esires
frustrated and blocked; fear death and old age, however brave a face
they may wear; want happiness and achievement, and some break, one way
or another, according to their emotional and intellectual resistance.
These and other causes are the great factors of the conditions we have
been considering.

Of all the forms of nervousness proper, the psychoneuroses, hysteria is
probably the one having its source mainly in the character of the
patient. That is to say, outward happenings play a part which is
secondary to the personality defect. Hysteria is one of the oldest of
diseases and has probably played a very important role in the history of
man. Unquestionably many of the religions have depended upon hysteria,
for it is in this field that "miracle cures" occur. All founders of
religions have based part of their claim on the belief of others in
their healing power. Nothing is so spectacular as when the hysterical
blind see, the hysterical dumb talk, the hysterical cripple throws away
his crutches and walks. In every age and in every country, in every
faith, there have been the equivalents of Lourdes and St. Anne de
Beaupre.

In hysteria four important groups of symptoms occur in the housewife as
well as in her single sisters and brothers.

There is first of all an emotional instability, with a tendency to
prolonged and freakish manifestations,--the well-known hysterics with
laughing, crying, etc. Fundamental in the personality of the hysterics
is this instability, this emotionality, which is however secondary to
an egotistic, easily wounded nature, craving sympathy and respect and
often unable legitimately to earn them.

A group of symptoms that seem hard to explain are the so-called
paralyses. These paralyses may affect almost any part, may come in a
moment and go as suddenly, or last for years. They may concern arm, leg,
face, hands, feet, speech, etc. They seem very severe, but are due to
worry, to misdirected ideas and emotions and not at all to injury to the
nervous system. They are manifestations of what the neurologists call
"dissociations of the personality." That is, conflicts of emotions,
ideas, and purposes of the type previously described have occurred, and
a paralysis has resulted. These paralyses yield remarkably to any
energizing influence like good fortune, the compelling personality of a
physician or clergyman or healer (the miracle cure), or a serious
danger. The latter is exemplified in the ca