“A lady, who laboured habitually under melancholy, a few days after parturition was seized with catalepsy, and presented the following appearances:--She was lying in bed motionless and apparently senseless. It was thought the pupils of her eyes were dilated, and some apprehensions were entertained of effusion on the brain; but on examining them closely it was found they readily contracted when the light fell upon them. The only signs of life were warmth, and a pulse which was one hundred and twenty, and weak. In attempting to rouse her from this senseless state, the trunk of the body was lifted up and placed so far back as to form an obtuse angle with the lower extremities, and in this posture, with nothing to support her, she continued sitting for many minutes. One arm was now raised, and then the other, and in the posture they were placed they remained. It was a curious sight to see her sitting up staring lifelessly, her arms outstretched, yet without any visible signs of animation. She was very thin and pallid, and looked like a corpse that had been propped up and stiffened in that attitude. She was now taken out of bed and placed upright, and attempts were made to rouse her by calling loudly in her ears, but in vain; she stood up, indeed, but as inanimate as a statue. The slightest push put her off her balance, and she made no exertion to retain it, and would have fallen had she not been caught. She went into this state three times; the first lasted fourteen hours, the second twelve hours, and the third nine hours, with waking intervals of three days after the first fit, and of one day after the second; after this time the disease assumed the ordinary form of melancholia.--_The Science and Practice of Medicine, by Sir W. Aitken, p. 357._ [CASES BY DRS. JEBB AND KING CHAMBERS.] Dr. John Jebb, F.R.S., cited in Reynolds’ “System of Medicine,” vol. ii., pp. 99-102, has recorded the following graphic case:--