duties never made her ill. However, shortly after the death of the patient she began the work of reproduction, bringing again to her view the scenes of the disease and death. Each day—one might say at her leisure — she went over again every impression, crying and consoling herself. Such adjustment she passed through daily in conjunction with her usual duties, without, however, confusing the two activities. Everything passed before her chronologically. Whether the memory work of one day precisely corresponded to a day of the past I am unable to say. I presume that it depended on the leisure which was allowed to her by the current affairs of the household.
Aside from this "subsequent tear" which attached itself to these deaths at short intervals, this lady periodically observed annual anniversaries representing the time of the various catastrophies, and here her vivid visual reproduction and her affective manifestations followed faithfully the date. Thus, for example, I found her in tears, and on sympathetic inquiry as to what occurred that day, she half irritably remarked, "Nothing on that day except that Professor N. was again here and gave us to understand that things were hopeless—at that time I had no time to cry." She referred to the last illness of her husband who died three years before. It would have been very interesting to know whether she always repeated the same scenes on these recurring anniversaries, or whether as I suppose in the interest of my theory other details presented themselves each time for ab-reaction. I was, however, unable to find anything definite about that; the wise and courageous woman was ashamed of the intensity with which those reminiscences acted upon her.[1]
- ↑ To my surprise I once discovered that such subsequent ab-reaction—through other impressions than nursing—may form the content of an otherwise enigmatic neurosis. It was the case of a pretty girl of nineteen, Miss Matilda H., whom I first saw with an incomplete paralysis of the legs and months afterward I was again called because her character had changed. She was depressed and tired of living, entertaining lack of consideration for her mother, and was irritable and inapproachable. The whole picture of the patient did not seem to me to be that of an ordinary melancholia. She could easily be put into a somnambulic state, and I made use of this peculiarity to impart to her each time commands and suggestions to which she listened in her profound sleep and responded with profuse tears, but which, however, caused but little change in her condition. One day while hypnotized she became talkative and informed
