It was about this time that the pains and dragging sensations in the muscles of the neck subsided. On the other hand, for days on end, then for gradually diminishing periods, there existed a slight trembling of the head, due to muscular exertion, and explicable by the contraction of small cervical muscles on one side and their antagonists on the other. On more than one occasion we have remarked this trembling as the forerunner of a cure. It vanishes spontaneously as the amelioration of the patient's condition becomes more definite. Several months may intervene between relapses. Descroizilles cites a case of convulsive movements of the head and shoulder of three years' duration, which yielded to exercises in a few weeks. The tic reappeared six months later, and, resisting treatment by gymnastic discipline, was cured by suspension. Three months later it returned once more. Facts of this description emphasise the desirability of considering rapid cures with reserve; where the improvement, on the contrary, is insensible, the results are much more likely to be permanent. Unforeseen complications, again, may arise once a cure is affected. One of our patients[231] had been rather quickly relieved of a mental torticollis by the usual therapeutic measures, and we had allowed him to resume his avocation, when he suddenly appeared in a depressed and despairing mood a month later to say that he was worse than ever. The rotatory tic had not returned, it is true, but its place was taken by another phenomenon. If, as he walked along with head straight, his attention was suddenly directed to the right, he seemed at once to become "crystallised"; he halted, and could not deviate his head as he wanted, and at the same moment something appeared to choke him; in three or four seconds all was over, and his action unimpeded. As a result of these attacks he sank into a wretched state of more or less permanent anguish. A visit to his country home was of little avail; no sooner had he arrived than his head began to twist about in every direction, although, try as he would, he could not move it backwards. We accordingly prescribed absolute rest in bed, a strict regime, hydrotherapy, and unfailing regularity in the performance of gymnastic exercises. Not long after a fresh torticollis developed, by which the chin was deviated to the left and the head tilted to the right. Once more we initiated a scheme of regular drill, and in the course of a short time a satisfactory cure ensued. During the last three years we have had frequent opportunities of seeing our patient, and can certify that he remains mentally and physically normal.