n became apparent. She kept the
fact of her pregnancy to herself for several months and
then when she told her mother wanted to have an abortion
performed. Neurotic symptoms appeared. She became sensitive
with her husband, correcting his grammar, and cried easily.
She also began to be anxious about the approaching
childbirth, and with this became more religious.
For the first few days after the delivery, she was fussy
with the nurse so that two in succession had to be
discharged. On the fifth day she woke up and seeing a nurse
lying on the couch beside her bed thought the latter was
colored. On the seventh day she had a dream in which she
thought she "nearly died in childbirth." Then she began to
talk of dying for her baby or of having two babies, of
dying herself and rising again after Easter Sunday. She
became antagonistic to her husband and with this excited
and confused so that she was taken to the Observation
Pavilion.
On _admission_ she looked pale and exhausted, had a slight
temporary fever and a coated tongue. Her orientation was
usually vague but sometimes she gave fair answers. Her
verbal productions were rather fragmentary and with the
exception of some repetitions there did not seem to be any
special topics which dominated her train of thought.
For some days the great weakness and the slight fever
continued, and then, as it gradually cleared up, there came
a change in her mental condition that settled into the
state which characterized the rest of her psychosis. She
talked less and was often quite inactive, frequently lying
with her eyes closed for long periods, or sat or stood
about. Such movements as she made were slow and languid.
Her expression was either blank, absorbed, or gave the
appearance of peculiar appealing perplexity. This last was
not infrequently associated with a rather sheepish smile.
She was never resistive and always ate and slept well. With
the exception of a few times she did not soil herself. The
most interesting feature of her mood reaction was that in a
general setting of a slight perplexity there appeared at
times and evidently associated with definite ideas, changes
in her emotional state. Sometimes this was a matter of
distress or of mi
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