ceptions applied, our knowledge of the normal psyche is still on a very primitive basis.
We are grateful to Sommer[1] for further fruitful studies of the associations in catatonia.
In certain cases of catatonia[2] the associations flow in a normal manner only to be suddenly interrupted by an apparently totally disconnected, peculiarly-mannered connection of ideas, as will be seen by the following example: dark—green, white—brown, black—"good day, William," red—brown.
These saltatory associations were also confirmed by Diem,[3] who conceives them as sudden "fancies." Sommer justly considers them as an important criterion of catatonia. The "pathological inspirations" as described by Breukink,[4] who follows Ziehen, can be readily found in every insane asylum where these authors have observed them. They are exclusively seen in dementia præcox, and especially play an important role in the paranoid types. Bonhoeffer's[5] "pathological fancies" probably refer to the same manifestations. The problem instigated by the discovery of Sommer is by no means settled, but until we become more enlightened we are obliged to group under the same heading the phenomena observed by various authors which are nearly all designated by almost the same name. Although from clinical experience it would seem that "pathological fancies" appear only in the realm of dementia præcox, naturally excluding the falsifications of memory which often suddenly appear in organic dementia and in Korsakow's symptom-complex, I wish to observe that in the realm of hysteria, principally in cases that never seek the asylum, "pathological fancies" often play a great part. Flournoy[6] reports the most interesting examples. Similar sud-
- ↑ Lehrbuch der Psychopathologischen Untersuchungsmethoden, 1899.
- ↑ Sommer: Lehrbuch, p. 362. Recently Fuhrmann has made some association experiments in "acute juvenile dementia" without any characteristic results. Arch. f. Psych., Vol. XL, p. 817.
- ↑ Diem: Die einfach demente Form der Dementia Præcox (Dementia simplex). Arch. f. Psych., Vol. XXXVII.
- ↑ Breukink: Uber eknoische Zustände. Monatsschr. f. Psych, u. Neur., Vol. XIV.
- ↑ Deutsche med. Wochenschrift, No. 39, 1904.
- ↑ Flournoy: Des Indes à la planète Mars. Étude sur un cas de Somnambulisme avec glossolalie. Paris et Genève, 1900.—III Nouvelles obser-
