Everyone knows something about hysteria. Everyone is acquainted with that ordinary form of hysteria which is characterised frequently by what is known as an hysterical fit and is accompanied by temporary convulsions often not distinguishable from epileptic convulsions, except that the patient although unconscious, may generally be trusted not to hurt her or himself. Hysterical patients rarely or never bite their tongue as epileptics generally do, but they go through violent contortions, show evidences of various uncontrolled emotions, the fit whether lasting for a short or a long time commonly ending in languor, or a long sleep and perhaps a flood of tears. Here already some resemblance to the hypnotic state and to the condition of convulsionists and demoniacs is apparent. Medical men know, however, and many others have become acquainted incidentally with the fact, that these attacks when of a severe character or in highly nervous and unstable individuals may go much further, and some striking illustrations of most of the phenomena characteristio of the extreme degrees of hypnotisation and suggestibility without the employment of any hypnotic influences, and arising only out of the disturbed equilibrium of the nervous system of the patient herself or himself are here illustrated.

I say herself or himself, because hysteria, even in its most highly-developed eccentric and extreme forms, is by no means the exclusive privilege of the female sex, although it is their more general attribute.