Benign Stupors: A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type. August Hoch
and with coated tongue. No Widal (two examinations). No diazo (July 1).
3. Then while the temperature still lasted she developed a stupor which persisted for about a year. During this time her temperature rose to 100° without ascertainable cause. She lay for the most part motionless, changing her position but rarely; her expression was stolid; she retained and drooled saliva, wet and soiled herself. She never answered any questions; showed no interest whatever. At times she was quite stiff and very resistive but never cataleptic. Her extremities were cold and cyanotic. She had to be tube-fed throughout. During this time she lost much hair.
After some months she occasionally gazed about furtively, or later watched everything when unaware of being observed; at this time she also smiled occasionally at amusing things, or perhaps said "yes" or "no" to questions, but usually was stolid when interrogated.
Then about nine months after admission, while in the condition just described, she developed a lobar pneumonia. During it she remained the same. But during convalescence she began to speak and eat.
4. A period followed lasting six months during which she was up and about, but sat or stood around a good deal. On the other hand, she helped the nurses a little when urged. Her face was often stolid, again she looked about. At times (even nearly to the end) she drooled and soiled. She said little. At no time was she resistive. On other occasions she smiled or laughed, not always on provocation, or she showed little playful tendencies, such as throwing a pillow about the room, tearing leaves from the plants, taking the doctor's arm and walking down the hall, asking him to kiss her. At such times she often looked quite bright, keen, alert and amused. Towards the end she would give at times playful answers, such as "I came to-day," or "This is the Hall of Fame." This tapered off, so that by December, 1910, she was perfectly well.
Retrospectively, the patient claimed not to remember the upset at the dinner, or what happened afterward, although recalling the trip to the Observation Pavilion. She denied any memory of the journey to the hospital, but could tell what ward she came to. How well the condition after that was recalled, was not inquired into, except that she could or would not explain further the utterances during the first period. For the stupor period it is stated that she remembered many external facts, but it is not clear in which period they occurred.
Catamnestic Note. May, 1913: She has worked efficiently, and is said to have been perfectly well.
Case 3.—Mary F. Age: 21. Admitted to the Psychiatric Institute June 28, 1902.
F. H. The mother died when the patient was five. The father was living, an alcoholic and reckless man. Four brothers and sisters died in infancy.
P. H. The patient was the only surviving child. She was brought up in a convent and orphan asylum until 11, when her father remarried. At 12 she had to go to work, hence she had but little education. She was bright, efficient, well liked by her employers (in one position five years). As to her peculiarities, she was thought to be, perhaps, a little headstrong, and was also described as always very exact, rather quick-tempered and inclined to be irritable when crossed.
She was married six months before admission and had a baby three weeks before admission. The husband stated that when the father found out she was pregnant, he spoke of killing him. He frequently upbraided both husband and wife, though he lived with them. Even after the child was born he continued to be disagreeable.
The patient was rather low spirited and quieter after her marriage. She worried over her illegitimate pregnancy and the scolding from her father. But nothing was thought of all this, and it did not interfere with her activity. The birth was normal. She had no flow, no unfavorable symptoms, and sat up on the twelfth day. She is said to have appeared natural mentally.
A week before admission the family returned from the christening, having left the patient apparently well. They now found her sitting in her chair, limp, with closed eyes, giving no answer to questions. Only after about twenty minutes could she be aroused. After her father had given her milk with whiskey in it, she claimed he had poisoned her. In the evening she was bright and lively, singing and dancing with the others, but in the night she woke up her husband, seemed frightened, said somebody was in the room and that he should get a priest as she was going to die. The husband went to sleep again. The next forenoon the patient claimed she had been frightened all night and thought her father was going to kill her husband.
On the second day, while sitting at breakfast, she groped about for the bread plate for some time and then said she had been blind for a short time. During the day she had frequent spells in which she would close her eyes, become perfectly quiet and difficult to rouse. Sometimes at the beginning of these spells she would say "I am going." She was then taken to her aunt and walked there, a distance of a few blocks. She was there for two days before going to the Observation Pavilion. In this time she is said to have been quiet for the most part, often apparently sleeping or staring. Once she said she was "rather dirty, filthy." Once she tried to get out of the window, said it was a door and that she wanted to get out and take a walk. Above all, she had, in these two days, repeated peculiar seizures which the aunt and the husband described as follows: When sitting on a chair she would close her eyes, clench her fists, pound the side of the chair, get stiff, slide on the floor, then thrash her arms and legs about and move the head to and fro. She frothed at the mouth. After the attack, which lasted a few minutes, she breathed heavily for a while. Once she wiped off the froth with a handkerchief and gave the latter to the aunt, saying "Burn that, it is poison." Before the attack she sometimes said that it got dark over her eyes and that her face felt funny, again that she had a pain in the stomach which worked towards her right shoulder. There was no cry in the beginning of the attack, but once she wet herself.
After recovery the patient herself told the development of her psychosis thus:
There was trouble between the father and the husband, and she was afraid of her father. On the day of the christening she took sick: a queer feeling came over her and she wondered whether she was going to die, "Then I seemed to lose myself, and when I came to I found my family standing around me." Her father gave her whiskey and she thought it was poison. "That night I had spells of dancing and singing, it must have been something I took, perhaps the liquor." The same night she was frightened, thought her father might do some harm, and had a vision of a person in white standing at her bed. After that she had repeated spells in which she knew nothing until "I came to again." "It was a queer trembling."
At the Observation Pavilion she was described as in a state of "intense mental depression," taking no interest in things going on about her. She spoke, however; said she wanted to die, that she had imagined her father had given her poison, that every one was against her, and that people were talking about her.
1. On admission the patient had a slightly elevated temperature, which soon subsided, full breasts but without inflammation. Sordes were not mentioned.
For a few days she was essentially somewhat restless, getting out of bed, disarranging her clothes, wandering about—all in a rather deliberate, aimless way, sometimes vaguely resistive, again with free movements. She looked, dazed, sometimes stared straight ahead and looked "dreamy." Occasionally there was a tendency to close her eyes. With the restlessness she looked at times "a little apprehensive," or shrank away when approached. She spoke slowly, with initial difficulty, but answered quite a number of questions. The mental content of this period was displayed in the following utterances: She would ask for a priest, or say "Have I done something?" or "Do people want something?" or, when asked why she was here, she said "I have done damage to the city, didn't I?" (What have you done?) "I don't know." Or she spoke of people watching her. When asked the day, she said "Judgment Day," yet she knew the month. Once when asked what the place was she said, "This is the hereafter." When asked what had happened at home, she said: "Voices told me I was to be killed." She was not clearly oriented, called the place Bellevue, asked "Isn't this a hospital?" yet again said, "Ward's Island, where they work." On the day of admission she thought she came "the day before," but knew she had come in a boat. When asked her address, she said slowly, "Didn't I live at, etc.," giving the address correctly. To the physician she said, "Are you my brother?" And on another occasion, "My God! You are Charlie" (brother). It was difficult to get her to eat, and she had to be spoon-fed.