[253] The hysterical phenomenon of _globus hystericus_ was long afterward attributed to obstruction of respiration by the womb. The interesting case has been recorded by E. Bloch (_Wiener Klinische Wochenschrift_, 1907, p. 1649) of a lady who had the feeling of a ball rising from her stomach to her throat, and then sinking. This feeling was associated with thoughts of her husband's rising and falling penis, and was always most liable to occur when she wished for coitus. [254] As Gilles de la Tourette points out, it is not difficult to show that epilepsy, the _morbus sacer_ of the ancients, owed much of its sacred character to this confusion with hysteria. Those priestesses who, struck by the _morbus sacer_, gave forth their oracles amid convulsions, were certainly not the victims of epilepsy, but of hysteria (_Traité de l'Hystérie_, vol. i, p. 3). [255] Aretæus, _On the Causes and Symptoms of Acute Diseases_, Book ii, Chapter II. [256] It may be noted that this treatment furnishes another instance of the continuity of therapeutic methods, through all changes of theory, from the earliest to the latest times. Drugs of unpleasant odor, like asafoetida, have always been used in hysteria, and scientific medicine to-day still finds that asafoetida is a powerful sedative to the uterus, controlling nervous conditions during pregnancy and arresting uterine irritation when abortion is threatened (see, e.g., Warman, _Der Frauenarzt_, August, 1895). Again, the rubbing of fragrant ointments into the sexual regions is but a form of that massage which is one of the modern methods of treating the sexual disorders of women. [257] _Les Démoniaques dans l'Art_, 1887; _Les Malades et les Difformes dans l'Art_, 1889. [258] Glafira Abricosoff, of Moscow, in her Paris thesis, _L'Hystérie aux xvii et xviii siécles_, 1897, presents a summary of the various views held at this time; as also Gilles de la Tourette, _Traité de l'Hystérie_, vol. i, Chapter I. [259] _Edinburgh Medical Journal_, June, 1883, p. 1123, and _Mental Diseases_, 1887, p. 488. [260] Hegar, _Zusammenhang der Geschlechtskrankheiten mit nervösen Leiden_, Stuttgart, 1885. (Hegar, however, went much further than this, and was largely responsible for the surgical treatment of hysteria now generally recognized as worse than futile.) Balls-Headley, "Etiology of Nervous Diseases of the Female Genital Organs," Allbutt and Playfair, _System of Gynecology_, 1896, p. 141. [261] Lombroso and Ferrero, _La Donna Delinquente_, 1893, pp. 613-14. [262] Charcot and Marie, article on "Hysteria," Tuke's _Dictionary of Psychological Medicine_. [263] Axenfeld and Huchard, _Traité des Névroses_, 1883, pp. 1092-94. Icard (_La Femme pendant la Période Menstruelle_, pp. 120-21) has also referred to recorded cases of hysteria in animals (Coste's and Peter's cases), as has Gilles de la Tourette (op. cit., vol. i, p. 123). See also, for references, Féré, _L'Instinct Sexuel_, p. 59.