a certain vagueness about
her answers which is difficult to formulate. She was telling about the
onset of her sickness and said that at that time her mind was taken up
with prayers about the salvation of her relatives. She was asked exactly
when it was that she thought of this and she answered "Now?" (What
period are we talking about?) "The present." (What did I ask you?)
"About this period of my sickness." (Which one?) "What sickness?" She
said herself at this point, "I am rather stupid." Again when asked how
her mind worked, she said, "Pretty quickly sometimes--I don't know." (As
good as it used to?) "No, I don't think so." (What is the difference?)
"There is no difference." (What did I ask you?) "The difference." (The
difference between what?) "You did not say." In this the shallowness of
her comprehension and thinking is well shown, and it seems here again
perhaps justifiable to formulate the main defect as one of attention,
which prevents completion of a complicated process of comprehension. A
feature of further interest in this case is that automatic intellectual
processes, such as those necessary for the writing of a long poem from
memory, were not interfered with.

Summary

In the most pronounced stupor we have evidently a more or less complete
standstill in thinking processes. Practically no impressions are
registered and consequently nothing is remembered except events that
occurred in some short periods when some affective stimulus, or a brief
burst of elation, lifts the patient temporarily out of the deep stupor.
It is impossible to say whether the statement of a complete standstill
has to be qualified. In some stupors repeated environmental stimuli
sometimes make at least a vague impression, so that while spontaneous
recollection is impossible a feeling of familiarity is present when the
patient is again confronted with this environment. This might be an
exception to the dictum of complete mental vacuity, or it may be that
there are somewhat less pronounced stupor reactions. When more is
perceived, there is often a retrospective statement of having felt mixed
up, being unable to take in things, or, directly under observation, the
patient may say, "I cannot realize where I am," "I cannot take in my
surroundings." In harmony with this is the fact that questions often
produce a certain bewilderment. In quite pronounced states in which
some replies can still be obtained, we find that the intellectual
proces