her husband
six years afterward. She had a proposition of marriage which she
refused, and was prostrated by the humid touch of the proposer who had
kissed her hand, imagining that the humidity was due to semen. She was
several times overcome by contact with men in public conveyances, her
fear of contamination being so great. Zoophobia, or dread of certain
animals, has been mentioned under another chapter under the head of
idiosyncrasies. Pantophobia is a general state of fear of everything
and everybody. Phobophobia, the fear of being afraid, is another
coinage of the wordmakers. The minor 'phobias, such as pyrophobia, or
fear of fire; stasophobia, or inability to arise and walk, the victims
spending all their time in bed; toxicophobia or fear of poison, etc.,
will be left to the reader's inspection in special works on this
subject.

Demonomania is a form of madness in which a person imagines himself
possessed of the devil. Ancient records of this disease are frequent,
and in this century Lapointe reports the history of demonomania in
father, mother, three sons, and two daughters, the whole family, with
the exception of one son, who was a soldier, being attacked. They
imagined themselves poisoned by a sorceress, saw devils, and had all
sorts of hallucinations, which necessitated the confinement of the
whole family in an asylum for over a month. They continued free from
the hallucinations for two years, when first the mother, and then
gradually all the other members of the family, again became afflicted
with demonomania and were again sent to the asylum, when, after a
residence therein of five months, they were all sufficiently cured to
return home.

Particular aversions may be temporary only, that is, due to an existing
condition of the organism, which, though morbid, is of a transitory
character. Such, for instance, are those due to dentition, the
commencement or cessation of the menstrual function, pregnancy, etc.
These cases are frequently of a serious character, and may lead to
derangement of the mind. Millington relates the history of a lady who,
at the beginning of her first pregnancy, acquired an overpowering
aversion to a half-breed Indian woman who was employed in the house as
a servant. Whenever this woman came near her she was at once seized
with violent trembling; this ended in a few minutes with vomiting and
great mental and physical prostration lasting several hours. Her
husband would have sent the woma