The dominant idea for us in the etiology of hysteria is, in the widest
sense, its hereditary predisposition. The greater number of those
suffering from this affection are simply born _hysterisables_, and on them
the occasional causes act directly, either through autosuggestion or by
causing derangement of general nutrition, and more particularly of the
nutrition of the nervous system."[262] These views were ably and
decisively stated in Gilles de la Tourette's _Traite de l'Hysterie_,
written under the inspiration of Charcot.
While Charcot's doctrine was thus being affirmed and generally accepted,
there were at the same time workers in these fields who, though they by no
means ignored this doctrine of hysteria or even rejected it, were inclined
to think that it was too absolutely stated. Writing in the _Dictionary of
Psychological Medicine_ at the same time as Charcot, Donkin, while
deprecating any exclusive emphasis on the sexual causation, pointed out
the enormous part played by the emotions in the production of hysteria,
and the great influence of puberty in women due to the greater extent of
the sexual organs, and the consequently large area of central innervation
involved, and thus rendered liable to fall into a state of unstable
equilibrium. Enforced abstinence from the gratification of any of the
inherent and primitive desires, he pointed out, may be an adequate
exciting cause.
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