“What is like to be the further history of the case?

“The subject of this anomalous affliction is now more than twenty years old.  The chain of nervous actions has become firmly established.  It might have been hoped that the changes of adolescence would have effected a transformation of the perverted instinct.  On the contrary, the whole force of this instinct throws itself on the centre of inhibition, instead of quickening the heart-beats, and sending the rush of youthful blood with fresh life through the entire system to the throbbing finger-tips.

“Is it probable that time and circumstances will alter a habit of nervous interactions so long established?  We are disposed to think that there is a chance of its being broken up.  And we are not afraid to say that we suspect the old gypsy woman, whose prophecy took such hold of the patient’s imagination, has hit upon the way in which the ‘spell,’ as she called it, is to be dissolved.  She must, in all probability, have had a hint of the ‘antipatia’ to which the youth before her was a victim, and its cause, and if so, her guess as to the probable mode in which the young man would obtain relief from his unfortunate condition was the one which would naturally suggest itself.

“If once the nervous impression which falls on the centre of inhibition can be made to change its course, so as to follow its natural channel, it will probably keep to that channel ever afterwards.  And this will, it is most likely, be effected by some sudden, unexpected impression.  If he were drowning, and a young woman should rescue him, it is by no means impossible that the change in the nervous current we have referred to might be brought about as rapidly, as easily, as the reversal of the poles in a magnet, which is effected in an instant.  But he cannot be expected to throw himself into the water just at the right moment when the ‘fair lady’ of the gitana’s prophecy is passing on the shore.  Accident may effect the cure which art seems incompetent to perform.  It would not be strange if in some future seizure he should never come back to consciousness.  But it is quite conceivable, on the other hand, that a happier event may occur, that in a single moment the nervous polarity may be reversed, the whole course of his life changed, and his past terrible experiences be to him like a scarce-remembered dream.

“This is one, of those cases in which it is very hard to determine the wisest course to be pursued.  The question is not unlike that which arises in certain cases of dislocation of the bones of the neck.  Shall the unfortunate sufferer go all his days with his face turned far round to the right or the left, or shall an attempt be made to replace the dislocated bones? an attempt which may succeed, or may cause instant death.  The patient must be consulted as to whether he will take the chance.  The practitioner may be unwilling to risk it, if the patient consents.  Each case must be judged on its own special grounds.