During the "absence" there is no change of colour, nor has there ever been any vertigo or sense of rotation. She has never actually fallen, though she has allowed things to drop out of her hands. Once it is over, she is aware of it, but her memory of what has just taken place is very vague, though she usually can tell what preceded it. She can be aroused from the "incantation," to sink back into it an instant later, as though she had not dreamed enough. Sometimes a series of "incantations" occurs, one following on the heels of another. Occasionally she utters such words as "yes, yes!" or "no, no!" in an impatient tone of voice, and plucks at her hair or clothes, or toys with the handkerchief which is never out of her hands. Call these phenomena "epileptic absences" if you like, but after the reverie is over, L. knows quite well that she has had it; besides, prolonged bromide treatment has been totally inefficacious. One of us has come across a somewhat similar condition in a ten-year-old girl: Fifty times a day she interrupts her work or her play to retract her head and roll her eyes upward. The duration of the attack is not longer than ten seconds, and there is no cyanosis or distress of any kind. The application of tactile or painful stimuli at these times makes her shut her eyes and withdraw her head or her limbs, and she can tell afterwards what was done. She knows that she has had a "sensation," and remembers any noise that occurred while she was in that state. Otherwise, there is little to note. For one month she presented very mild convulsive movements in the left arm and leg, but no trace remains of them to-day. Treatment with bromides has failed to effect any modification. Examples of the same nature, but said to be of hysterical origin, have been recently published by Luzenberger:[166] A young girl, twelve years of age, has brief attacks in which she loses consciousness, and turns her head to the right, while the angle of the mouth is drawn to the left. This sort of attack recurs forty or fifty times a day, and has been going on for three or four years. The reporter thinks the case a difficult one to diagnose, though the trifling nature of the symptoms, and their evolution, do not suggest epilepsy. One may question, however, whether they indicate hysteria. Our sole object in referring to these cases has been to note the co-existence of these "absences" with motor phenomena closely allied to the tics, if not with tics themselves. We cannot be satisfied with finding a common bond for all such conditions in mental degeneration, but it is perhaps premature to seek to interpret the facts. TICS--INSANITY--IDIOCY