For the nonce, let us drop the word hysteria and formulate the matter as follows:—Women are frequently subject to a pathological mental condition, differing in different cases but offering certain well-marked features in common, a condition which seldom, if ever, occurs in men. This I take to be an incontrovertible proposition based upon experience which will be admitted by every impartial person.
Now the existence of the so-called hysterical man I have hitherto found to be attested on personal experience solely by certain Feminist medical practitioners who allege that they have met with him in their consulting-rooms. His existence is thus vouchsafed for just as the reality of the sea-serpent is vouchsafed for by certain sea captains or other ancient mariners. Far be it from me to impugn the ability, still less the integrity, of these worthy persons. But in either case I may have my doubts as to the accuracy of their observation or of their diagnosis. It may be that the sea-serpent exists and it may be that hysteria is at times discoverable in male persons. But while a conclusive proof of the discovery of a single sea-serpent of the orthodox pattern would go far to justify the yarn of the ancient mariner, the proof of the occurrence, in an occasional case, of hysteria in men, would not by far justify the implied contention that hysteria is not essentially
