the earlier times, she has now and again strange states of short duration during which she is very pale and silent, and has a fixed glittering look. I did not hear any more of visions. She is said not to take part any more in spiritualistic séances. S. W. is now in a large business, and according to all accounts is an industrious and responsible person who does her work eagerly and cleverly, giving entire satisfaction. According to the account of trustworthy persons, her character has much improved; she has become quieter, more regular and sympathetic. No other abnormalities have appeared in her. This case contains a mass of psychological problems, in spite of its incompleteness, whose exposition goes far beyond the limits of this little work. We must therefore be satisfied with a mere sketch of the various striking manifestations. For a more lucid exposition it seems better to review the various states separately.
1. The Waking State.—Here the patient shows various peculiarities. As we have seen, at school she was often distracted, lost herself in a peculiar way, was moody; her behaviour changes indefinitely, now quiet, shy, reserved, now lively, noisy and talkative. She cannot be called unintelligent, but she strikes one sometimes as narrow-minded, sometimes as having isolated intelligent moments. Her memory is good on the whole, but owing to her distraction it is much impaired. Thus, despite much discussion and reading of Kerner’s “Seherin von Prevorst,” for many weeks, she does not know whether the author’s name is Koerner or Kerner, nor the name of the Prophetess, if directly asked. All the same, when it occasionally comes up, the name Kerner is correctly written in the automatic communications. In general it may be said that her character has something extremely impulsive, incomprehensible, protean. Deducting the want of balance due to puberty, there remains a pathological residue which expresses itself in reactions which follow no rule and a bizarre unaccountable character. This character may be called déséquilibré, or unstable. It receives a specific mould from features which can certainly be regarded as hysterical. This is decidedly so in the
