It remains a task for future investigation to discover what conditions are decisive in determining whether a hysterical individuality should manifest itself in attacks, in persistent symptoms, or in a mingling of both. V. We can now understand in what manner the psychotherapeutic method propounded by us exerts its curative effect. _It abrogates the efficacy of the original not ab-reacted presentation of affording an outlet to the strangulated affect through speech. It brings it to associative correction by drawing it into normal consciousness (in mild hypnosis) or it is done away with through the physician’s suggestion just as happens in somnambulism with amnesia._ We maintain that the therapeutic gain obtained by applying this process is quite significant. To be sure we do not cure the hysterical predisposition as we do not block the way for the recurrence of hypnoid states; moreover, in the productive stage of acute hysteria our procedure is unable to prevent the replacement of the carefully abrogated phenomena by new ones. But when this acute stage has run its course and its remnants continue as persistent hysterical symptoms and attacks, our radical method usually removes them forever, and herein it seems to surpass the efficacy of direct suggestion as practiced at present by psychotherapists. If by disclosing the psychic mechanisms of hysterical phenomena we have taken a step forward on the path so successfully started by Charcot with his explanation and experimental imitation of hystero-traumatic paralysis, we are well aware that in doing this we have only advanced our knowledge in the mechanisms of hysterical symptoms and not in the subjective causes of hysteria. We have but touched upon the etiology of hysteria and could only throw light on the causes of the acquired forms, the significance of the accidental moments in the neurosis. CHAPTER II. THE CASE OF MISS LUCY R. Towards the end of 1892 a friendly colleague recommended to me a young lady whom he had been treating for chronic recurrent purulent rhinitis. It was later found that the obstinacy of her trouble was caused by a caries of the ethmoid. She finally complained of new symptoms which this experienced physician could no longer refer to local affections. She had lost all perception of smell and was almost constantly bothered by one or two subjective sensations of smell. This she found very irksome. In addition to this she was depressed in spirits, weak, and complained of a heavy head, loss of appetite, and an incapacity for work.