In the milder forms the movements are apt to be disorderly.  In the severe forms the movements are apt to be a lasting contraction of the muscles and the patient may have the head and feet drawn back and the abdomen drawn front.  There then may follow a condition of ecstacy, sleepiness, catalepsy, trance, or the patient may show symptoms of a delirium with the most extraordinary sights of unreal things.  These convulsions may last for several hours or days.  Firm pressure over the ovaries may bring on a convulsion, or if made during a convulsion may arrest it.  The disease is rarely dangerous to life, yet death has followed exhaustion induced by repeated convulsions or prolonged fasting.  The duration of hysteria is very uncertain.

[286 Mothers’ remedies]

During A convulsion.  The first thing to do is not to be frightened.  A patient in a convulsion from hysteria very seldom injures herself during the convulsions.  If you are sure it is hysteria, give a nasty tasting medicine, asafoetida is a splendid remedy, but not in pill form, for there is no taste or smell to them.  Sometimes a convulsion may be arrested by the sudden use of ice to the backbone or abdomen or by dashing cold water in the face and chest, or by pressing upon the ovaries.  When the hysteria is of a mild form it is sometimes a good plan, when the convulsion comes on, to place the patient in a comfortable position and then leave her, and when the patient comes to and finds herself alone and without sympathy, the attacks are less likely to be repeated.  Sometimes if you watch a patient closely when she is seemingly unconscious, you will see, if you look at her very guardedly, that one eyelid is not entirely closed, and that the patient really sees much that is occurring around her.  I am writing of real genuine hysteria, in which the patient is not quite right, not only physically but mentally,—­especially the latter,—­during the attack at least.  For that and other reasons such patients should not be treated cruelly.

Preventive Treatment of Hysteria.—­In order to be successful in this line of treatment the cause must be found and treated.  An English physician writes:  “It is pitiable to think of the misery that has been inflicted on these unhappy victims of the harsh and unjust treatment which has resulted from false views of the nature of the trouble; on the other hand, worry and ill-health, often the wrecking of the mind, body and estate, are entailed upon the near relatives in the nursing of a protracted case of hysteria.  The minor manifestations, attacks of the vapors, the crying and weeping spells are not of much moment, and rarely require treatment.  The physical condition should be carefully looked into and the mode of life regulated, so as to insure system and order in everything.  A congenial occupation offers the best remedy for many of these manifestations.  Any functional disturbance should be attended to and