This I fully admit, and have never questioned. Hysteria is far
too large and complex a phenomenon to be classed as entirely a
manifestation of auto-erotism, but certain aspects of it are admirable
illustrations of auto-erotic transformation.
[253] The hysterical phenomenon of _globus hystericus_ was long afterward
attributed to obstruction of respiration by the womb. The interesting case
has been recorded by E. Bloch (_Wiener Klinische Wochenschrift_, 1907, p.
1649) of a lady who had the feeling of a ball rising from her stomach to
her throat, and then sinking. This feeling was associated with thoughts of
her husband's rising and falling penis, and was always most liable to
occur when she wished for coitus.
[254] As Gilles de la Tourette points out, it is not difficult to show
that epilepsy, the _morbus sacer_ of the ancients, owed much of its sacred
character to this confusion with hysteria. Those priestesses who, struck
by the _morbus sacer_, gave forth their oracles amid convulsions, were
certainly not the victims of epilepsy, but of hysteria (_Traite de
l'Hysterie_, vol. i, p. 3).
[255] Aretaeus, _On the Causes and Symptoms of Acute Diseases_, Book ii,
Chapter II.
[256] It may be noted that this treatment furnishes another instance of
the continuity of therapeutic methods, through all changes of theory, from
the earliest to the latest times. Drugs of unpleasant odor, like
asafoetida, have always been used in hysteria, and scientific medicine
to-day still finds that asafoetida is a powerful sedative to the uterus,
controlling nervous conditions during pregnancy and arresting uterine
irritation when abortion is threatened (see, e.
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