inordinate laughter or yawning, cardiac palpitations,
loss of strength, trembling, anaesthesia and (just before the attack,)
pains in some fixed spot, generally in the head, ovary, or nape of the
neck.

_Psychology._ The psychological manifestations of hysterical subjects
are of still greater interest and importance.

They show, on the whole, a fair amount of intelligence, although little
power of concentration. In disposition they are profoundly egotistical
and so preoccupied with their own persons that they will do anything to
arouse attention and obtain notoriety. They are exceedingly
impressionable, therefore easily roused to anger and cruelty, and are
prone to take sudden and unreasonable likes and dislikes. They are
fickle and easily swayed. They take special delight in slandering
others, and when unable to excite public notice by unfounded
accusations, to which they resort as a means of revenge, they embitter
the lives of those around them by continual quarrels and dissensions.

_Susceptibility to Suggestion._ Of still greater importance for the
criminologist is the facility with which hysterical women are dominated
by hypnotic suggestion. Their wills become entirely subordinated to that
of the hypnotiser, by whose influence they can be induced to believe
that they have changed their sex so that they forthwith adopt habits of
the opposite sex, or to entertain _idees fixes_--strange, impulsive, or
even criminal ideas. They are, in fact, obedient automatons when under
hypnotic influence, but they cannot be prevailed upon to perform acts
contrary to their nature, to commit crimes or reveal secrets entrusted
to them, if they are naturally upright.

_Variability._ Mobility of mood is a still more salient characteristic
of hysteria. The subject passes with extraordinary rapidity from
laughter to tears "like children," says Richet, "who laugh immoderately
before their tears are dry."

"For one hour," says Sydenham, "they will be irascible and discontented;
the next, they are cheerful and follow their friends about with all the
signs of the old attachment."

Their sensibility is affected by the most trifling causes. A word will
grieve them like some real misfortune. Their impulses are not lacking in
intellectual control, but are followed by action with excessive
rapidity. Although of such changeable disposition, they are subject to
fixed ideas, to which they cling with a kind of cataleptic intensity. A
woman will