With the description of the treatment I endeavored to interweave the explanations which I gave about the case of Miss Elisabeth v. R. and it will perhaps be superfluous to summarize here the essential features. I have discussed the character of the patient and the features which repeat themselves in so many hysterics, and which we really can not consider as degenerative. I mentioned the talent, the ambition, the moral sensitiveness, the immense yearning for love which found its gratification in the family, the independence of her nature reaching beyond the womanly ideal which manifested itself largely by obstinacy, readiness for fight, and inaccessibility. According to the information of my colleague no hereditary taints could be shown on either side of the family. Her mother, to be sure, suffered for years from some indefinite neurotic depression, but her brothers and sisters, her father and his family belonged to the even-tempered and not to the nervous. There was no serious case of neuropsychosis in the nearest relatives. This nature was acted upon by painful emotions, the foremost of which was the debilitating influence of a long attendance upon her beloved sick father. That nursing of the sick plays such a significant rôle in the histories of hysterias has its good reasons. A number of effective moments which are found here are quite obvious, namely, the disturbance of the physical health through interrupted sleep, neglect of nourishment, and the reaction of a constantly gnawing worriment on the vegetative functions; but the most important factor, however, is, in my estimation, to be found elsewhere. He whose mind is occupied with the hundred different tasks of nursing which succeed each other continuously for weeks and months, becomes accustomed, on the one hand, to suppress all signs of his own emotions, and on the other, his attention is soon turned away from his own impressions because he has neither the time nor strength to do them justice. Thus the nurse accumulates for himself an over abundance of affective impressions which he barely perceived clearly enough, at any rate they were not weakened by ab-reaction, that is, he creates for himself the material for a retention hysteria. If the patient recovers these impressions naturally become reduced in value, but if he dies and the period of mourning comes during which only that which refers to the deceased seems of value, the impressions waiting for discharge appear in turn, and after a brief pause of exhaustion the hysteria, the germ of which originated during the nursing, bursts forth.