PSYCHO-ANALYSIS AND PSYCHIATRY , 363
decompose and the enlarged uterus would be damaged by poisonous products or by pressure. This was modified later to the view that conditions of irritation of the genitals could pass over to the nervous system. Romberg (1851) ^ endeavoured to reconcile with each other the alternative conceptions of hysteria as a disease of the uterus or of the brain, conceptions in which he considered the theories of hysteria known at that time culminated. He maintained that Ji. hysteria was a reflex neurosis caused by genital irritation. He made
i'^. ■ the important observation, 'that it is not necessary for a sensation
's^ • - to become conscious to produce reflex action . . .' According to
t Jolly (1877) 2 sexual abstinence and over-stimulation are important causes of illness. After this the subject of sex disappeared more % ,' and more from psychiatry. Griesinger, Meynert and the large
number of brain anatomists, as well as the Salpetriere School, became the authorities on the subject. Since Charcot, Pitres, Janet, and Raymond, hysteria has been considered a psychosis, as previously a great part of the psychoses were considered hysteria. The difference is that the latter view meant something, namely, the sexual origin =^-.-" of the psychoses, whereas the former view is only an expression
of our infantile hope to discover somewhere in the brain chaste reasons for the indecent actions of hysterics. Psycho-analysis appears f^^yi- as the normal continuation of the general line of development, of
1^1 which the pre-Freudian psychiatry, since Charcot and Griesinger,
i^Ss', constitutes simply an interruption, an incident, the temporary hyper-
il§^/ . trophy of a newly discovered principle, an incident, however, which
pi has meant delay and stoppage in the discovery of the psychic
M - nature of hysteria, because progress on tins patli urgently required
the investigation of the psychic sexuality of the normal person. Here was the barrier which the investigators avoided and which ^:M also turned from its course the investigation of the brain.
Freud, as we know, has broken through this barrier like a '■'^' ':' battering-ram, and has thus secured the progress of psychiatry.
i^- Thirdly, we must not blind ourselves to the fact that the psycho-
i^y analytical doctrine also affords its subjective gratification. Nobody
can bear to turn exclusively to objects. And if Freud has taught j ' us to look at facts, and facts only, he has also taken the lead in
I ^ recognising the co-operation of the pleasure-principle even in his
%}M, " M. H. Romberg: Lehrbuch der Nervenkrankheiten, 1851, II, S. 209 ff.
^'•*--' ■' t F. Jolly: Hysteric und Hypochondrie in v. Ziemssen Handbuch,
2. Auflage, 1877. , ;- ---'■, . . ^ .-■. •
mt
