Medica, vol. v.), “Hysteria is that…condition in which there is imagination, imitation, or exaggeration.…It occurs mostly in females and persons of nervous temperament, and is due to some nervous derangement, which may or may not be pathological.” Sir James Paget (“Clinical Lectures on Mimicry”) says also that hysterical patients are mostly females of nervous temperament. “They think of themselves constantly, are fond of telling everyone of their troubles and thus court sympathy, for which they have a morbid craving. Will power is deficient in one direction, though some have it very strongly where their interests are concerned.” He thinks the term “hysteria” in the sense now employed incorrect, and would substitute “mimicry.” “The will should be controlled by the intellect,” observes Dr G. F. Still of King's College Hospital, “rather than by the emotions and the lack of this control appears to be at the root of some, at least, of the manifestations of hysteria.”
Dr Thomas Buzzard, above mentioned, thus summarises the mental symptoms: “The intelligence may be apparently of good quality, the patient evincing sometimes remarkable quickness of apprehension; but carefully tested it is found to be wanting in the essentials of the highest class of mental power. The memory may be good, but the judgment is weak and the ability to concentrate
