The mental condition of patients with tic is no doubt analogous to that of hysterical cases, but it is no less common in many others that present no sign of that neurosis. There is little or nothing in tic characteristic of hysteria, and one sometimes questions whether the _soi-disant_ hysteria of certain subjects of tic is the real disease. In the same way as all who are predisposed, the sufferer from hysteria may develop a tic or tics, and although tic was held by Briquet, Axenfeld, Bouchut, and others, to be merely an accessory symptom of hysteria and _nervosism_, these doctrines were propounded prior to the analytic researches of Charcot. Pitres,[155] whose opinion is so weighty in matters neurological, considered a predisposition to tic as a sign of hysteria, for which neurosis the subjects of tic were candidates, and supported his contention by various clinical examples: A resin-gatherer of Landes carried all day from tree to tree a notched stake of wood by which to climb up the pine-trunks. The weight of it on his left shoulder began to cause a slight but persistent aching, which was followed by involuntary deviation of the chin to that side. The movements took place at the rate of ten to thirty a minute, but diminished materially in frequency and degree whenever the patient lay on his left side, or when he inclined his head voluntarily on either shoulder, and disappeared entirely if he was asleep, or if he sang, or whistled, or recited in a loud voice. Examination of his visual fields revealed a marked restriction, and every effort to cure the condition proved ineffectual. Pitres' conclusion is that the condition is one of tic, probably caused by the habit of carrying the stake, and probably also of hysterical origin. It is true the hysteria is reduced to its most simple elementary symptomatic expression, but it is difficult not to recognise its activity in the concentric contraction of the fields of vision. Nothing is more likely, we think, than that we are dealing in this instance with a tic occasioned by a professional act, but we doubt whether alterations in the visual field are sufficient to justify a diagnosis of hysteria. In another case of the same author, where a facial tic made its appearance in a hystero-neurasthenic after a series of worries, the association of the two is of course undeniable, but it does not follow that tic is in essence hysterical. Take another example from Chabbert: A little girl of twelve years, with a bad family history, began to exhibit involuntary movements as the result of a succession of frights, which led at the same time to the production of certain hysterical phenomena. The stigmata were unmistakable, and in addition the girl was an echolalic.