1899) gives statistics to show that in nine cases out of ten hysterical parents have hysterical children. Dr Paul Sainton of the Faculty of Medicine, Paris, says: “The appearance of a symptom of hysteria generally proves that the malady has already existed for some time though latent. The name of a provocative agent of hysteria is given to any circumstance which suddenly reveals the malady but the real cause of the disorder is a hereditary disposition. If the real cause is unique, the provocative agents are numberless. The moral emotions, grief, fright, anger and other psychic disturbances are the most frequent causes of hysterical affections and in every walk of life subjects are equally liable to attacks.”
Hysteria may appear at any age. It is common with children, especially during the five or six years preceding puberty. Of thirty-three cases under twelve years which came under Dr Still's notice, twenty-three were in children over eight years. Hysteria in women is most frequent between the ages of fifteen and thirty, and most frequently of all between fifteen and twenty. As a rule there is a tendency to cessation after the “change.” It frequently happens, however, that the disease is continued into an advanced period of life.
“There is a constant change,” says Professor Albert Moll (“Das nervöse Weib,” p. 165), “from a cheerful to a depressed mood. From
