the window or go
upon a balcony. When she descended into the street she was unable to
traverse the open spaces. Chazarin mentions a case in a woman of fifty,
without any other apparent symptom of diathesis. Gelineau quotes a case
of agoraphobia, secondary to rheumatism, in a woman of thirty-nine.
There is a corresponding fear of high places often noticed, called
acrophobia; so that many people dare not trust themselves on high
buildings or other eminences.

Thalassophobia is the fear of the view of immense spaces or
uninterrupted expanses. The Emperor Heraclius, at the age of
fifty-nine, had an insurmountable fear of the view of the sea; and it
is said that when he crossed the Bosphorus a bridge of boats was
formed, garnished on both sides with plants and trees, obscuring all
view of the water over which the Emperor peacefully traversed on
horseback. The moralist Nicole, was equally a thalassophobe, and always
had to close his eyes at the sight of a large sheet of water, when he
was seized with trembling in all his limbs. Occasionally some accident
in youth has led to an aversion to traversing large sheets of water,
and there have been instances in which persons who have fallen into the
water in childhood have all their lives had a terror of crossing
bridges.

Claustrophobia is the antithesis of agoraphobia. Raggi describes a case
of such a mental condition in a patient who could not endure being
within an enclosure or small space. Suckling mentions a patient of
fifty-six who suffered from palpitation when shut in a railway carriage
or in a small room. She could only travel by rail or go into a small
room so long as the doors were not locked, and on the railroad she had
to bribe the guard to leave the doors unlocked. The attacks were purely
mental, for the woman could be deceived into believing that the door to
a railroad carriage was unlocked, and then the attack would immediately
subside. Suckling also mentions a young woman brought to him at Queen's
Hospital who had a great fear of death on getting into a tram car, and
was seized with palpitation and trembling on merely seeing the car.
This patient had been in an asylum. The case was possibly due more to
fear of an accident than to true claustrophobia. Gorodoichze mentions a
case of claustrophobia in a woman of thirty-eight, in whose family
there was a history of hereditary insanity. Ball speaks of a case in a
woman who was overcome with terror half way in the asc