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About Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 24, 1912)
6 THE SEMI-MONTHLY MAGAZINE SECTION HYSTERIA CHILDHOOD H ADDINGTON BRUCE OMF. TIME AGO. a little mrl. a pupil iti a German school, made her appear aurt one morning with a bandage about her land. In answer to her teach er'" questions, she -niil she hail been operated upon for ear trouble at a local hospital the clay be fore. She described every detail of the operation, which, it seemed, had been exceedingly painful. For Home time, she wore the bandage to school every day, and frequently complained that her ear wosstill troubling her. Iler teacher was properly sympathetic, and, chancing to meet one of the girl's relatives, expressed her anxiety for the child, and the hope that she would soon be completely cured. "Cured?" repeated the relative. "Cured of what I" "Why, her car trouble the disease that has made it necessary for her to keep her head bandaged." "Hut," said the other, obviously puzzled, "I do not understand you. I did not know she had any ear trouble, and I have never seen her with a bandage." It was the teacher's turn to be astonished. Shu could not believe that the girl had been deceiving her; but, to net at the truth, she decided to take her immediately to the hospital where the operation was supposed to have been performed. There, the child made her way about as if perfectly familiar with the place and greeted in a friendly way the surgeon in charge. He, however, did not seem to recognize her, and when told the circumstances by the teacher, said: "I can assure you I have never operated upon this girl." He then made a thorough examination of her ear, and found it to be quite sound. After which, en re fill investigation developed the fact that her sole knowledge of the hospital was derived from detailed information given her by a friend, a lady who curi ously enough, had been operated upon a little while previously for precisely the trouble that the girl had attributed to herself. In other words, no doubt remained that she had for weeks been acting a lie, from what motive neither the teacher nor her parents could fathom. A MiichievouM Ghost AGAIN, a clergyman writing to the Society for ft. Psychical Research from a little English village named Ham, urgently requested the dispatch of a skilled investigator to look into certain strange oc currences in the house of a Mr. Turner. This house, the clergyman asserted, was haunted by a "veritable ghost," which amused itself by playing all sorts of mischievous and annoying pranks. Remaining in visible, it hurled boots, shoes and other small objects through the air, upset chairs and tables, and on at least one occasion pitched the family cat into the tire. All this was done, according to both the clergy man and several other intelligent eye-witnesses, under circumstances that rendered it impossible that the "manifestations" could be the work of any human agency. "No one can explain it," the clergyman declared. "It is quite a mystery, anil is causing great excite ment through the countryside." The task of laying this "poltergeist," or trouble some ghost, was assigned to Mr. Ernest Westlake, F.G.S., an able psychical researcher. Proceeding to Ham, lit! found that the Turner family consisted of Mr. Turner, his wife, one son, and a deformed little daughter, Polly, not quite twelve years old. So im pressed was he with what he heard that his first re port indicated a belief that the phenomena reported might be genuine evidences of some mysterious and unknown force. Hut, after a few hours of careful investigation, he sent word that "the Ham ghost is a humbug noie, whatever it may have been." In detail Mr. West lake afterward added: "After posting my first letter. T went to the Tur ner' and -at on a bench in front of the tire. No one else was prc-ent beside the child. She sat on a low stool in the chimney on the right of the tire. On the other side of the hearth there a a brick oven in which, much to Polly's interest. I placed a dish of flour, arguing that a power capable of discharging the contents of the oven (one of the first disturb ance.) might he able to impress the flour. After a time, I went to the oven to see how the flour was get ling on, stooping slightly to look in; but I kept my eyes on the child's hands, looking at them under my right arm. I saw her hand stealing down toward a stick that was projecting from the fire; I moved slightly, and the I -ml was withdrawn. Next time I was careful to make no movement, and saw her hand jerk the brand out on to the floor. She cried out. I expressed interest and astonishment: ami her mother came in and cleared up the debris. Juggling the Kettle u'T'HIS was repeated several times, and one or two large sticks ready for burning, which stood near the child, were thrown down. Then, a kettle that was hanging on a hook and chain was jerked ofT the hook on to the coal. This was repeated. As the kettle re fused to stay on its hook, the mother placed it on the hearth; but it was soon overturned on to the floor. After this, I was sitting on the bench that stood facing the fire in front of the table. I had placed my hat on the table behind me. The little girl was standing near me on my right hand. Presently the hat was thrown down on to the ground. I did nut on the first occasion see the girl's movements; but later, by seeming to look in another direction. I saw her hand sweep the hat off on to the floor. This 1 saw at least twice. A Windsor chair near the girl was then upset more than once, falling away from her. On one occasion, 1 saw her push the chair over with both hands. As she was looking away from me, I got a nearly complete view. After one of these performances, the mother came in and asked the child if shy had done it ; hut the latter denied it." Ciiquestionably, Mr. Westlake concluded, Polly was the "ghost." Yet, why she should have assumed so singular a role he found it diflicult to conjecture. Neither she nor her parents whom he exonerated from all complicity had profited a penny's worth from her exploits. Indeed, her parents had been put out of pocket by the damage to household furniture and utensils. "Played" Hit Arm Was Paralyzed CONSIDER, also, the case of a little Chicago boy who had fallen out of a play-wagon and hurt one of his arms. The injury was in reality very slight; but his mother, becoming greatly alarmed, declared her belief that the doctor would say the arm was broken. What the doctor D'Orsay Hecht, of North western University Medical School did say was that a few applications of witchhazel would speedily remedy matters. The mother, nevertheless, insisted on bandaging the arm, talked of having an X-ray examination, anil broadly hinted that a wrong diagnosis had been made. Within a few days, as Dr. Heeht had expected, all signs of injury disappeared. Hut now, the hoy com plained that the hand of the injured arm felt stiff; and, in a day or so, his mother reported that both hand and arm were paralyzed. This was the situation when, passing along the street one day, Dr. Hecht was astonished and amused to see his "paralyzed" patient romping with a num ber of children, quite as if nothing were the matter with him. He used his injured arm freely, pushed and pulled his playmates, and was pushed and pulled around by them. "Ah," thought tho physician, with a feeling of relief, "evidently this youngster is going to give me no more trouble!" He was mistaken. Within a week the mother sent for him, reporting that her boy was suffering agonies, that he could not cat, and that his arm had become contracted at the elbow. In fact, on visiting the boy he found that at every attempt to flex t he arm tli little fellow screamed with pain. Hut on his next visit, when the child chanced to he? asleep, Dr. Hecht noticed that there a then no con tracture of the arm. and that he could lnoxe n about without disturbing the boy in the slightest. So ooi however, as he awoke, the contracture returned, and he wailed and shrieked when his arm was touched. To the astonished mother, the doctor said: "1 see what the trouble is. Your son needs a certain kind of treatment that 1 can administer only at in oflice. Rring him there as soon as possible." The treatment in question consisted in the appli cation of a succession of slight electrical shocks. Jut painful enough to frighten the boy. These, the doctor assured him, would cure him completely. "If they do not," said he. "your mother must briim you hack, and I will give you a stronger treatment next time. I don't think, ihoiigh, that that will he necessary, do you?" "No," said the boy, between his tears, "I don't." And. in point of fact, no second treatment wit needed. From that moment, the boy ceased complain ing of his arm, the contracture and paralysis eutircU disappeared, and he was like anv normal. health child. Hysteria a Seriout Diteate I HA YE cited these three cases, not because of their singularity, but because they afford concrete illus tration of some little known facts with which even parent ought to be acquainted. In each case, it will he observed, an element of deception was present ; and, moreover, in each case the deception was seem ingly motiveless. The child who pretended that she had been operated upon had apparently nothing to gain from the deceit practiced by her; neither had the little girl who played the part of a pullenjiist, nor the boy with the sham contracture and paralysis. Hesides which, in two of the three cases the children . ..!...... ..i i i i.i I...,,,.,,..,,,;,..,..,. .suujccicw iiiuuiscn ts iu roiismui iiuic imuu I-Uitin-L and even pain; and, in all three cases, they ran the risk of severe punishment. None the less, they sys tematically and persistently kept up their deceptions until discovery ensued. Now, why did they do it They did it, as recent medical and psychological investigation into the inner life of childhood has con clusively demonstrated, because they were so consti tuted that they could not help doing it. And for the same reason, hundreds nay, thousands of chil dren, before and since, have been doing much the same thing. It is not that they are merely "naughty." The ordinary naughty child will, to be sure, lie and cheat and otherwise deceive; but only from readily ascer tainable motives, anil never in the way of an elabor ately sustained deception. When a child's "naughti ness" takes this latter form, medical authorities arc today agreed, it is in reality indicative not of "innate depravity," but of the presence of a serious disease hysteria. Than this disease of which most people, unfor tunately, have next to no exact knowledge, mistakenly confusing it with, and confining it to. uncontrollable attacks of weeping or laughing there is unques tionably no malady more insidious, peculiar or dan gerous in the variety of its possible consequences. Its peculiarity lies in the fact discovered only within recent years that it is always rooted in on extreme "suggestibility" on the partof its victims; and that the symptoms it develops are invariably conditioned by the character of the suggestions re ceived from the surrounding environment. Hysteria is, in a word, pre-eminently a mental trouble; and this although, not infrequently, its only outward manifestations are wholly physical. A child with a hysterical tendency; that is to sa. an unusually sensitive, impressionable child, of un disciplined will, and quickly overwhelmed by what ever it sees, hears, and feels, is always liable, when brought into contact with a person suffering from any serious ailment of picturesque symptomatology, to manifest in some degree the symptoms of that