“Early in October of last year I was asked to see a lady thirty-two years of age, with the following history.  She had been married at the age of twenty-two, and since the birth of her last child had suffered much from various uterine troubles, described to me by her medical attendant as ‘ulceration, perimetritis, and endometritis.’  Shortly after the death of her husband, in 1876, these culminated in a pelvic abscess, which opened first through the bladder and afterwards through the vagina.  Paralysis of the bladder immediately followed the appearance of pus in the urine, and from that time the urine was never spontaneously voided, and the catheter was always used.  Soon after this she began to lose power in the right leg, and then in the left, until they both became completely paralyzed, so that she could not even move her toes, and lay on her back with her legs slightly drawn up, the muscles being much wasted.  Towards the end of 1877, after some pain in the back of her neck and twitching of the muscles, she began to lose power in her left arm and in her neck, so that she lay absolutely immobile in bed, the only part of her body she was able to move at all being her right arm.  Up to this time the pelvic abscess had continued to discharge through the vagina, and occasionally through the bladder, but it now ceased to do so, and there were no further symptoms referable to the uterine organs.  Her general condition, however, remained unaltered, in spite of the most judicious medical treatment.  She was seen, from time to time, by several of our most eminent consultants, all of whom recognized the probable hysterical character of her illness, but none of the remedies employed had any beneficial effect.  There was almost total anorexia, the amount of food consumed was absurdly small, and the necessary consequence of this inability to take food, combined with four years in bed with paralysis of the greater part of the body, and the habitual use of chloral to induce sleep, had reduced a naturally fine woman to a mere shadow.  In October, 1880, her medical attendant was good enough to bring her to London for the purpose of giving a fair trial to the Weir Mitchell method of treatment, with the ready co-operation of herself and her friends, and she was conveyed on a couch slung from the roof of a saloon carriage, so as to avoid any jolt or jar, since the slightest movement caused much suffering.  Two days after her arrival my friend Dr. Buzzard saw her with me, and, after a careful and prolonged electrical examination, came to the conclusion that contractility existed in all the affected muscles, and that the paralysis was purely functional.  I could find no evidence in the pelvis of the abscess, the uterus being perfectly mobile, and apparently healthy.  After a few days’ rest the treatment was commenced on October 16, the patient being isolated in lodgings with a nurse of my own choosing; and this was the only difficulty I had with her, since she naturally felt acutely the separation from the faithful attendant who had nursed her during her long illness.  Her friends agreed not to have communication with her of any sort.  It is needless to give the details of the treatment in this and the following cases.  A mere abstract will suffice to indicate the rapid and satisfactory progress made.