When about the age of thirty, she married a widower with two children. She trained the children to obey her commands implicitly, otherwise she resorted to the rod of sickness. The pathophobia, consciously or unconsciously, became a power which she wielded in the most tyrannical way. The children had to sacrifice themselves for the pleasure of the sick step-mother. They had to stay with her, and minister to all her whims and fears. The very individuality of the children became almost obliterated by the persistent, egotistic tyranny of the sick, old step-mother. She was like a regular vampire, sucking the life blood of her family.
It goes without saying that the same fear of disease tamed her husband over whom she ruled with an iron hand. The least opposition to her whims, or to her fears of possible disease made her so sick with all kinds of pains that the family and the husband were driven into submission.
The woman was obese as a hippopotamus, well nourished, with a florid complexion, and with an appetite that would shame a Gargantua. The rarest, the best, and the most appetizing dainties had to be on her table. She made of her meals a form of worship, requisite to propitiate the goddess of maladies. She did not hesitate to take the best morsels from the plates of her daughter and son in order to satisfy her appetite which was supposed to be “delicate and small.”
The patient was conscious of every square inch in her body; she was afraid that some form of malady may lurk there. She was a typical case of pathophobia. Fear of disease and quest of health were ever in her mind. She could not talk, or think of anything else, but herself and her symptoms. She made of her step-daughter a poor, colorless being, a day and night nurse, tyrannized over by pitiful, neurotic whimpering.
When the patient happened to wake during the night for ever so short a period of time, she did not hesitate to wake her step-daughter, tired as the latter was by constant attendance on this psychopathic shrew. The daughter had to wake up everybody who could in any way bring comfort to that “poor, old, suffering invalid.” After much groaning, moaning, and bewailing her bitter lot the invalid took some medicine to appease the fear of disease, partook of some nourishing food to keep up her strength and health, and went to sleep for the rest of the night.
Years ago, the patient was under the care of Weir Mitchell who sent her to me as a last resort. Dr. Weir Mitchell characterized the patient as an “American humbug.” As a matter of fact, the patient herself was convinced that she was on the verge of death, and was in terrible agony of her fears of disease, fears which made her quest for health a matter of life and death. The patient was obsessed by parasitic egotism, the quintessence of psychopathic affections.
Many times during the day she paced the room reciting elevating passages from the Bible, from “great poets,”—Emerson being her favorite writer.
I have heard neurotics with their “Mortal Mind,” “Sin and Error,” “Disease and Nothing,” recite edifying phrases such as: “The decaying flower, the blighted bud, the gnarled oak, the ferocious beast, like the discords of disease, sin, and death are unnatural” ... “Fear is inflammation, error” ... “Adam, a-dam, a-dam, dam, dam”....
A man, thirty-eight years old, married, highly sensitive, suffers from migraine; he is irritable and restless. When about eight years old, he wandered in the woods near his house. An Italian ran after him, flourishing a big knife. The boy ran away in terror. When he reached home he dropped from exhaustion and fear. Once or twice, on account of the fear of sharp objects, he actually hurt himself while handling knives. This increased his terror and fixed his fear. The instinct of fear was still further developed and stimulated by a series of events, such as falling into a river, from which he was saved. He does not like to take baths, he is afraid to enter a river, and he is in terror of sharp objects, such as knives and razors.
The patient is extremely selfish. He insists on playing games which he likes much, irrespective of the pleasure of his friends and acquaintances. All he cares for is to have a good time, to neglect his duties to his family. In his business he is exacting of others, although he himself is rather slovenly in his work, and slow in the performance of his obligations. He always insists on having his own way. Other people’s rights do not trouble him, provided his rights are carefully and scrupulously observed. He always demands services from others, especially from his friends.