Observations placeholder

As described in Illustrations Of The Influence Of The Mind Upon The Body In Health And Disease, Designed To Elucidate The Action Of The Imagination - Daniel Hack Tuke, M.D., M.R.C.P.,

PART II. THE EMOTIONS.
CHAPTER VIII. INFLUENCE OF THE EMOTIONS UPON THE VOLUNTARY MUSCLES.
SECTION II. — Irregular and Excessive Muscular Contraction : Spasms and Convulsions.

After observing that mental influences are far more frequent causes of epilepsy than injuries, Romberg states that, among forty -four cases, the causes of which were carefully examined by Cazauvieilh, he found that in thirty-one they were due to influences of this nature. He adds, that

"no disease is so liable to be produced by Fright as this affection, which may itself be excited by the sight of an epileptic paroxysm; the next most frequent influence of this description being Fear, an agent that came into operation more often in former times, when tales of ghosts and hobgoblins were the bane of the nursery, than at present : Anger also comes under this category as an exciting cause. The simulation of epilepsy also operates as a mental influence, and is said, occasionally, to pass into the real disease"

(A Manual of the Nervous Diseases of Man. By M. H. Romberg, M.D. Translated for the Sydendam Society by Dr. Sieveking. 2 vols. 1853, II, p. 213).

"The form of epilepsy arising from Fright," observes Marshall Hall, "is of the most intractable character" (Practical Observations in Medicine. By Marshall Hall. 1845, p. 39). In 57 cases, of which the cause was traced by Leuret, it was found that in no less than 35 the first symptoms were preceded by fright. It is to be presumed that an observer like Leuret would satisfy himself that the interval between the attack and the fright was not so great as to render the circumstance merely accidental.