Dujardin-Beaumetz held that the phenomena were vaso-motor. The red lines traced readily admit of this explanation. The white space in relief, however, was not so easily explained. He had observed among hysterical women, under the influence of pressure, irritation, or the application of magnets, the appearance of patches of urticaria. One of the common tricks of the Spiritualists is to have the name of a spirit that has been called up appear upon the bared arm of the medium. Among friends and private patients, and among the hysterical patients in the wards of the Philadelphia Hospital, I have successfully performed experiments similar to those reported by Dujardin-Beaumetz. Such phenomena are by no means confined to cases of hysteria. One of my most striking successes in an attempt at skin-writing was in the case of a male physician of a peculiarly clear and pale complexion. Certain peculiar conditions of the skin will allow this to be done with facility. The similarity of this class of phenomena to that of the stigmata will at once appear evident. Such phenomena occur among the hysterical with a tendency to vaso-motor deficiency of control.
Fasting Saints and Fasting Girls.
The wonderful saints who starved themselves or lived on sacramental bread are almost a multitude. Saint Joseph, Saint Catherine of Sienna, Saint Rose of Lima, Saint Collete, Saint Peter of Alcantara are of the number. In modern and even in recent times not a few of these cases have become widely known. Margaret Weiss, about whom a book was written in 1542, is said to have done without food and drink for three years. She suffered from pains and contractures. She passed neither urine nor feces; at least, such are the accounts which have come down to us.
Sarah Jacob, the Welsh fasting girl, has shared with Louise Lateau popular and medical notoriety. When about ten years old she suffered from various hysterical and hystero-epileptic symptoms. The quantity of food she took gradually dwindled; on October 10, 1867, it was said that she ceased to take any food whatever, and so continued till the day of her death, more than two years later. She had many visitors, pilgrims from far and near, who often left money or gifts. The vicar of her neighborhood came to believe in her, and an investigation was suggested. At one investigation, not very rigidly conducted, nothing was discovered. After a time she was visited by Fowler of London, who decided that the case was one of hysteria with simulation, probably associated with the power or habit of long fasting. Trained nurses were sent from Guy's Hospital to conduct the second watching. Under the watching the girl died, starved to death. The father was afterward condemned to imprisonment and hard labor for twelve months, the mother for six months. In Brooklyn a few years since one Molly Fancher, a similar case, attracted much attention, and was written about and commented upon by the press.
NEURASTHENIA.
BY H. C. WOOD, M.D.
INTRODUCTION.—The term neurasthenia, signifying nervous weakness, and not rarely paraphrased by nervous exhaustion, indicates by its very derivation that it denotes not a distinct disease, but a condition of the body. The relations of the nervous system to the functions of organic and animal life are so intimate that almost all forms of exhaustion might well be discussed under the present heading. A further difficulty in attempting to decide the exact limitations of this article is to be found in the fact that hysteria, insanity, chorea, and various other nervous diseases are very closely connected with nervous exhaustion. Indeed, many of the cases which are considered by authorities as instances of neurasthenia would be more appropriately classed with one or other of the especial diseases. Thus, the nervous fears discussed in such detail by George M. Beard in his work upon neurasthenia plainly belong with the monomaniacal insanities, and, although they usually are associated with nervous depression, may coexist with great physical and mental power.