on of Charcot.

While Charcot's doctrine was thus being affirmed and generally accepted,
there were at the same time workers in these fields who, though they by no
means ignored this doctrine of hysteria or even rejected it, were inclined
to think that it was too absolutely stated. Writing in the _Dictionary of
Psychological Medicine_ at the same time as Charcot, Donkin, while
deprecating any exclusive emphasis on the sexual causation, pointed out
the enormous part played by the emotions in the production of hysteria,
and the great influence of puberty in women due to the greater extent of
the sexual organs, and the consequently large area of central innervation
involved, and thus rendered liable to fall into a state of unstable
equilibrium. Enforced abstinence from the gratification of any of the
inherent and primitive desires, he pointed out, may be an adequate
exciting cause. Such a view as this indicated that to set aside the
ancient doctrine of a physical sexual cause of hysteria was by no means to
exclude a psychic sexual cause. Ten years earlier Axenfeld and Huchard had
pointed out that the reaction against the sexual origin of hysteria was
becoming excessive, and they referred to the evidence brought forward by
veterinary surgeons showing that unsatisfied sexual desire in animals may
produce nervous symptoms very similar to hysteria.[263] The present
writer, when in 1894 briefly discussing hysteria as an element in
secondary sexual characterization, ventured to reflect the view, confirmed
by his own observation, that there was a tendency to unduly minimize the
sexual factor in hysteria, and further pointed out that the old error of a
special connection between hysteria and the female sexual organs, probably
arose from the fact that in woman the organic sexual sphere is larger than
in man.[264]

When, indeed, we analyze the foundation of the once predominant opinions
of Charcot and his school regarding the sexual relationships of hysteria,
it becomes clear that many fallacies and misunderstandings were involved.
Briquet, Charcot's chief predecessor, acknowledged that his own view was
that a sexual origin of hysteria would be "degrading to women"; that is to
say, he admitted that he was influenced by a foolish and improper
prejudice, for the belief that the unconscious and involuntary morbid
reaction of the nervous system to any disturbance of a great primary
instinct can have "_quelque chose de degradant_" is its