F. H. Both parents were living (father 74, mother 68), as were two brothers and two sisters. All were said to be normal.
P. H. Nothing was known of the patient's early characteristics, except that she herself said she was slow at learning in school and did not have much of an education. But when well she made by no means the impression of a weak-minded person. The husband had known her for ten years. He married her eight years before admission, by civil process, keeping this from his own family because he was a Jew and she a Christian. He said that this undoubtedly worried the patient at times and that she often asked him when he would take her to his family. The patient herself later also said that this used to worry her. Finally, one and a half years before admission she agreed, on account of the children, to accept the Hebrew faith, and they were then married in the synagogue. But he still did not take her to his family.
There were four pregnancies: the first child died; of the survivors one was 8, a second 5 years old. Finally, a year before
admission, she became again pregnant. During the pregnancy one of the children had whooping cough and she herself was thought to have caught it. The baby was born three months before admission. It was a blue baby which died two days after birth. The patient flowed heavily for three weeks and was taken to a hospital, where she continued to flow intermittently for some weeks more.
Finally, three weeks before admission, a hysterectomy was performed. Several days after this, when the sister-in-law visited her, the patient begged her to take her home, said the doctor wished to shoot her and to give her poison. Later the patient confirmed this, saying that she thought they wanted to give her saltpeter, and that she heard them say they wanted to shoot her.
When taken home she refused food; gazed about, was absorbed, seemed obstinate, and several times tried to jump out of the window. Retrospectively the patient stated that she heard children on the street call "Katie." She thought they meant her child, heard that it was to be taken away from her, and a similar idea again came out later in her psychosis, namely, that somebody was going to harm her children.
At the Observation Pavilion she appeared stupid, rather immobile, her attention difficult to attract.
Under Observation: On admission the patient appeared sober, impassive, moved very little, was markedly cataleptic, though not resistive. On the other hand, her eyes were wide open and she looked about freely, following the movements of those around her not unnaturally. When questioned, she looked at the questioner rather intently, and was apt to breathe a little more rapidly, and made some ineffectual lip motions but no reply. To simple commands she made slow and inadequate responses. She flinched when pricked with a pin, but made no attempt at protecting herself. She had to be spoon-fed. The catalepsy persisted only for two days.
After this she continued to show a marked reduction of activity, moved very little, said nothing spontaneously, had at first to be spoon-fed (later ate naturally enough). But she never soiled herself and went to the closet of her own accord.
Emotionally she seemed dormant for the most part, though for the first few days she appeared somewhat puzzled, and one night