hat they have had that identical
experience before in all its details. They are often fatalistic in their
ideas. They indulge in day-dreams. As a rule, they are highly
suggestible."[283]

There we have a picture of the physical constitution and psychic
temperament on which the classical symptoms of hysteria might easily be
built up.[284] But these persons were ordinary students, and while a few
of their characteristics are what is commonly and vaguely called "morbid,"
on the whole they must be regarded as ordinarily healthy individuals. They
have the congenital constitution and predisposition on which some severe
psychic lesion at the "psychological moment" might develop the most
definite and obstinate symptoms of hysteria, but under favorable
circumstances they will be ordinary men and women, of no more than
ordinary abnormality or ordinary power. They are among the many who have
been called to hysteria at birth; they may never be among the few who are
chosen.

We may have to recognize that on the side of the sexual emotions, as well
as in general constitution, a condition may be traced among normal persons
that is hysteroid in character, and serves as the healthy counterpart of a
condition which in hysteria is morbid. In women such a condition Has been
traced (though misnamed) by Dr. King.[285]

Dr. King describes what he calls "sexual hysteria in women,"
which he considers a chief variety of hysteria. He adds, however,
that it is not strictly a disease, but simply an automatic
reaction of the reproductive system, which tends to become
abnormal under conditions of civilization, and to be perpetuated
in a morbid form. In this condition he finds twelve characters:
1. Time of life, usually between puberty and climacteric. 2.
Attacks rarely occur when subject is alone. 3. Subject appears
unconscious, but is not really so. 4. She is instinctively
ashamed afterward. 5. It occurs usually in single women, or in
those, single or married, whose sexual needs are unsatisfied. 6.
No external evidence of disease, and (as Aitken pointed out) the
nates are not flattened; the woman's physical condition is not
impaired, and she may be specially attractive to men. 7. Warmth
of climate and the season of spring and summer are conducive to
the condition. 8. The paroxysm in short and temporary. 9. While
light touches are painful, firm pressure and rough handling give