_Susceptibility to Suggestion._ Of still greater importance for the criminologist is the facility with which hysterical women are dominated by hypnotic suggestion. Their wills become entirely subordinated to that of the hypnotiser, by whose influence they can be induced to believe that they have changed their sex so that they forthwith adopt habits of the opposite sex, or to entertain _idées fixes_--strange, impulsive, or even criminal ideas. They are, in fact, obedient automatons when under hypnotic influence, but they cannot be prevailed upon to perform acts contrary to their nature, to commit crimes or reveal secrets entrusted to them, if they are naturally upright. _Variability._ Mobility of mood is a still more salient characteristic of hysteria. The subject passes with extraordinary rapidity from laughter to tears "like children," says Richet, "who laugh immoderately before their tears are dry." "For one hour," says Sydenham, "they will be irascible and discontented; the next, they are cheerful and follow their friends about with all the signs of the old attachment." Their sensibility is affected by the most trifling causes. A word will grieve them like some real misfortune. Their impulses are not lacking in intellectual control, but are followed by action with excessive rapidity. Although of such changeable disposition, they are subject to fixed ideas, to which they cling with a kind of cataleptic intensity. A woman will be dumb or motionless for months, on the pretext that speech or motion would injure her. But this is the only form of constancy they exhibit, otherwise they are indolent by nature. Sometimes they will show activity for a few days only to relapse again into idleness. _Erotomania._ This is almost a pathognomonical symptom and is shown in hallucinations and nightmares of an erotic character, preceded by epigastric aura. This erotomania is so impulsive that hysterical women frequently engage in a _liaison_, from a desire of adventure or of experiencing sudden emotions. The criminality of the hysterical is always connected with the sexual functions. Of twenty-one women found guilty of slander, nine made false accusations of rape, four accused their husbands of sexual violence, and one of sodomy. Such accusations, when made by minors, are generally full of disgusting details, which would be repugnant to any adult.