter on Affect.] His description seems perhaps to include cases which we would regard as perplexity states or absorbed manias. Activity is reduced, they lie in bed mute, do not answer, may retract shyly at any approach, but on the other hand may not ward off pin pricks. Sometimes there is catalepsy and lack of will, again there may be aimless resistance to external interference. They hold anything put into their hands, turning it slowly as if ignorant of how to get rid of it. They may sit helpless before food or may allow spoon-feeding. Not rarely they are unclean. As to the mental content, he says they sometimes utter a few words, which give an insight into confused delusions that they are out of the world, that their brains are split, that they are talked about, or that something is going on in the lower part of the body. The affect is indefinite except for a certain bewilderment about their thoughts and an anxious uncertainty towards external interference. Intellectual processes suffer. They are disoriented and do not seem to understand the questions put to them. An answer “That is too complicated” may be made to some simple command. Kraepelin thinks that the disorder is sometimes more in the realm of the will than of thinking, for one patient could do a complicated calculation in the same time as a simple addition. After recovery the memory for the period of the psychosis is poor and quite gone for parts of it. Occasionally there may be bursts of excitement, when they leave the bed; they may scold in a confused way or sing a popular song. His manic stupor is a “mixed condition,” a combination of retardation with elated mood. The condition is different from the depressive stupor in that activity is more frequent, either in constant fumbling with the bed clothes or in spasmodic scolding, joking, playing of pranks, assaultiveness, erotic behavior or decoration. The affect is usually apparent in surly expression or happy, or erotic, demeanor. They are usually fairly clear and oriented and often with good memory for the attack but with evasive explanations for their symptoms. One cannot make any classification of the ideas he quotes, but it is apparent from all his description that the minds of these “manic stupors” are not a blank but rather that there is a fairly full mental content.