e partial. The patient
sometimes passes into the "dream state", described in Chapter II, for some
hours or occasionally for far longer; these are the women described with
much gusto in the local Press as being in a trance--"the living dead".

The victim of these attacks _is_ suffering from a disease, for she shows
many temporary mental symptoms which could not possibly be feigned, while
there is often a genuine partial forgetfulness of the incidents of an
attack. She says she cannot help it; candid friends say she will not. The
truth is that she cannot _will_ not to help it; for though intelligence and
memory are often good and sometimes abnormal, the judgment and will are
always weak--indecision, obstinacy, and doubt being common.

Treatment. A thorough examination by a doctor is _absolutely essential_, to
prove that the patient is merely hysterical, and not the victim of
unrecognized organic disease. In a few cases, skilled attention to some
minor ailment will result in an apparently miraculous cure.

Many who habitually "go into hysterics", are merely grown-up "spoiled
children", and in all cases, the basic factor is a lack of control and
self-discipline.

Unfortunately, these tainted individuals who are so exquisitely sensitive
that any reproof brings floods of tears, turn with mercurial rapidity from
passionate fury to passionate self-reproach, and assuage by impassioned
protestations of affection the distress they have carelessly inflicted,
and, as a consequence of their momentary but undoubtedly sincere
contrition, escape blame and punishment.

Harmful sympathy is thus substituted for helpful discipline, and the more
stable members of the family are often made slaves to the whims and
caprices of the hysterical member.

The usual home treatment of the victim passes through various stages, and
lacks persistence. Violent methods are succeeded by studied indifference;
and that again by reproaches and recriminations.

Greene's remarks are very pertinent: "The condition must be regarded as an
acquired psycho-neurosis to be ameliorated, and perhaps removed, by
suggestion and a complete control, which, though kind, is firm, persistent,
insistent, and _lacking in every element that enters into the upbuilding of
the hysterical temperament_."

For anaemic patients, the following is a useful prescription:

R.
Quininae valerianatis gr. xx
Ferri valerianatis gr. xx
Ammon. valerianatis gr