nty minutes to a couple
of hours.' Soon 'the attacks became more frequent, with the reappearance
of another old symptom,--acute tenderness of the spine, especially over
the sacrum. Then came frequent and persistent attacks of sciatica, and
gradual loss of strength.' About this time there appears to have been
some uterine lesion, for a well-known gynaecologist went down to the
country to see her. Eventually 'she became unable to do anything almost
for herself, for the nervous irritability had distressingly increased.
To touch her bed, the ringing of a bell, sometimes the sound of a voice,
sunlight, &c., affected her so as to make her almost cry out.' 'If she
stood up, or even raised her hands to dress her hair, they immediately
became blue and deadly cold, and she was done for.' Then followed
palpitations of a distressing character, with loud blowing murmur, and
pulse of 120 to 140, for which she was seen by an eminent physician, who
diagnosed them to be caused by 'slight ventricular asynchronism, with
atonic condition of the cardiac as well as of all other muscles of the
body.' 'She has no appetite whatever.' 'Any attempt at walking brings on
sciatica. She cannot sit, because the tip of the spine is so sensitive;
any pressure on it makes her feel faint. She cannot go in a carriage,
because it jars every nerve in her body. She cannot lie on her back,
because her whole spine is so tender.'

"When consulted about this lady, I gave it as my opinion that any
attempt at cure was hopeless as long as she remained in the country
house in which she lived. I was informed that it was absolutely
impossible to get her away, as she could not bear the motion of any
carriage, still less of a railway, without the most acute suffering.
Eventually the difficulty was got over by anaesthetizing her, when she
was carried on a stretcher to the nearest railway station, and then
brought over two hundred miles to London, being all the time more or
less completely under the influence of the anaesthetic, administered by
her medical attendant, who accompanied her. I found this lady's state
fully justified the account given of her. She was intensely sensitive to
all sounds and to touch. Merely laying the hand on the bed caused her to
shrink, and she could not bear the lightest touch of the fingers on her
spine or any part near it. She lay in a darkened room at the back of the
house, to be away from the noise of the streets, which distressed her
much.