Gertrude Stein, "Cultivated Motor Automatism," Psychological Review, May, 1898.
Charcot's most faithful followers refuse to recognize a "hysteric temperament," and are quite right, if such a conception is used to destroy the conception of hysteria as a definite disease. We cannot, however, fail to recognize a diathesis which, while still apparently healthy, is predisposed to hysteria. So distinguished a disciple of Charcot as Janet thoroughly recognizes this, and argues (L'Etat mental, etc., p. 298) that "we may find in the habits, the passions, the psychic automatism of the normal man, the germ of all hysterical phenomena." Féré held a somewhat similar view.
A. F. A. King, "Hysteria," American Journal of Obstetrics, May 18, 1891.
M. Rosenthal, Diseases of the Nervous System, vol. ii, p. 44. Féré notes similar cases (Twentieth Century Practice of Medicine, vol. x, p. 551). Long previously, Gall had recorded the case of a young widow of ardent temperament who had convulsive attacks, apparently of hysterical nature, which always terminated in sexual orgasm (Fonctions du Cerveau, 1825, vol. iii, p. 245).